Alive

I received an email last week from Podomatic to warn me that all the (monthly) bandwidth I was entitled to as a free user had been used up. The email urged me to get a paid subscription which would allow me a greater amount of bandwidth.
I gather that the result of this was that visitors to this blog or to the podomatic page were unable to listen to the podcasts, which you can - if you hadn't noticed - find at the bottom left of this page.

As this is a no-budget blog, I have no intention of spending money on extending my podcast capacities. So to reduce the 'pressure' on my monthly quota of bandwidth (and with a risk of creating a problem elsewhere...) I am posting the tracks of the Franco podcast, which I assume was the cause of the recent bandwidth crisis.

The songs in this selection were recorded during various concerts in both Belgium and the Netherlands between 1983 and 1989. There is a chance I may post more of these concerts at a later stage.
I hasten to add (at the request of Aboubacar Siddikh*) that not all the tracks in this selection feature Franco. During "Massu" Franco's stand-in was (as per usual) Thierry Mantuika.

I have included two versions of "Luvumbu Ndoki", because - according to members of the T.P. O.K. Jazz - Franco used this song to slip in some comments regarding the audience. They were rather reluctant to reveal the contents of these comments, - which makes me even more curious. I am hoping there are listeners who can clear up the mystery.

The recording quality is at times perhaps somewhat disappointing. Please remember that these recordings were made by pre-digital equipment, i.e. on (analog) cassette. Of "Chacun Pour Soi", a composition by Josky Kiambukuta Franco played at all the concerts, I intentionally selected the 1983 version recorded in Belgium, in front of a largely Congolese (Zairois) audience. I guess Franco only later realised the 'potential' of this song as a climax of the more spectacular performances for largely white audiences.

The last three songs are from the same concert, and were - as you can hear - performed in this order. This should give you an idea of the diversity Franco put into his shows in the late 1980s.

Franco - Alive!

*who took the photo of Franco (in the Melkweg - Jan.1989) at the right. The other photo is from the Claridge concert in May 1983.