Exciting New World Music From Juno Award Winning Canadian-South African Singer

Montreal-based world music singer Lorraine Klaasen – who’s family roots originate in South Africa – is a world class performer and Juno Award winning artist and a favorite artist of Nelson Mandela. For some of the uninitiated, unfamiliar and distant from the music of Ms. Klaasen this is a fine introduction. One other thing – open your ears, educate yourself, there is so much good music the radio and internet radio does not play or plays sporadically. Start here…

Once the music starts to unravel — your ears may be tweaked to some familiar music and past artists – if you are old enough — will emerge because this music is not really foreign at all. A similar singer with a more recognizable name (to be revealed shortly) — had a top hit on the Billboard and Cashbox charts back in the musically explosive 60’s – 1967 to be exact — and that singer broke through internationally. And that singer is not foreign to Ms. Klaasen — and that artist’s music and tradition, along with Ms. Klaasen’s originals — are re-invigorated here with class.

But for now, let’s focus on Lorraine and put your mind at ease, that yes, there are several songs in this collection sung in English. But — if you’re smart, you won’t let the foreign language songs slip away. That would be a cultural poverty, and instead you should enrich yourself for a listening pleasure. Besides, you just may walk away smiling at the end. Many of the songs are equally engaging, interesting and melodic. You don’t always have to understand a song’s lyric to feel what it is saying. Your can rely on your inner soul to interpret its value as something pleasurable to drift away into. Or, quite simply to appreciate it’s artistic and entertaining value. I did.

While this collection is not Lorraine’s first – this is her latest and it’s worth exploring. My heritage is not South Africa, but I am quite familiar with the music of the legendary Miriam Makeba, the ever-inspiring Hugh Masakela and the exciting Johnny Clegg (with both his band incarnations: Juluka and Savuka). So, I’ve listened and learned from that music for decades and I am gratefully familiar with the genre.

The opening tune is the title track: “Nouvelle Journee” (“New Day”) – which is sung in three languages! The music is inspired from music from Tsonga, Sotho isiZulu and Xhosa (tribal languages of Lorraine’s home country). English and French is sung as well. The song rollicks along with excellent back-up vocals, inspired lead guitar from Mongezi Ntaka and acoustic from Assane Seck. Their playing is hypnotic, the percussion by Noel Mpiaza is snappy and clean. And then there is the elegant, polished Lorraine Klaasen Soweto-accented lead vocal with a generous sprinkling of accordion. Does it have energy? You bet.

The second track has a very familiar melody line and its infectious to the ear, any ear. “Ke Tshepile Bafatsi.”  This is sung in their native language, no translation found, in chorus fashion. Many female sing in a highly varnished unison. A wonderfully airy accordion (Medad Ernest) starts and the female vocals are angelic and strong. As the song takes flight there’s some wonderfully inventive drums (Noel again) — beats excellently recorded. The song has that “gets stuck in your head” type music, but it’s not annoying — it’s relaxing and soothing. A folk music for certain – sung in Sesotho and rhythmically, a Bantu cultural circulation as stated in the well written book that comes with the CD. The song also has more engaging lead guitar soloing by Assane Seck. An exciting 50’s style tone that’s displayed with clean full notes.

“Home Sweet Home,” in English finds Lorraine singing with lush tones, a bit middle-of-the-road in style which displays her fine vocal style in a more commercial fashion. She has moments when she has a tone like the legendary Eartha Kitt, that exemplifies unadultered power. Just from this song alone a listener can determine that this singer has a presentation that is electrifying on stage. They would be right. When the backup vocalists step up and sing with Lorraine it is elevated even further. Lead wha-wha guitar solo is a little retro, but that’s the charm and it fits like a perfect piece in a tight many pieced puzzle. In the background is a cool organ that holds the piece together like glue.

Again, the guitar on the intro is a little retro 50’s style both in lead and rhythm. Is it old fashioned in style? Not in the least. This song comes on sounding like a cousin of Miriam Makeba’s legendary “Pata Pata” — the international hit from 1967 I spoke of earlier. It has that energy, that relentless rhythm. “Township Memories,”  — superlative. It’s like a painting with many colors, hues and tones that merge and blend. Lorraine unleashes a fine vocal with emotion and strength. She loves her work, you can hear it from the bottom of her musical intuition. The musicians are all first tier professionals – absolutely on target. It’s music that is just joyous in every manner and reggae must have taken a page out of this book many decades ago.

A soothing jazz piano opens “Polokwane,” – about having a strong bond with the ones you love. With this song, I’m even more impressed with Lorraine’s ability to change tonality. This English sung ballad is effectively in the genre of Nina Simone. Lorraine doesn’t have that anger and edge that Nina displayed because well, they lived different lives. Lorraine does not have Nina’s cigarette-roughhewn woolen vocal that could often deliver Nina’s splendid signature sound. Instead, Lorraine’s voice is more wool-blend…smooth and just hints at the Nina Simone sanctuary. Loraine’s vocal “breathes” — and this is a keeper done well.

An uplifting English song with a political bent and Lorraine gets a little more aggressive within the confines of an effective beautiful melody. The steady drum and machine gun note lead guitar drives “Izani Nonke,” – a song Lorraine peppers with moments where she really pulls out the grit and excitement that is a well-written song. It’s the backup vocalists who keep Lorraine balanced in a truly percussive driven melodic charge. This song was originally sung by Lorraine’s mother — the legendary South African jazz singer – Thandie Klaasen — and she too, had quite a following and respect throughout the music industry during her career.

The boss on this version is Lorraine – firing on all 12 cylinders and sounding a bit Calypso. I believe the song needs a little more percussion – shaking seeds, a washboard, a bongo – something to keep that edge fiery. Santana was Latin, but the blissfullness in his classic “Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen” was when his band unleashed its voodoo driven percussion to artistic levels in the instrumental finale of “Gypsy Queen.” It was so memorable it still gives me chills when I listen to it today. Lorraine’s song could be like that. Or, even without that – this song is a wonderfully entertaining four minutes. So, don’t dimiss it.

“Make It Right,” is jaunty and upbeat from the start. Backup vocals are more male oriented here and it’s solid. The drums lay down colorful upbeats, off beats and again they are recorded perfectly without interfering with the vocalist. Lorraine’s vocals — in a reggae style are defiant, strong, assertive and everything a great female vocalist should be. Lorraine displays it all and with ease. The band, as usual, is tight as a knot in a balloon and instrumentally — their interaction is impressive. Lorraine never loses energy throughout this tune and it sounds as if it were inspired by the incredible music of Johnny Clegg & Juluka – one of which would be their magical, percussive classic “Scatterlings of Africa,” from 1982. That song, like Santana’s is mesmerizing. 

Ah…sounding a little closer in the tradition to Miriam’s Makeba’s “Pata Pata” (“touch…touch” – written by fellow South African artist Dorothy Masuka and first appearing in 1957 also by Makeba) — is “Babalazi,” which is actually a tragic song about alcoholism and drug abuse of oppressed indigenous peoples of the world. Leave it to these musicians to present this to your ears with a foot tapping melody, nice piano solo and easy relaxed showcase. No crying in your beer here, no anger or feeling sorry for yourself. It’s as if they are proclaiming: this is our story – and it’s compelling. Some great economic drumming is persistent throughout. This is a very well recorded song. 

A little more in the way of a 1950’s middle-of-the-road ballad is “Where to Now,” a song written thirty years ago by Lorraine slips in next. Here she is in full blown commercial mode, but she is so effective. I could actually hear Diana Ross and the Supremes cover a song like this – however, Diana’s fine voice even at her best — is thin compared to Lorraine’s. So, I am not certain the effective drama would be achieved. But hit records were never about effective drama. many hit records were anemic compared to the originals (and in order to be fair, some covers were more energetic than the originals because the songwriter-singer was not as polished as the pro who covered it. But not here. No…not here).

As for today’s artists, the masterful Cassandra Wilson would be ideal to help bring some attention to the music of Lorraine Klaasen.

Closing out this goose-bump collection of world music is “Thulandivile,” — and the best saved for last. Lorraine unleashed her 12 cylinders earlier but, this is Lorraine with high octane and nitrous.

She obviously enjoys what she does and she relishes in it and shows it here where she is virtually unchallenged in squeezing out the notes hot and spicy. Here she is her own woman – a well-shaped sculptured artist who is original, creative and above all highly polished. Whew…this is soul, this is dynamics par excellence in a performance that is a show stopper if it’s done live. The Mongezi and Assane guitars are, as always splendid together and the drums are reliably steady and they fire away as is to be expected from Noel.

But…it’s Lorraine’s vocal that is nuclear and spine chilling good. I expect to hear much more from this artist because she is certainly deserving of the attention, and her mother would be proud – because the acorn didn’t fall too far from the tree.

By the way, Lorraine covered the classic “Pata Pata,” respectfully and excellently and recorded an entire album dedicated to Miriam Makeba.

Lorraine’s CD packaging is one of the most colorful I’ve seen in a long time. The Pierre Arsenault photography of Lorraine is sharp and well-produced and represents the music within the album exceptionally well. As mentioned earlier, there is a nice stitched booklet to explain songs, credit musicians. There is also a well-written small bio in French and English with some color pictures. The CD was designed by John Rummen and Sean House.

The album was produced with expertise by Lorraine Klaasen and Mongezi Ntaka with Executive Producer Jim West.  

Website: http://www.lorraineklaasen.com/

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/lorraine.klaasen

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lorraineklaasen/sets/nouvelle-journee-1

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this review / commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of No Depression. All photography is owned by the respective photographers and is their copyrighted image; credited where photographer’s name was known & being used here solely as reference and will be removed on request. YouTube images are standard YouTube license.

John Apice / No Depression / Written In October 2016