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N.C. band Toubab Krewe finds inspiration from West Africa

Toubab Krewe, who will play Saturday night at the Animas City Theatre, creates a mix of sounds with West African influenced instrumentation. For this number, from left, Patrice Blanchard is on bass, Terrence Houston on drums, Justin Perkins plays the kamelngoni, Drew Heller is on guitar and Luke Quaranta plays djembe.

American music festivals have their share of First World problems.

Beer sponsors that aren’t PBR; idiots who hold their phones up so their friends on the other end can hear a muffled My Morning Jacket song; Arcade Fire’s pretentious set list; and witnessing hippie twirling can damage the soul.

But such problems don’t register for the people of West Africa, whose own Festival in the Desert, now known as “Festival in the Desert in Exile” has been crippled by the presence of al-Qaeda. That’s a problem.

Toubab Krewe, an Asheville, N.C.-based instrumental rock band fusing world, funk, folk and West African music, was lucky enough to grace the Festival in the Desert stage in 2007. The band will play Saturday in Durango at the Animas City Theatre. Opening the show will be Front Range jam band the Magic Beans.

Asheville is close to Durango or Boulder when it comes to bluegrass bands per capita, but believe it or not, the town is not a musical one-trick pony. It is refreshing to see mountain towns on the other side of the country branching out musically. Toubab Krewe, who are crossing Colorado with trips from the Southwest to the Front Range and back, are Justin Perkins on kora, kamelngoni and guitar; Terrence Houston on drums; Drew Heller on guitar, piano and fiddle; David Pransky on bass; and Luke Quaranta on djembe, congas and percussion.

“The Asheville music scene has really grown,” Quaranta said from his North Carolina home. “A lot of people have migrated either with bands that are already formed, or started new bands. It really is a diverse music town.”

Their old-time, rock-and-jam band-friendly sound also is influenced by extensive overseas travels by band members, in particular to Mali, Timbuktu and other areas of West Africa. Those travels solidified an interest in the regional music that began at home.

“We started with an interest in West African music, that’s how the band came together. Over numerous trips to West Africa, we honed that style. Then the roots of the band came back to Appalachian music by way of West Africa,” Quaranta said.

“The band came together, around not only the percussion style but the string style. But it was also around a rock and roll aesthetic; taking the traditional music from there and mixing it with everything we grew up with, like rock and roll, Appalachian music and blues,” he said.

They’ve created an original sound, whether playing originals or adapting traditional American public domain songs into West African styles, fused with rock ’n’ roll, all while playing traditional African instruments like the kora or kamelngoni (12- or 21-string harp-like instruments) as well as standard rock instruments. It makes sense; the roots of American music, especially blues or old-time, evolved from rhythms and instruments originally from Africa.

“The West African aesthetics melded the songs,” Quaranta said. “It’s been a cool experience exploring that in-between. There’s so much roots of Appalachian music and the blues that come straight from West Africa. It’s an interesting experience to mix those in a contemporary way and hear how they meld together.”

liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.

Bryant’s Best

Saturday/Sunday: Two days of funk with Bacon, 2 p.m., no cover, Purgy’s at Durango Mountain Resort, 247-9000.

Saturday: Toubab Krewe and The Magic Beans, 10 p.m., $16/$25, Animas City Theatre, 128 E. College Drive, 799-2281.



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