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Joe Zawinul Site - Musicians
Vocalist,
multi-instrumentalist and composer Richard Bona, the newest
addition to the Columbia Jazz roster, has lived a life of
adventure, ingenuity and accomplishment. On his debut album
for Columbia, Scenes from my Life (released on August 1999),
Richard has crafted his memories into a set of 12 songs, by
turns ebullient and reflective. Sung in his native language
of Douala, Bona's songs reflect both real incidents - a
friend who spent time in prison, a war orphan found
wandering the streets of Romania, the loss of his father -
and more universal concerns such as having faith, a plea for
communication, and a reminder to slow down and experience
life more fully. Born
in 1967 in the village of Minta in East Cameroon, Richard
grew up in a home filled with music. His grandfather was a
noted percussionist and singer. And his mother, also a
singer, noticed something interesting about her son from a
very early age. "When I was about three years old I used to
cry a lot for no reason," says Bona, laughing at the memory.
"And then one day someone brought a balafon to my house and
was playing it, and I stopped crying, and just sat and
listened to it for hours." An industrious youngster, Richard
soon constructed his own balafon out of wood he found around
the village, and would practice his new instrument eight to
twelve hours a day. Richard
began to perform in public at the age of five, singing in
the village church with his mother and four sisters. Musical
instruments were hard to come by in his village, so Richard
often had to build his own. He crafted a variety of wooden
flutes and percussion instruments, and soon he had even
constructed his own 12-string guitar. The biggest problem he
faced, of course, was that there was no local music shop at
which he could purchase guitar strings. So Richard came up
with a creative solution: "I would hang out near the bicycle
repair shops," he recalls, "and when no one was looking, I
would steal the bicycle brake cables to make my
strings!" Word
of this prodigious young musician spread throughout the
village quickly, and Richard was soon highly in demand to
sing and play at baptisms, weddings and other church
functions. Before long, however, Richard felt the big city
calling out to him. He moved to Douala to live with his
father, and began working as a musician right away. "I
learned quickly that the guitar was the hip instrument that
you had to play," he says. Richard soon realized that he was
able to learn virtually any instrument simply by watching it
being played. Renting a professional-style guitar to replace
his homemade model, he began playing gigs at the age of
11. Richard's
life would change in 1980 when a Frenchman came to his town
and established a jazz club in a local hotel. This club
owner heard about the young local prodigy and hired him to
assemble a band. "I didn't know anything about jazz,"
Richard says, "but the gig paid really well, so I took it."
The hotel provided the instruments, so Richard would spend
his entire day there, learning to play all of the
instruments and teaching himself to read and write music.
The club owner had his collection of 400-500 jazz LPs sent
to the club, and he told Bona to start learning the music on
those albums. Purely by chance, the first record Richard
pulled out of the collection was the eponymously-titled
album by the virtuoso of the electric bass guitar Jaco
Pastorius, which included "Portrait of Tracy", a performance
that would literally change Bona's life. "Before I heard
Jaco," Bona says, "I'd never even considered playing bass.
But when I heard that music, I had to check the turntable to
make sure that the pitch was right! I thought it might have
been fast!" Captivated by Jaco's sound and style, Richard
immediately began to play bass and set about learning to
play in that style. He explored the music of Weather Report
and other jazz recordings, moving from fusion back into more
traditional styles. After the loss of his father when he was
17, Richard realized the time for another move was
approaching, and at the age of 22 he packed his belongings
and flew to Paris. "I
arrived in Paris in the winter," he recalls. "But in
Cameroon I never knew winter. So I show up in Paris and they
open the plane, and I'm wearing shorts and a light shirt,
and I'm freezing! There's snow everywhere, which I'd never
seen before. I was terrified; I wanted to turn around and go
home right away!" A kindly airplane steward gave Richard his
sweater and convinced him to give the city a chance, and
within two months Bona was working regularly with such
leading French musicians as Didier Lockwood and Marc Ducret,
as well as African stars such as Manu Dibango and Salif
Keita. During
seven years in Paris, Richard enrolled in a music school to
refine his writing skills, and immersed himself in the work
of such artists as Miles Davis, Chet Baker and Ben Webster.
On a visit to Senegal with his band Point Cardinale
(featuring his current keyboardist Jean-Michel Pilc) for a
performance at a jazz festival, the American flutist Colette
Michaan invited Richard to come to New York for "a four day
visit that ended up lasting two weeks." Bona didn't know any
English, but Colette made all the necessary introductions
and Bona's music did the speaking for him. The local music
community was quick to embrace him, and Richard quickly
realized that this was where he belonged. Bona
moved to New York in late 1995. He contacted Joe Zawinul,
whom he had originally met and played with in Paris, and
joined him for the recording of the album My People and a
subsequent world tour. Returning to New York, Bona lived the
life of the busy working musician, taking gigs at clubs all
over downtown. It was at such a club that he was heard by
Jake Holmes, a songwriter for Harry Belafonte. Richard
subsequently became Belafonte's bandleader and musical
director for a year and a half. Richard
would soon work with such illustrious musicians as Larry
Coryell, Michael and Randy Brecker, and Steve Gadd. He was
introduced to the Columbia Jazz department and creative
consultant Branford Marsalis in 1998 when he was hired to
play bass on Buckshot LeFonque vocalist Frank McComb's debut
recording for the label. By the end of 1998, Columbia signed
Richard and put him into the studio to record his debut
album, Scenes from My Life. This multifaceted album, which
includes longtime Bona keyboardist Jean-Michel Pilc as well
as such guest musicians as Michael Brecker and Omar Hakim,
features not only Bona's well-known instrumental prowess but
also his rich and expressive singing voice and songwriting
skills. Richard
Bona makes his home in Manhattan, where he lives with his
six-month-old son Leo. His daughter Crystal, age 12, live in
Paris with Richard's sister. Bona can regularly be heard at
such downtown clubs as Izzy Bar and Zinc Bar, where the buzz
has quietly been building about the extraordinary bassist
with the haunting voice. The release of Scenes from My Life
is certain to spread the word far and wide: Bona's blending
of his own African musical roots, his jazz sensibilities and
his poignant lyrical reflections on his life mark yet
another broadening of the very definition of
jazz. Richard
Bona Biography courtesy of EMMECI Srl
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Richard Bona
