Northeastern Congo

In 1952, Hugh Tracey undertook what must rank as one of the most magnificent recording field trips ever, revisiting Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, where he had been two years earlier, and further on into Rwanda and then eastern and northern Congo, going as far west as Libenge near Bangui.

In the Congo, amongst other things, he encountered and recorded pygmies, elephant tamers, cannibals and the descendants from the pre-colonial Arab trading empire operated from Zanzibar (Tippu Tip was one of the last of those notorious slave and ivory traders).

On this album, we feature recordings from the eastern and northeastern edges of the great Ituri rainforest, where Mbuti pygmies came out of the forest to barter meat and honey for manioc and other products with the Nande, Bira, Mangbele and Budu — Bantu peoples living on the edge of the forest. These recordings reveal something of the special relationship between the pygmies and their neighbors, with, on the one hand, Mbuti playing on flutes borrowed from the Nande, Mbuti playing on drums borrowed from the Mangbele, and on the other hand, the obvious influence the pygmies had, for example, on the music of the Budu.

The edge of this forest was the scene not only of economic interaction buy also of musical interaction.

— Courtesy Calabash Music