The ven­er­a­ble René Lacaille

There is a Mau­rit­ian restau­rant in Toron­to (there used to be two). Can you pic­ture Mau­rit­ian food? Prob­a­bly not. Few places sound more exot­ic and out-of-the-way. But Mau­ri­tius was a key point on the sea lanes of the British Empire. A for­mer British colony with a pop­u­la­tion speak­ing a French patois, but descend­ed from South Asians, Africans, Por­tuguese, Dutch, Arabs, and what­ever else wan­dered by, Mau­ri­tius pro­vides a sophis­ti­cated, cos­mopoli­tan cui­sine. Very tasty. Much the same can be said of the music.

But there is not just Mau­rit­ian music to lis­ten to. There is Réu­nion, an over­seas départe­ment of France, set­tled by Africans, Chi­nese, Malays, and Tamils. There are the Islam­ic Comoros, and the close­ly relat­ed French pos­ses­sion of May­otte. There is the Repub­lic of the Sey­chelles, large­ly Catholic, though for­merly a British colony, and the most indebt­ed coun­try, per capi­ta, in the world. There is tiny Rodrigues. And final­ly, there is the huge and pop­u­lous island of Mada­gas­car, whose cul­ture and lan­guage come orig­i­nally from Bor­neo, half-way around the world from them. The diver­sity of the nations at the west­ern end of the Indi­an Ocean pro­duces a delight­ful vari­ety of music. The per­form­ers in this col­lec­tion include Tari­ka, Feo-Gasy, Ricky Randim­biari­son, Jean-Noël, and Lego from Mada­gas­car; Denis Azor, and Kaya from Mau­ri­tius; Danyel Ward, Françoise Guim­bert, Baster, Tam-Tam Des Cools from Réu­nion; Kaskav­el from Rodrigues; M’Toro Chamou er les Watoro from May­otte; Belle Lumière from Comoros; Sey­chelles String Band and Sey­chelles All Stars; and even a band from Zanz­ibar (Cul­ture Music Club), which is part of Tan­zanyia, but an off­shore island. But if there is any­one who could be called a big star, it is René Lacaille, the mas­ter of the spicy séga rhythms of Réu­nion, here per­form­ing with Amer­i­can gui­tarist Bob Broz­man. Lacaille is well known in the French music scene, and has suc­cess­fully toured here in Canada.

Rough Guide com­pi­la­tions are always well cho­sen. It is unlike­ly that you will come across most of the this mate­r­ial, even in a well-stocked “world music” store. The music is most­ly upbeat and dance­able. After Lacaille, I was most drawn to the Mala­gasy musi­cians, espe­cially Feo-Gasy, but it would be hard to choose favourites. All the bands are good.