Tuesday evening saw world-renowned pianist Mario Canonge transport listeners to one such place, to a city called Martinique, a French Island nestled in the Caribbean. Performing in town courtesy the Alliance de Francaise, Canonge brought a gush of music from across the seas and left us all drenched!
“Come discover my music,” he smiled before taking to the piano at Baba Makhan Shah Lobana auditorium. Accompanied by Alex Bernard on bass guitar and Gregory Louis on drums, Canonge went from one song to another blending in traditional jazz with a distinct Caribbean flavour. Fusion is always a difficult territory to tread on, but Canonge seems to do so very easily. His music ebbs and flows smoothly, much like the evening tide coming in from the sea. Having imbibed the traditional music of Martinique with inspirations from the nearby islands, Guadeloupe in particular, Mario’s music is truly his own.
Tuesday saw him give the rather scant audience a feel of not just the rhythm of the Islands but a fair sprinkling of jazz, Latin American and African music, too. The tempo of the songs varied wonderfully as Mario’s fingers flew across the piano. The audience also got to hear compositions from his latest album ‘Rhizome,’ which he says is a dedication to global music, one that he effortlessly creates.