7/31/2019 ILUYENKORI and Roger Fixy, By Aviva Vogel Gabriel, March 14, 2009

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ILUYENKORI, written by Aviva Gabriel, posted on March 14, 2009 to two websites, Last.fm andSoundunwound.com

Iluyenkori was co-founded in 1987 by French percussionist Roger Fixy and French singer-dancer-actress Daniela Giacone. Their mission was to perform sacred Afro-Cuban cantos ytoques a los orishas, the music of Cuban Lucumi(also called Santeria, orRegla de Ocha).Iluyenkori collaborated with an internationally-diverse group of musicians to release threealbums between 1992 and 1999.Although there was significant turnover of its members,Iluyenkori always retained an international character, with musicians born and raised in variousEuropean and South American countries, including Italy, France, Argentina, and French overseasregion Runion. The death of Roger Fixy in September 2008 marked the end of the group, althoughan offshoot, Alafia, continues to perform secular Cuban music in Paris.

Iluyenkori performed sacred, ritualistic Afro-Cuban chants and rhythms. The new groups name wasreputedly inspired (in part) by one of Havanas early rumba orchestras. However, the largerinspiration, according to Iluyenkoris web page, was derived from the Cuban dialect of AfricanYoruba used by devotees of the Lucumi religion; ilu means drum, yen means dance, and korimeans song. Lucumis rituals and ceremonies depend on the interplay among drum, dance, andsong as a mode for communicating with the orishas, or deities, and the name evokes that interplay.

The toques (rhythmic songs directed at specific orishas) are played on the bata, which aredouble-headed, hourglass-shaped drums. The three different sizes of bata drums each play aunique role in the Yoruba-based Lucumi ceremony, and must be played as an interactive ensembleof three.

The basic, stabilizing rhythm of any given toque is played on the smallest of the bata, theonkonkolo. The middle-sized drum, or itotele, also plays complementary foundational rhythms,but has some freedom to enter into circumscribed but improvisational conversations with thelargest bata, the iya. As lead drum, the iya has considerable freedom to improvise (within thestructure of the liturgical arrangement), and to induce conversational responses from the itotele(and sometimes the onkonkolo), thus orchestrating a complex call-and-response rhythmicarrangement which is intended to attract attention from the orishas so that they will come down andmount the devotees.

According to the blog Echu Aye: Yoruba Music of Cuba, Roger Fixy was born in the small villageof Marigot, Martinique. He later moved to France to create what was to be the first French groupperforming folkloric Afro-Cuban music.

Roger Fixy had initially encountered the bata in 1975 during a performance by percussionist BillSummers, at that time a member of jazz pianist Herbie Hancocks ensemble. In 1984, Fixy traveledto Cuba to pursue his interest in the bata, and finally stumbled upon a rehearsal by a group ofbataleros and other musicians playing Afro-Cuban music in a suite at his hotel. This afforded Fixythe opportunity to meet and study with several professional percussionists who had mastered Afro-Cuban rhythms.

During his five return trips to Cuba, Roger Fixy continued his bata studies with Alberto

Vilarreal, Alexandro Publ, Daniel Alfonso, Pancho Quinto, Ernesto Gatell, Romn Daz,Sandi Garca Prez, Jess Alfonso, Mario "Aspirina" Juregui, and the renownedChanguito (Jos Luis Quintana).

Roger Fixy, passionate about the sacred rhythms of Cuba, was forced to work in something of avacuum as he attempted to create the first folkloric Afro-Cuban ensemble in France. In 1987, noneof the central Afro-Cuban sacred music groups had recordings available in Fixys country. Withoutbeing able to refer for authenticity to recordings of top-tier, folkloric groups such as Clave yGuaguanc, Yoruba Andab, and the Conjunto Folklrico Nacional, Roger Fixy had to rely on hisintensive studies in Cuba, and forged ahead with his own recordings and performances.

7/31/2019 ILUYENKORI and Roger Fixy, By Aviva Vogel Gabriel, March 14, 2009

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In 1992, Roger Fixy became a fully consecrated omo-a, or olubata, officially able to play inSanteria ceremonies, and was honored with a set of fundamento (anointed) bata that weremade in 1954 in Cuba. One of the bata is named Airakr and is dedicated to the orishaShango, Yoruban god of thunder. Having achieved this honorable status, Roger was able torecord sacred Lucumi music with Iluyenkori, which released their first album in 1993. During thisdecade, Roger became known as the Ambassador to France of sacred Afro-Cuban music fromMatanzas, Cuba.

Before his death in 2008 at the age of 56, Roger Fixy had succeeded in facilitating much-needed information flows between France and Cuba regarding the complex liturgical batarepertoire, thus paving the way for todays second-generation musicians performing thisAfro-Cuban music in France.

CITATIONS:1. Iluyenkori: http://www.iluyenkori.com/, accessed March 14, 2009.2. Echu Aye: Yoruba Music of Cuba (blog): http://echuaye.blogspot.com/2008/09/disparition-de-roger-fixy.html, accessed March 14, 2008.3. Ritmacuba, by Daniel Chatelain: http://picasaweb.google.com/ritmacuba,accessed March 14,

2009.3. National Geographic (NAT GEO MUSIC):http://worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com/worldmusic/view/page.basic/artist/content.artist/iluyenkori

_45977, accessed March 14, 2009.

WRITTEN by Aviva Vogel Gabriel, Norwich VT, March 14, 2009

POSTED March 14, 2009 to Soundunwound.comhttp://www.soundunwound.com/sp/contributor/view/Iluyenkori?contributorId=13342553&ref=AMDP

POSTED March 14, 2009 to Last.fmhttp://www.last.fm/music/Iluyenkori