Senegalese bassist Alune Wade has been exploring global musical connections for more than a decade. He worked on Marcus Miller\u2019s 2015 jazz album \u201cAfrodeezia.\u201d At the same time, he partnered with Cuban pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa on the album \u201cHavana Paris Dakar.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But when he wanted to do his own album about connections between African music and the many places the diaspora took Africans, he focused on New Orleans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city that has this connection with Africa is New Orleans because of the music, the way they dress, the state of mind, the food, the spiritual, the Voodou,\u201d Wade says.<\/p>\n
The resulting album, \u201cNew African Orleans,\u201d was released in May, and this week, he\u2019s in town to perform and record again. The show on Friday, Nov. 28, at Marigny Opera House is presented by the Neighborhood Story Project, which worked with Wade on a documentary film.<\/p>\n
Wade grew up in Dakar, and was introduced to music by his father, a musician and symphony conductor. At 18, Wade joined the Afro-pop and world beat band of Ismael Lo. He started to focus more on jazz, and he\u2019s worked with musicians from Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S. to Europe, where he\u2019s made a home in Paris.<\/p>\n
As he saw many musicians do projects tracing musical roots to Africa, he had his own idea.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften it\u2019s musicians from the diaspora coming to Africa looking for their roots,\u201d he says. \u201cNow maybe it\u2019s time for the roots to go looking for the branches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI listened to a lot of jazz and American music in Senegal in the 1980s, because we have a lot of influences. We can say the foundation of jazz is from Africa with the rhythm and the blues, but jazz also influenced Africa a lot, like the music from Fela Kuti, the Afrobeat, or the music from Ghana, and the Calypso.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he focused on New Orleans, he connected with musicians including sousaphonist Kirk Joseph and pianist Kyle Roussel. He had known some New Orleans musicians from working in Europe, like Herlin Riley, who had been in Ahmad Jamal\u2019s band.<\/p>\n
Parts of the album were recorded in Senegal, Ghana, Lagos, Nigeria and New Orleans. Contributing musicians came from everywhere. Some of his regular band members, who will perform at Marigny Opera House, include Nigerian trumpeter Victor Ademofe, drummer Alix Goffic from French Guiana, saxophonist Harry Ahonlonsou from Benin, and keyboardist Cedric Duchemann from Reunion Island off the east coast of Africa.<\/p>\n
The concert also features Corey Henry, Kirk Joseph, David McKissick, St. Julian X, Sunni Patterson and more.<\/p>\n
Some songs on the album bridge sounds from across the Atlantic. \u201cBoogie and Juju\u201d is inspired by Little Richard\u2019s take on boogie woogie and the juju music of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Wade also wanted to mix the origins of songs and styles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to play the Herbie Hancock classic \u2018Watermelon Man,\u2019” he says. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t want to do it with Americans. My goal was to play it with Nigerians and Ghanians, to have their style. And I wanted to play the music of Fela (Kuti) with Americans, not Nigerians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wade recorded Kuti\u2019s \u201cWater No Get Enemy\u201d for the album. It also has takes on Dr. John\u2019s \u201cGris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya\u201d and Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u201cVoodoo Child.\u201d In some of the original compositions, he wanted New Orleans-style brass band horns over his rhythms and melodies.<\/p>\n
The project also grew to include a documentary film, \u201cTukki, from the roots to the Bayou.\u201d Wade is now working on a book, and he\u2019s beginning to record a follow-up album.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you the story of the tree,\u201d Wade says. \u201cWe need 100 branches to have a tree. I still am discovering many branches on the same tree. But they all have the same roots.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alune Wade<\/a> performs at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 28, at Marigny Opera House. Suggested donation $25. Find information at marignyoperahouse.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source bestofneworleans.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Senegalese bassist Alune Wade has been exploring global musical connections for more than a decade. He worked on Marcus Miller\u2019s 2015 jazz album \u201cAfrodeezia.\u201d At the same time, he partnered with Cuban pianist Harold Lopez-Nussa on the album \u201cHavana Paris Dakar.\u201d\u00a0 But when he wanted to do his own album about connections between African music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2170837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2170836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Alune-Wade-brings-New-African-Orleans-to-Marigny-Opera-House.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2170838,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170836\/revisions\/2170838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2170837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}