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Bela Fleck Banjography documentary
 
unclebob
Posted: 24 April 2009 01:32 PM   [ Ignore ]  
Total Posts:  8
Joined  2009-03-02

Ok, so I made the word up but please find below a review in the NY TImes regarding a documentary featuring Bela and his search for the roots of his stringed thing.  Probably will not make it to most Multi-Plexes but I am sure will make it to Netflix eventually.

MOVIE REVIEW | ‘THROW DOWN YOUR HEART’
A Musical Journey

By STEPHEN HOLDEN
The gentle, upbeat documentary “Throw Down Your Heart” chronicles the African pilgrimage of the American banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck in search of the origins of his chosen instrument, which he sheepishly admits is “associated with a white Southern stereotype.”

At every stop on a journey that takes him from Uganda to Tanzania to Gambia and finally to Mali, Mr. Fleck plays and records with gifted local musicians. Early in the film, a Ugandan villager insists that the common perception of Africa as a continent ravaged by war and disease is “just a very small bit of what Africa is,” and “Throw Down Your Heart” sets out to prove him right.

While traveling, Mr. Fleck encounters reminders of the slave trade. At a seaside port in what used to be German East Africa, he is told that an enslaved African, upon seeing the sea and the ship, understood that there would be no returning and was advised to “throw down your heart.”

Mr. Fleck, a gentle, curious man of few words and formidable talents, is a benign presence. In a Ugandan village his banjo accompanies several local musicians playing a 12-foot xylophone. In Tanzania he collaborates with Anania Ngoliga, a master of the African thumb piano, an instrument consisting of metal tines of varying length attached to a wooden board. It is in Gambia that Mr. Fleck encounters the akonting, a primitive three-string forerunner of the banjo whose preservation is the mission of a troupe known as the Jatta Family.

In Mali he meets and plays with the great guitarist Djelimady Tounkara and the diva Oumou Sangare, a national idol and phenomenally gifted composer and singer. When Ms. Sangare sings a heartbreaking lament of “a worried songbird” searching for her father, you don’t need to know the language to be gripped by the force of her cry.

THROW DOWN YOUR HEART

Opens on Friday in Manhattan.

Directed by Sascha Paladino; director of photography, Kirsten Johnson; edited by Scott A. Burgess, Bela Fleck and Mr. Paladino; produced by Mr. Fleck and Mr. Paladino; released by the Old School, Ltd and Argot Pictures. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas at Third Street, Greenwich Village. In English, Lusogan, Swahili, Jola, Bambarra and French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. This film is not rated.

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