Bokante: History

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 Bokanté improvises little and has vocals front and centre. The connection with jazz is more tenuous. Bokante could be called a "world music" group if accusations of cultural appropriation had not made the expression borderline pejorative in 2023. So let us just say that Bokante's vibe chimes loudly with the voodoo-drenched deep funk of New Orleans' late great Night Tripper, Dr John, and with the pan-cultural hoe-downs of ex-Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant's new-millennial bands, which have embraced pretty much everything from heavy metal to Middle Eastern maqam.

Bokante's lineup, which includes League and three other members of Snarky Puppy, is drawn from four continents and five countries: Guadeloupe, the US, Japan, Ghana and Sweden. Details of the nine, mostly multi-instrumentalists on History, the group's third album, can be found below, along with the truckload of percussion and fretted instruments the musicians play between them.

The publicity material accompanying History tells us that the album celebrates black history, global unity, the futility of war, identity, decolonisation and alternative histories, although the Guadeloupean Creole in which Malika Tirolien sings will preclude most listeners getting the details. Bottom line: One world under a groove.

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