New African Orleans

For his sixth album 'New African Orleans', bass guitarist and composer Alune Wade explores the multiple junctions between his native West African rhythms, the Afrobeat and juju rhythms from Lagos and the brass band repertoire immortalised in New Orleans. "I'm exploring a world that goes from my roots to the lost branches on the other side of the Atlantic," explains the musician from Senegal. He has whittled down around 50 compositions - both original and standards - to a dozen which Alune recorded in Paris, Dakar, Lagos and New Orleans. "The idea first came to me during the Jazz a Goree festival I organized back in 2014," he explains. "It had me reflect on the notion of reversing the musical trip most people take from the United States to the African continent. I wanted to set out westward and begin a musical conversation with the best artists, both in Nigeria and the US."