Abel Selaocoe arrived early for his Tiny Desk efficiency so he might pop right into a studio to discuss with NPR’s Morning Version. That is the place the versatile South African cellist and vocalist instructed the touching story of how he first obtained the grasp of his instrument. Unable to afford an actual cello, Selaocoe drew the strings of the instrument on paper, then pasted it to his chest to follow the fingerings.
As of late, he excursions the world providing his singular synthesis of world, jazz and classical sounds, all the time remembering his roots, even when collaborating with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma.
Selaocoe’s adroit bowing and percussive fingering offers the cello an enormous colour palette, with sounds of flutes and drums. His vocalizing, principally within the Sesotho language, features a sort of gravelly throat singing through which two or extra pitches are produced, heard within the opening tune which he dedicates to moms and robust girls who “[hold] the knife on the sharp facet.”
French baroque meets modern South Africa in “Les Voix Humaines/Tsohle Tsohle,” the place Selaocoe braids music by Marin Marais round tender singing. And he closes with an improvisation, noting that he prefers “individuals who do not write the script and re-read it once more.” The tune begins in a flurry of bowed arpeggios, like white caps on the lake, and evolves into plucked strings with metallic clips connected, harking back to thumb pianos.
Selaocoe has certainly written his personal distinctive “script.” In classical music, there are those that observe age previous traditions — and that is simply fantastic. However then there are these, like Selaocoe, who create model new traditions.
SET LIST
- “Ka Bohaleng”
- Marin Marais/Selaocoe: “Les Voix Humaines/Tsohle Tsohle”
- “Dinaka”
MUSICIANS
- Abel Selaocoe: cello, vocals
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Tom Huizenga
- Director: Joshua Bryant
- Audio Technical Director: Josephine Nyounai
- Host/Sequence Producer: Bobby Carter
- Video Editor: Kara Body
- Videographers: Joshua Bryant, Maia Stern
- Audio Engineer: Josh Newell
- Manufacturing Assistant: Dora Levite
- Photographer: Michael ZamoraÂ
- Tiny Desk Staff: Lars Gotrich, Ashley Pointer
- Govt Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Sequence Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson
- VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
