”Well, if there is one difference between Afro-American Roots music and the music from the Caribbean is that it is rare that you will find in the Caribbean the heaviness found in the American Blues.”

Benoît LeBlanc: Mô Kouzin, Mô Kouzinn

Benoît LeBlanc is a critically acclaimed singer songwriter from Montreal who has performed throughout North Amercia and Europe. He has produced and recorded various albums of original songs. He has also participated in the recording of the Louisiana Cajun music album “Betsy Stomp” with the band Grouyan Gombo. He has hosted and directed radio programs for 14 years, 10 of which have featured the music of the Louisiana Cajuns and Creoles. He is a descendant of Acadian heritage and has been researching, writing about and exploring the music of Louisiana for nearly 50 years. Benoît’s latest project “Mò kouzin, mò kouzinn" (2023) was a collection of 27 historical pre-jazz songs featuring original Slave narratives, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and laments, that played an important role in the genesis of Americana musical heritage.                         (Photo: Benoît LeBlanc)

Mô kouzin mô kouzinn is the result of several years of research in the very neglected corpus of the musical heritage of the slaves and free people of color of the nineteenth and early 20th centuries. This music has affinities with what was heard at the same time in Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe. We know about field hollers but not about the satirical and rhythmic songs of the Creole slaves. Jazz historians almost always mention the mythical Congo Square when they talk about the genesis of jazz. You will hear on this album some songs that were sung in Congo Square during the first half of the nineteenth century in New Orleans... Not only is the existence of such a musical heritage largely unknown, most people don’t even know that the Creole language - called Kouri-Vini - is still spoken in Louisiana. This record is proof that this language is alive and well. And beautiful.

Interview by Michael Limnios

How has the Creole culture and music influenced your views of the world? How do you describe your sound, music philosophy, mission and songbook?

I'm from the generation that was deeply influenced by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. At a very early age, around ten or eleven years old, I noticed that something special touched me in the music of the African Americans, so I'm talking about Soul music, R&B, you know all these musicians who were with Motown, Atlantic, Stax and so on. No matter how much I loved the Beatles something in the way some Black singers sang touched me in a way that usually White singers didn't touch me (although there are exceptions). When A Man Loves A Woman, by Percy Sledge, would be a good example. At fourteen years old I discovered the Blues and fifties Rock n' Roll.

So I listened to the music of the hippies and the music of the African Americans. What happened is that at 19 years old I bought an LP titled Les Blues du Bayou. Two Black men from Louisiana, Canray Fontenot on fiddle and Alphonse Bois-Sec Ardoin on accordion, were playing music that had some affinities with the French music played in Québec and Acadia, they were singing in French and some songs (Les barres de la prison) were bluesy. Now, being a French Canadian from Québec (with a father from Acadia) this was a total revelation. How did this influence my views of the world? With the discovery of  Louisiana Cajun and Creole music I was no longer a white boy who admired the music of a culture that was geographically close to me but foreign in many ways; I was born in Montréal, I'm of French origin, I learned to speak French before I learned English. These Creole musicians from Louisiana were like cousins to me, in other words I could identify with them. I just felt it was more natural to enter, so to speak, the African Creole culture and integrate it in my own music. These people were of African origin but they had a lot in common with me because of their language and of their position (as a minority) facing the powerful Anglo-American culture. I guess the best way to summarize my view of the world is that I felt a deep solidarity with them. Québécois film maker documentarist André Gladu explored that in many of his films since the 1970s. He called it Le son des Français d'Amérique, a ''sound'' he found among the French and the Creoles and the Métis all over North America (including New England and Missouri).

When I recorded the band songs for Mô kouzin mô kouzinn I wanted a Louisiana Creole sound. The song Un nòt kankan is a very good example of this. I asked a Haitian percussionist to play for me, using some percussion that was used in Congo Square in the first half of the 19th century. I wanted the four string banjo used in New Orleans, the clarinet that was used as early as the the early 19th century, the fiddle that was a very popular instrument among the slaves and the Free People of Color in Louisiana, and so on. I used the guitar on some songs because I felt more comfortable playing that instrument but I also sang some songs with a banjo player. I consider that instrument very important, I'm glad musicians like Don Vappie brought it back in Creole jazz. What is interesting about the banjo is that it was created in the Caribbean. There are stringed instruments from West Africa that are close to the banjo but none that has frets. So there is an interesting link to the Caribbean, here. 

Most of the Creole songs on the album are unknown. Even jazz historians know very little about the Afro-Creole legacy - meaning, here, what the Free people of color (later Creoles of color) and the Afro-Creole slaves/ex-slaves contributed. I recorded some songs that were played in Congo Square, this is a very big piece of what contributed to the genesis of jazz. Also, if we want to talk about a mission, Creole - or Kouri-Vini - is an endangered language. I hope to promote it in my own way with this album.

“Creole music, if we are talking about Louisiana Afro-Creole music, has many roots. It was created by people who suffered and that is always a driving force. What is so wonderful and so rich about Creole music is that first of all Louisiana was and probably still is the most africanised state in the USA.” (Photo: Benoît LeBlanc, a critically acclaimed singer songwriter from Montreal, Canada)

What moment changed your life the most? What is the driving force behind your continuous support for your music?

At age 22 I traveled to Louisiana and at 23 I spent 6 months in Europe (France, Ireland, Greece with some short stops in London, Amsterdam, Italy).

In French we say les voyages forment la jeunesse. Well, in my case that is totally true. Spending some time in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, going to hear jazz at the Preservation Hall then going to Cajun country around Lafayette and hearing Cajun legends such as Nathan Abshire and the Balfa Brothers opened something in me, from that moment on I started singing differently, I could sing in French with much more soul. In Europe it was a totally different discovery, it was more like a spiritual quest although it was done unconsciously or naively. In any case my view of the world changed because I felt and saw that there was another dimension to life, what we call it the manifested world. This is my duality, a part of me is deeply North American and feels very much at home in what we call roots music, and another part is very close to the European culture and feels at home in the world of poetry, philosophy, spirituality and so on. So as much as I love the poets - Rutebeuf, Villon, Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Georges Brassens - I love the roots musicians Amédé Ardoin, Iry Lejeune, Leadbelly, Pete Seeger, and many unknown singers we can hear in field recordings done in Québec, Acadia, etc.

The victors write History, as we know, and they tend to forget, don't they, the ordinary, modest, not to say poor people. These ''modest'' people are creators of the greatest music in the world, whether the music is from Mississippi, Cuba, Brazil, Mali or any other place on this planet. I sure wish the Afro-Creoles who have created great music - Creole accordion/fiddle music, Zydeco, jazz, Juré, 19th century slave songs, Mardi Gras Wild Injun music, 19th century classical piano using the habanera rhythm and other syncopated rhythms before the birth of Ragtime, and, yes, Rock n' Roll; Fats Domino was a Creole and he recorded the first RnR hit, The Fat Man - will be fully acknowledge one day. Talking about classical piano, white Creole music composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk wrote a piano piece called La Bamboula (based on the Creole song Patat-la kwit) using syncopated rhythyms almost half a century before the birth of Ragtime.

“In Louisiana, no matter what your origin is, there is a feeling of pride, of belonging. Before Katrina most Louisianans, I was told, did not like to move to other states; they love their home. The food is by far superior, they know how to have fun.” (Photo: Benoît LeBlanc)

Why do you think that the Creole music legacy continues to generate such a devoted following?

Creole music, if we are talking about Louisiana Afro-Creole music, has many roots. It was created by people who suffered and that is always a driving force. What is so wonderful and so rich about Creole music is that first of all Louisiana was and probably still is the most africanised state in the USA. And for a long time it was very Latin, the French and Spanish cultures still have deep roots there. The French and Spanish (Louisiana was Spanish from 1762 till 1800) catholic mentality, but also the laws (the Black Code for instance) allowed the slaves to play their music, speak their language and even practice their religion. This did not exist in the rest of the USA. The slaves in other states could not play (maybe in secret) their music, and they were forced to learn the white protestant hymns; hat is how Negro Spiritual were born. In Louisiana, the Free People of color (they all spoke French and probably Creole, too) played European music. Many of the Creole pioneers of jazz, including Jelly Roll Morton, learned to play music at L'Opéra Français in New Orleans. They could read music and make arrangements. You can add the French parade tradition with the brass bands. Also some slaves found a way to enter the Opera and hear operas. Meanwhile the slaves - Congo Square stopped its activities around 1850 - played rhythms that came directly from West Africa. So that '' african pulse'' never died. Most of the slaves in the 18th century were from the Bambara culture, their music was bardic, melismatic. Later on came the Kongo slaves whose music was VERY rhythmic, the Kongo had an immense influence on Black music everywhere they went. Latin music from Mexico, close by, and Cuba (until the Bay of Pigs crisis ships came in New Orleans with Cuban records) was also very present. It's hard to tell what was the influence of the Natives. I hear it in the singing. If you listen to Cajun singer/fiddler Dennis McGee sing I hear a Native influence. As for the Blues influence, I remember reading from two different sources, Creole musicians saying that ''you don't learn the Blues, it's a feeling, it's something you have in you''. Playing the Blues was not about form but feeling. 

So the ''African pulse'' being very alive in an environment that was very rich culturally, varied and more tolerant than other places, all these put together has created something strong and unique, and might explain why there is a following.

“So again, music can affect people in a good way and can break down social and racial barriers but... what I see is the mainstream media is going down, mainstream media is like frozen in time, it's like Hollywood movies, there is nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing daring So more and more people choose social media and alternative/independent (information) media.” (Photo: Benoît LeBlanc)

What were the reasons that made NOLA to be the center of music researchers and experiments?

I guess I partly answered that question already. I can add this. Jazz was born from the meeting (some would say clash) of two cultures, the Uptown African ex-slaves, poor, protestant, apparently anglicised, they called them the ''ratty people'', and the Downtown (French Quarter and around that area) Creole (ex Free People of color) who had education, spoke French and Creole, could read music, etc. These two communities didn't like each other to put it lightly. But it seems to me that the meeting/clash of these two groups was a very dynamic, fertile, inventive event/ experience/ phenomenon, and it is possible that some of that is still alive in NO. A thought. 

In Louisiana, no matter what your origin is, there is a feeling of pride, of belonging. Before Katrina most Louisianans, I was told, did not like to move to other states; they love their home. The food is by far superior, they know how to have fun.

They have a sense of History and, of course, cultural and musical traditions play an important role in tourism. They know they have something special, and they want to nourish it. And, anyways, if you go to Louisiana, NO or Cajun Country (south west), there are musicians everywhere. Music is in their genetic code. Belgian writer/poet Robert Goffin wrote in his book Histoire du jazz that New Orleans was a musical Athens. 

What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?

A few weeks ago I was at the Folk Alliance Conference. There were hundreds of musicians there. I would say that the music of the past is very much alive today. What I miss are the venues. I jam once a month with musicians in this Café, we play mostly Cajun music (blues musician Michael Jerome Browne, whom you might know, is often with us). Hardly anybody listens... Montréal is a very big city, yet not many venues exist that offer live music. So what is missing the most in this world is ''live'' anything. In the subway and on the bus 90% of the people are glued to their Iphone, there are hardly any contacts between people. I was in Australia in 1987 and I was surprised to see live musicians everywhere, even in shopping centers. It felt like the 1960s-70s. Music is an ingredient that gets people together, unites them. There is less and less of that. There is nothing wrong with raves with a DJ and all that, cool if that is the way they want to to get high, But are they really celebrating? This reminds me of something Keith Richards once said. What he did when performing he would spot a girl dancing and he would play for her (Jumping Jack Flash!).

Celebration, osmosis, fusion, sharing. We are drifting away from that. Maybe I'm wrong but I have this feeling that the world is ready for a change, a new wave and it's going to come from real people, modest people who play live music, if you see what I mean. Not rich nerds who spend their days ''inventing'' music with AI. If I remember well, Charlie Gillett in his book The Sound of The City wrote that the renewal of popular music did not come from big cities like New York but smaller places, or poor districts. The Beatles did not come from a bourgeois neighborhood in London. So my hope is that collective celebration makes a significant comeback. What I feared is already here, Lennon's song Isolation says it all.

“I have dreamed for decades to find a time machine and go to Congo Square somewhere around 1820 and listen and dance to the music of the Africans, hear them play Patat-la kwit, Dansé Kalinda, Dansé Kodainn... say hello to Marie Laveau, walk around the Square, buy some goodies and end the day eating gumbo by Bayou Saint John with a sweet Creole lady. ” (Photo: Benoît LeBlanc)

What is the impact of music on the racial and socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?

I really don't know. People spend LOADS of time on their computer or Iphone. They live in a virtual world and it is easy to be cool in a virtual world. It is easy to post something self righteous on FaceBook but how is it in real life? I don't know. Thirty years ago I worked (as a volunteer) in a community radio, I had a show on Cajun and Creole music. There were radio hosts and producers of different origins and we were all friends, we got along well, we had fun. Of course music played an important role in getting us close. But I noticed that ''out there'' in real life it was different. People were not as open minded as the ones I met at the radio station. So again, music can affect people in a good way and can break down social and racial barriers but... what I see is the mainstream media is going down, mainstream media is like frozen in time, it's like Hollywood movies, there is nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing daring So more and more people choose social media and alternative/independent (information) media. Some of these new media offer very interesting things, from alternative medicine to spirituality, music that you never hear on commercial radio, amazing documentaries, and so on. It's all changing in a complex way. These new media open doors to new kinds of music. What real impact will it have? I don't know. I'm optimistic.

Are there any similarities between the genres of various local folk and traditional music from the Caribbean area and the Afro-American Roots music?

Well, if there is one difference between Afro-American Roots music and the music from the Caribbean is that it is rare that you will find in the Caribbean the heaviness found in the American Blues. I find it interesting what semanticist S.I. Hayakawa (quoted in Sheila Davis' book The Craft of Lyric Writing, has to say: ''(...) the lyrics of blues songs exhibit a tough-mindness... and a willingness to accept change and acknowledge the facts of life...''. I will add to that what Alyn Shipton says in A New History of Jazz : ''The song (the Creole song Missié d'Artaguette) commemorates a notion of an ideal world still run by the French commandant Monsieur d'Artaguette (...). In other words, Creole, French-speaking, African Americans were expressing nostalgic regret for the paternalistic colonial regime of France.'' Creole songs were sarcastic, satirical, or they celebrated love, or expressed sadness; they were uplifting, there wasn't that heaviness found in the Blues. It was the same in the Caribbean, satirical songs were common in Martinique, Guadeloupe and Haiti (then Saint-Domingue). No matter the topic, the songs had rhythms that were uplifting. For some reason, the anglo-american culture seems to have transmitted something heavy to the slaves that you will rarely hear in other parts of the three Americas. 

In the 19th century some songs like Pov pit Mazèl Zizi, Lizèt to kité laplènn, Aurore Bradère, Rémon, maybe Pou la bèl Layot, were heard in the Caribbean, mostly Haiti. According to Don Rouse (Potomac River Jazz Club) there are many similarities between many Creole songs from the French Caribbean and early jazz songs, in the melody but also the beat. Some musicologists have found similarities between the trombone playing of Creole jazzman Kid Ory and trombonists in Martinique, especially in the music of Stellio and Delouche. It is not a coincidence that the French jazz band Les Haricots rouges, specialised in New Orleans jazz, has recorded an album of Martinique music called Les Antilles. It is also said that there are some similarities between the clarinet playing of Creole musicians such as Sidney Bechet and clarinetists from Martinique. By the way Bechet made a record with a Haitian orchestra. 

”In any case my view of the world changed because I felt and saw that there was another dimension to life, what we call it the manifested world.”

(Photo: Benoît LeBlanc)

Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really want to go for a whole day?

That's easy to answer. I have dreamed for decades to find a time machine and go to Congo Square somewhere around 1820 and listen and dance to the music of the Africans, hear them play Patat-la kwit, Dansé Kalinda, Dansé Kodainn... say hello to Marie Laveau, walk around the Square, buy some goodies and end the day eating gumbo by Bayou Saint John with a sweet Creole lady. 

And for lagniappe (Louisiana French for a little extra) you might find this interesting: In his book The New History of Jazz Alyn Shipton says that the word jazz was not used by the musicians in New Orleans in the early years but... Jazz historians usually say that New Orleans musicians didn't know that in the North their music was called jazz. Yet... In his 1994 article, The Nineteenth–Century Origins of Jazz, Lawrence Gushee writes: In his studies of the creole patois and idiom in New Orleans Lafcadio Hearn reported that the word "jaz," meaning to speed things up, to make excitement, was common among the blacks of the South and had been adopted by the Creoles as a term to be applied to music of a rudimentary syncopated type.

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