You don’t really think about the great era of black
British music. We weren’t allowed one to be honest…
Craig Charles
There’s some music that’s just bigger than music and
you think to yourself, why isn’t this band huge?
Jim James, My Morning Jacket
I love the way Tim Mackenzie-Smith’s documentary begins, as
various talking heads from the last few decades of music making, Mark Ronson, DJ
Maseo of De la Soul, Cut Chemist and a dozen more talk passionately about
Cymande as the band, largely in low, shadowy lighting in a modern studio, start
playing the transcendent Dove from their first album released in 1972. The
longer the music plays and the more plaudits pass the band’s way you’re totally
convinced that this is a musical injustice of the highest order: what happened,
we need to know. Then we start to meet the band and the screen fills with
sunshine…
Cymande are certainly getting it back, especially those who
left the music business even if two did become successful lawyers. We all love
a happy ending and this documentary in itself forms part of that whilst also
explaining just how such a talented group of musicians came to slip through the
cracks in the UK even as they were playing Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theatre
and supporting Al Green in the USA where their first album peaked at No. 85 on
the Billboard Top LPs and No. 24 on the Soul Albums and singles, The Message
and Bra were hits, with the former Top 50. They headlined their next
tour in support of their second album, riding higher and higher.
Patrick Patterson on guitar playing the epic Dove.
We’re full up with noisy foreigners and we don’t like
it.
Middle-aged white man on the street, interviewed with his
wife for TV sometime in 1972.
Sadly, this success was not reflected at home and the
documentary is clear on just why that might have been with clips of various
racist comments and quotes from Enoch Powell illustrating the prevailing mood
of some in the mid-70s when the youth of the Windrush generation, of which the
group was a part, were coming of age and starting to make their own way
culturally. Growing up in the 70s, not only were there very few British black
music artists neither Liverpool nor Everton had any black players until Howard
Gayle from Toxteth became the Red’s first in 1977.
Home-grown black musicians were similarly not given the same
respect as those from America or Jamaica until groups like Liverpool’s The Real
Thing showed that soul wasn’t limited to Detroit or Chicago. In the US, black
music was far more established, as it now is in the UK, and easier to
categorise, sell and find a market for. In London there was Osibisa, a
Ghanaian- Caribbean-British Afro-rock band founded in the late 1960s who’s
music was broadly within the progressive rock banner including album covers
from Roger Dean which helped them break the top 20 album charts.
England was not simply the mother country but the
place to go to maximise our potential.
Patrick Patterson, Guitar and Co-Composer
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| Cymande in 1972 |
Cymande had more in common with the out-there jazz funk of
the Americans though and perhaps it was easier to market “African” or “World
music” than music that took so many influences? As the band’s website says
their music has been described as “spiritual… versatile…smooth, sweet and very
different” also Nyah-Rock, Afro-Rock, even Calypso Rock but, as they say, “Cymande
is just simply Cymande”: a mix of culture and sound, truly progressive.
The band originally split up in 1975 after a third album
failed to take off home or abroad and the logistics of touring the huge expanse
of America became too much to bear… without home business to enable them to
balance. TV producers didn’t want to provide them with a platform in the same
way they would for Earth Wind and Fire or The Jackson Five. Soul from Brixton
was too difficult to accept, Americans were something else.
The band’s parents were well educated, professional people
but their dreams for their children and themselves very quickly vanished after
they arrived and then as their boys grew up. But they were going to do
something and in 1969 neighbours Patrick Patterson on guitar and Steve Scipio
on bass, also the main songwriters, formed the band. Mike "Bami" Rose
was the first core member to join followed by Sam Kelly, then his cousin Derek Gibbs
on saxophone, with Bami bringing in Rastafarian Pablo Gonsales on congas. Ray
King sang with the touring band but, after meeting producer, Joe couldn’t make
the recording so they brought in Joey Dee and then was in return replaced with
Jimmy Lindsay.
The name Cymande came from a well-known calypso song; the
band were tipping a hat to their roots whilst looking forward and into space…
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| Steve Scipio |
All were self-taught musicians with an original style and it
shows with Scipio’s five-string bass playing right at the hard of the musical
movement and Patterson’s guitar fills exactly what the sound needs as the irresistible
percussion mix of Kelly and Gonsales creates and rhythm that is the lead line
for the song, often aided by the other players on congas. This is dance music
for the head in ways that are now very much in vogue and yet fifty years ago didn’t
exist in this way, this mixture of inspiration and innovation. Also, joy.
Cymande is heart-felt and sincere, music to make you feel and think too.
One of The Sacred Crates of Hip-hop and before that Disco…
House too.
Then came the band’s first rediscovery with America once
again playing its part after a generation of DJs from Disco to hip-hop
discovered and sampled their music. From Studio 54, through the 80s and
eventually to major artists such as De la Soul to The Fugees, which must have
been a welcome validation as well as financial spur. In the UK Rare Groove and
Acid Jazz was developing momentum and the likes of Jazzy B of Soul II Soul and the
Ruthless Rap Assassins took inspiration and samples from Cymande. Black music
in Britain was maturing and now mainstream at least in the dancehalls and there
were just too many acts breaking though – grooving on the shoulders of giants
like Cymande.
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| The late Pablo Gonsales enjoying his daily dose of sunshine |
By this stage, both Patterson and Scipio had become lawyers, what better way to represent their community and to do their parents proud, whilst other band members had either retrained or carried on in music, George Kelly kept on drumming – Tom Jones, Gary Moore, Robert Plant, Ben E King! and also became a successful sculptor, whilst Bami joined reggae giants Aswad, Courtney Pine, Paul Simon and has played with Jools Holland since 1999.
Derek Gibbs went a long time without playing his bass and
Pablo Gonsales on congas and keyboards kept on searching. Sadly, he passed away
in December 2020 but he adds so much to their music and this documentary,
philosophical and just such a warm intelligent man. He was involved again, along
with a rehearsing at speed, Mr Gibbs as the continued interest from artists in the
UK and USA sparked their first reunion in 2011 and an album then followed in
2015. Now the band are touring again playing the Shepherds Bush Empire on 20th
April – I’ve got my tickets and they’re going to sell out what is likely to be
one of the gigs of the year.
I’m still trying to play the perfect note, who knows,
one day I may do that… Bami
Bami aiming for that perfect note.
Well, I’m going to find out for myself in Shepherds Bush and
in the meantime I urge you to see this life-affirming film, listen to the music
and buy this Blu-ray. Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think… but never to
late to Get it Back!
Special funky features:
Presented in High Definition
Steve Scipio and Patrick Patterson Q&A
(2023, 34 mins): the founding members of Cymande are interviewed by journalist
Jason Solomons
Extended clips and deleted scenes (2022,
14 mins): a selection of clips chosen by director Tim Mackenzie-Smith,
including the genesis of Bra; Cut Chemist listens to Cymande; DJ Hollywood Bra
rap; Jazzy Jay Cymande mix; Ruthless Rap Assassins (extended feature);
Cymande’s school days
Black Music Party (c1975, 7 mins): rare
footage of Cymande performing in the 1970s
Original theatrical trailer
For the first pressing only there’s a fabulous, illustrated
booklet with essays by Kevin Le Gendre and Greg Wilson; The Treatment by
director Tim Mackenzie-Smith and an essay on Cymande’s roots by founding
members Patrick Patterson and Steve Scipio; notes on the special features and
credits.
So, pre-order from the BFI Shop with out delay and book to see the film on the Southbank today!
You can also order the re-released first three albums on vinyl and download via Bandcamp, trust me, it will change your day!
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| Good luck with finding an early 70's pressing at a good price! |
*Also on BFI Player Subscription, iTunes and Amazon Prime.
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