Boma Bango
- Global
- Jazz
Tickets will be on sale to the public 4/30 at noon. On sale to all Passim members 4/23 at noon. On sale to All Access Passim members 4/16 at noon.
All tickets have a $3 processing fee and a $2 preservation fee. The $3 processing fee is waived for tickets purchased at our box office.
Boma Bango
- Afro-Cuban
- Congolese Jazz
“It’s not hard to imagine an only slightly alternate world in which a brand of rumba took root and flourished in the heart of Acadiana, just as it did in Africa in the heart of the Congo” (offBeat, Steve Hochman, Sept 2021), which is indeed the world that Lafayette/New Orleans based Boma Bango has created. Boma Bango takes the hypnotic, reverb drenched, tremolo-ed electric guitar heavy music from the 1960s in the Congo and reimagines it as if it came out of some humid outdoor bar in Southwest Louisiana.
Boma Bango formed after Daniel Coolik became infatuated with 1950s and 1960s Congolese Rumba. A music originally influenced by Cuban records from the 1930s and 40s and infused with melodies and instruments from the Congo. The ensemble, by taking musical cues from Congolese luminaries as Franco Luambo Makiadi & le TPOK Jazz, L’Orchestra African Fiesta with Docteur Nico and Tabu Ley Rochereau, and Le Grand Kallé et l’African Jazz, has strived to create their own kind of improvisational music based upon the sounds from this golden age. Connecting with the Francophone ties of Congolese music and Louisiana French, they have been writing new songs in Louisiana French to further deepen their connection with the music and their local culture.
The band was started in 2018 and currently consists of a collective of musicians from Lafayette and New Orleans. The band is Daniel Coolik (electric guitar), Trey Boudreaux (bass), Megan Brown Constantin (vocals/percussion), Doug Garrison (drums), Cesar Bacaro (congas/percussion), Tim McFatter (saxophones) and is often augmented with Jafet Perez (drums/percussion), Aurora Nealand (saxophones), or Brad Webb (drums).
