Brother Badou Jobe,
First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to answer publicly to my private request on information relating to Albert Harb's death. You cleared the air in many ways for Ousman Bojang, myself, and many others on the L.
Let me also take this opportunity to welcome you on the Gambia-L and to tell you how pleased many of us are about your presence here. I hope you will find your stay at the "bantaba" fruitful and informative even as we also hope you find the time to offer us a little of your vast knowledge of a significant portion of our cultural history. In this regard, I sincerely hope in good faith, that Brother Oku Drammeh will also find time to make contributions in our general quest to enlighten us about ourselves.
Perhaps our leaders in every area of political and social life ought to know that the greatest asset we have as a people is our culture, of which the production of music occupies a central plank. This cultural potential, if wisely cultivated, properly managed and responsibly marketted could become one of our most important portals towards economic advancement.
Momodou S Sidibeh
----- Original Message -----
From: "Badou Jobe" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 7:47 PM
Subject: Re: Gambian Music History / Albert Harb - Ifang Bondi
> Pa Touray's passing away clearly triggers off an interest in the icons
> of Gambian music.
> Following below the (extended) contents of a private email sent before
> to Momodou Sidibeh, asking about Albert Harb, vocalist/saxophone & flute
> player/ composer of Ifang Bondi.
> I'll be glad to contribute any further details about the history of
> Gambian music.
>
> Badou Jobe/Ifang Bondi
>
> ALBERT HARB (1951 - 1993)
> Albert (aka Ali) Harb was a wonderful singer, saxophone & flute player
> and a gifted composer.
> He was born & grew up in Fatoto, where his father was a trader. As a
> result Ali was fluent in Fula and Mandinka, both the language and the
> traditional music.
> He got his musical training with the Police Band, the hotbed for many
> outstanding musicians, including Super Eagles/Ifang Bondi members Paps
> Touray, Edu Haffner, Pa Njie (bass), Samson Gassama.
> (Commander Nicol of the Police Band used to positively hate SE/IB for
> hijacking his best musicians!)
>
> Albert replaced saxophonist Modou Cham in 1974, when at the end of an
> Ifang Bondi tour in England Cham stayed behind.
> Albert soon became the 2nd front man next to Paps. His superb high tenor
> voice complemented Paps' grave baritone in a combination unmatched in
> African music (as showcased in "Sutukun" on the Saraba album)
> Apart from being an outstanding musician & composer - e.g. "Yolele" and
> "Nyano Faro" - Albert was also a wonderful person, the eternal
> peacemaker. His exceptional sense of humour & wittiness would make us
> helpless with laughter and made us again and again overcome hard times.
> With his talents, his great personality and his good looks he was
> everyone's darling, both with his colleagues and the audience.
>
> In the early 80s Ifang Bondi got hit by a boycott by the then regime
> after I categorically refused to swap our critical lyrics for songs
> praising the political leaders & their cronies. As a result public
> performance and airplay were denied to us (Ifang Bondi tapes in the
> radio archives still show the banning stickers).
> We had no other option than to go abroad. Albert headed for Ivory Coast
> while the core of Ifang Bondi - Pa Touray, Kunon Jarjutay, Karamo
> Sabally, Mawdo Sy and I myself - went to Europe were we recorded the
> beautiful album Mantra, the title song of which - for obvious reasons
> ("Stop the tribalism, nepotism, opportunism") -
> never got airplay in The Gambia.
>
> In 85/86 we came back to The Gambia, and, joined by Albert, tried to
> perform again. Only to find out that the Ifang Bondi music with its
> critical lyrics was still very much unwelcome in our home country. So we
>
> focused on international tours and recorded the album "Sanjo".
>
> >From 89 on Albert came along on all our European tours, forming with
> Paps the most beautiful vocal duo to ever exist in African music.
> When Paps decided to retire in 1990 - tired of the hardship of touring
> and the strenuous demands of working on a new repertoire - Albert
> remained the only front man of Ifang Bondi.
> In 1993 he developed some lung problems and the doctor advised him to
> refrain from singing and playing flute & saxophone for a while. We
> decided to leave him in The Gambia so that he would be in good condition
>
> to come over for the recording sessions planned for the end of the year.
>
> In July, during a big concert in Amsterdam, Samson Gassama -just
> returned from The Gambia -told us Albert had very suddenly died. It was
> the hardest concert I ever had to play in my life: smiling to an
> ecstatic crowd whilst inside I was crying.
>
> Albert's family told us afterwards that he was in good shape, cheerful
> as ever and had died - completely unexpectedly but peacefully - in his
> sleep.
> His sudden death, at only 41 years of age, sent shock waves through the
> international African
> music community but was largely ignored in the Gambia.
> I dedicated the new album "Daraja" to him. I also wrote a tribute to
> Albert, "Kibaru", a re-working of a popular song Ali & I wrote together,
>
> which features as the first song on the following album "Gis Gis".
>
> Then 3 years ago I lost under tragic circumstances another one of my
> lifetime friends, drummer Malan Gassama. In the middle of a live radio
> show we did together on radio FM Malan collapsed and died on the spot of
>
> a heart attack. This was just after Malan told me he wanted to rejoin
> Ifang Bondi and we were very thrilled about the prospect of our renewed
> collaboration. So again the next album - a re-release of the original
> Super Eagles material - sadly featured an obituary...
>
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