Quebec City Summer Festival

Where a 'family' reconvenes to perform, learn, play

Les Nubians are inspired by international sounds    VIDEO CNN's Brooke Alexander reports on music in Canada's Francophone enclave Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     BIOGRAPHY Les Nubians: Sister II Sister     BIOGRAPHY Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia

July 21, 2000
Web posted at: 4:46 p.m. EDT (2046 GMT)

From CNN WorldBeat

(CNN)-- For the past 33 years, musicians from around the world have traveled to the Quebec City Summer Festival to perform for the crowds and share their skills at extraordinary jam sessions that draw them back year after year.

One of those longtime participants, slide guitarist Bob Brozman, explained to WorldBeat what keeps him -- and his international counterparts -- coming back for more.

"This is a chance for us to get together and play just like kids play," he said. "The musicians that we have gotten to meet have become quite a family that can travel in small groups or large groups around the world."

Percussionist Trilok Gurtu is just one of the many musicians has expanded his range at the Quebec festival. Having previously incorporated American jazz and rock into his traditional Indian rhythms, he looked closer to home for inspiration for his most recent album "African Fantasy."

"Without Africa, we wouldn't have blues, we wouldn't have salsa, we wouldn't have had sambas; and without Indian music you wouldn't have had Indian improvisations," he said.

Percussionist Trilok Gurtu looks to Africa for the beat

African artists testify to the influence of other cultural traditions on their music as well. The Cameroonian couple Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia and French-Cameroonian sisters Helene and Celia Faussart, known to the world as Les Nubians, brought their multinational sounds to the Quebec Fest.

"We have this European culture, but also we are inspired by American and worldwide music -- music from Africa, the Caribbean islands... Black music," said Faussart.

Other artists, like singer Sally Nyolo, cite influences that spring from more primal sources. She calls hers a "native rhythm."

"Because I was born in the deep forest, the first music I heard was the music of the birds and the wind in the leaves," she said.

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Official Site: Quebec City Summer Festival

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