Virtuoso guitarist/vocalist
Pascal Bokar from West Africa Senegal/Mali, leads an amazing ensemble of
musicians dedicated to the integration of African and African American musical
traditions through the blues, melding the sounds of the banjo and the balafon,
(ancestor of the xylophone), in an explosive contemporary visual and sonic
expression.
Pascal
Bokar is the recipient of the Jim Hall Jazz Master Award for Guitarist of the
Berklee College of Music and the recipient of the Outstanding Soloist Award
from Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody. His previous album, Guitar Balafonics,
won Downbeat Best of 2015.
“Pascal
Bokar is an incredible blues/jazz guitarist who hails originally from the
Mali/Senegal region of West Africa. A dazzling, fiery combination of
traditional, Delta, and West African roots music, award-winning guitarist
Pascal Bokar offers a captivating and unique foray into contemporary blues with
American Trails. Until next time…” Sheryl and Don Crow/Bluesblog
“The Band
is Fireworks… a musical style like we have not heard before.“ – Fred
Delforge/ZicaZic.com
“Pascal
Bokar possesses an uncanny ability to use pizzicato and quasi-pizzicato in lead
runs rarely encountered on guitar except in Al DiMeola and scant others.” – Mark
Tucker/Acousticmusic.com
Click on
the image to hear the track “Let it Groove” from is latest release, American
Trails.
Appearances
2019 Silicon
Valley Jazz Festival, CA
Vail Music
Series, CO
Breckenridge,
CO
Kansas City
Jazz & Blues Festival, MO
Carter
Barron Amphitheater, Washington DC
San Jose
Jazz Festival, CA
Houston
Jazz Festival, TX
Santa Fe
Music Series, NM
African
American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Copenhagen,
Denmark
Tokyo,
Japan
Hamamatsu,
Japan
La Defense,
Paris, France
Etc…
Born in
Paris, France and raised in Mail and Senegal, West Africa, Pascal Bokar had a
chance growing up to hear the musical, harmonic, melodic and rhythmic dance and
spoken words traditions of West African music and culture that informed his
heritage through the musical legacies of instruments such as the Ngoni (Banjo)
and the Balafon (ancestor of the xylophone) which will later define the early
cultural and musical foundations of the American South and the Blues through
the migrations of West Africans through the Atlantic Slave Trade (1550-1888).
Throughout
his productive musical career, guitarist/vocalist Dr. Pascal Bokar Thiam has
always understood the connections between West African music and the sounds and
culture of the American South. His landmark book “From Timbuktu to the
Mississippi delta” with a foreword by NEA Jazz Master, Composer, Pianist Randy
Weston, discusses the music of the three empires that dominated the culture of
West Africa starting in the 6th century, tracing the music from its role in the
culture and daily life of Africa to its eventual emergence in the United
States. In his teachings, lectures and music, Pascal has always paid tribute to
his ancestors.
“As a
musician, I have always tried to synthesize the convergence of African
aesthetics and appreciate their influence in the music of the African American
communities of the American South, from the rural sounds of the Blues and
Gospel.”
Dr. Pascal
Bokar has lectured at universities worldwide on the influence of African music
and culture through the Blues and was recently invited to the Google Talks at
Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Dr. Pascal Bokar Thiam is also a
professor in the Performing Arts and social Justice Department of the
University of San Francisco.