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Raul, Wil-Dog, Jiro and Ulises
The multi-culti, musical hybrid L.A. collective Ozomatli gets lots of props in this blog and from FRF in general. This was their fourth time at the festival, and the feeling is mutual.
“Top festivals in the world?” pondered percussionist Jiro Yamaguchi. “Fuji Rock, Glastonbury–Glastonbury because it’s an actual city.”
“This is better, though,” said bassist Wil-Dog Abers from behind a pair of enormous shades and underneath a white ball cap.
“Yeah, it’s cleaner,” said Jiro. “But it’s the people, too.”
Yamaguchi, Abers were sitting in the back of the Prince Hotel with sax player Ulises Bella and guitarist Raul Pacheco, talking about the band’s new album, Fire Away, which is the first they’ve released since becoming ambassadors for a cultural outreach program sponsored by the U.S. State Dept., and the experience of playing to people in far-flung areas of the world had a profound effect on it.
“I think this cultural ambassador work we do, it’s like, we get to go to places that bands don’t go to,” explained Bella. “So to be able to go there and take a sample and listen and be exposed to the local sounds is valuable for us as musicians. We actually incorporated some field recordings that we had when we were in Madagascar. We met up with this guy who played this stick, almost like a harp/guitar. We actually took that guy and went to the hotel and said, we’re going to pay you a couple hundred bucks, let’s do this. We actually jammed with him and we recorded him solo. And also in South Africa we played at this orphange for kids with HIV, and they performed this rubber boot dance, and we sampled some of those field recordings as part of the new record, incorporating sounds that were, for us, exotic.”
The experience was sobering, too, since no one they played for knew who Ozomatli was and therefore had no expectations.
“A good example of that is when we were in Nepal we played in Katmandu, and weren’t expecting anything,” continues Bella. “But we played a show and there was over 10,000 people, and all of them digging the music. We were just less than a month ago in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and it was estimated 20,000 people out in the middle of the square, which is supposedly close to one percent of the population.”
The band has been to Africa, Asia and the Middle East on their diplomatic journeys. “There was talk of going to Russia,” says Bella, “talk of going to Haiti. I don’t know if you know this real famous Spanish chef named Jose Andres that’s been going to Haiti, giving the people solar ovens.That way they don’t burn coal. So we were thinking of maybe going back down there with him. Malaysia. There’s stuff on the table but nothing is yet concrete.”
Yamaguchi adds that they aren’t the only pop music group who does this kind of work, but Ozomatli may have pioneers for a certain generation of musicians. “They’ll also get people who have specialties in other fields as well.”
“If you think about it,” says Bella, “it’s an extension of like back in the Cold War days when they were sending jazzers to Russia.”
“Doing the kind of work that the State Department can’t do,” conjectures Abers. “Making Yankees look human.”
“In a lot of ways, wherever we go, it’s like they have certain stereotypes of Americans and obviously Americans have steretypes of them,” says Bella. “And so when a band like us walks into the room, it’s like, ‘We were expecting an American band. These guys don’t look like what I had pictured in my head.”
After Fuji the next festival for the band is the Mile High event in Denver, Colorado.
“Which is not one of the top festivals,” Abers adds with a sly laugh.
“Well, you don’t know,” says Yamaguchi, “It might be the best festival happening that day in Denver.”
“But it’s not like this,” says Abers, gesturing at the surroundings. “There isn’t this site and the diversity of bands. And the crowd feeling.”
“Right,” says Yamaguchi. “It’s all American bands. Dave Matthews, that kind of thing. Probably not anyone from the Solomon Islands.”
“We’re probably the most–quote unquote–ethnic act there,” say Abers.
Maybe they’ll lock the doors when you roll into town?
“Especially when they see Raul,” says Yamaguchi.
