Jazz Articles about Bokanté

About Bokanté

Album Review

Snarky Puppy leader Michael League does not like the band being called a jazz ensemble. He describes it as a “a pop band that improvises a lot, without vocals." But anyone listening to jazz through the aural equivalent of a wide-angle lens would likely keep Snarky Puppy in the picture. League's spin-off group Bokante improvises little and has vocals front and centre. The connection with jazz is more tenuous. Bokante could be called a “world music" group ...

Album Review

Bokanté: Strange Circles

Read "Strange Circles" reviewed by Daniel Marx

by Daniel Marx
August 8, 2017

Due to Michael League's prolific body of work with his record label, GroundUp Music, he has his fingers in many pies, the latest of which is a new band, started by the Snarky Puppy guitarist/bassist/producer, called Bokanté. The word means “exchange" in Creole, the language of the band's vocalist Malika Tirolien, and the music is meant to represent this idea of a cultural exchange between the melting pot of musicians involved. For the most part, Strange Circles delivers; a vibrant ...