Customer Reviews

Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just had the opportunity to see this documentary at a local independent theater. I thought "Banjos and Africa? Random! But could be fun..." I was so so so underestimating the power of this film! The music is nothing short of tremendous (one piece in particular, in the first quarter of the film, is virtually guaranteed to leave you breathless and astounded), Incredible, passionate voices and remarkable instruments combine to form sounds that will grab your soul and shake it.

Bela is fun to watch as he interacts with African musicians of various calibers. I love how unassuming he is, and how he speaks (as one of the African musicians points out) perfectly through his music, although his mouth sometimes fails him. What a remarkably talented and humble guy!

All in all, 5 stars +++. I went home and bought the MP3 album immediately, and can't wait to buy the DVD. :)

wow, i JUST came back from watching this at an indie theater in chicago. LOVE IT! bela is an african brother! western media only portrays africa in terms of despair, destruction, disaster, disease and destitution.

Bela shows the joy of African music and how music is truly universal. it may sound cheesy, but it's a wonderful documentary. the cinematography is beautiful as well. bela meets with fabulous people. this doc. is so rich and uplifting. bela is truly a gift and using his talent to do more than what most of today's pop singers don't have the guts/skills to do.

Mother Africa is the cradle of our species. She has also given birth to so much of our music that we sometimes lose our ear for its origins. "I thought it was important for people to realize where the banjo comes from because it is so much associated with a white Southern stereotype," says Bela Fleck, the world's primo virtuoso of this instrument. In "Throw Down Your Heart", he documents his six-week sojourn to Africa to discover whether the modern banjo still has a vibrant voice in the land where it was born.
The banjo is a descendant of an instrument that African slaves brought to the New World in the 16th century. It sat in the laps of musicians in cane and cotton fields, in plantation shacks and sheds, atop the levees and bales of raw goods that stood along the rivers that brought the blues to the bustling gulf ports.
By the early 19th century, the banjo was an essential element in plantation cakewalks and white minstrelsy. It accompanied sailors in their sea chanteys and traveled west with hopeful miners toward the Gold Rush. After the Civil War, the presentation banjo was adopted as a parlor instrument alongside the player piano. In the early 20th century, it sang in the ragtime orchestra and the Dixieland band. By the 1930s, the banjo had disappeared from the jazz ensemble, though it continued to flourish in folk music and in the jigs and reels of barn dances in the Appalachian states that reached a national audience through radio broadcasts. In the mid-1940s, the banjo burst forth as an instrument of arresting brilliance when it was featured in bluegrass music.
In the four countries on his itinerary, Bela Fleck steers clear of big cities and large venues. He, along with sound engineer Dave Sinko and director Sascha Paladino's filmmaking crew, head for the bush and the villages "to play with great African musicians and find a role for the banjo in their music."
In each of the stops, Bela connects with a musician to serve as host and translator and to introduce the party to locals and their particular instruments and tradition. He emphasizes that he has no wish to be front and center among the players, but prefers to take a seat on the backbench. In every group setting, he adds his banjo's voice as if he were politely joining a conversation already in progress.
The first destination is Uganda. The filmmakers stage a boisterous audition in Jinja to recruit musicians familiar with the local music. From there, the party travels to the village of Nakisenyi. In nearby Lwanika, Bela meets his first guide, Walusimbi Haruna, a professional musician whose specialty is the thumb piano. "Music is in every aspect of life," Haruna explains. The visit includes a stop at the grave of Haruna's late father, where burial customs in Africa and America are compared. In a touching moment, Bela is visibly caught off guard when Haruna is overcome with grief as they play a song about his father.
The thumb piano is culturally regarded as a man's instrument, but Jinja's prodigy, it turns out, is Ruth Akello, a woman who sings like an angel and plays like a "wizard." Nakisenyi possesses an enormous marimba, a communal instrument played by many people at once that sounds "like a rock band."
The filmmakers depart Nakisenyi with sadness. Dabbing at tears, Bela notes, "I felt truly welcomed."
The second destination gives the film its name. "Bagamoyo", in Tanzania, means "throw down your heart." Bagamoyo was a seaside collection point for the transport of slaves. Unfortunate captives knew that when they glimpsed the sea they should throw down their hearts because they would never see their homes again.
The Tanzanian guide is John Kitime. Bela had hoped he might meet Hukwe Zawose, the legend of traditional Gogo music, but is disappointed to learn that Zawose had died a few years earlier. He is delighted to find blind vocalist and thumb pianist Anania Ngoliga alive and well. The two compose and record seamless inventions from their very first session.
At a brief stopover in Dar Es Salaam, Bela becomes acquainted with determinedly tribal young Masai, who are pleased to demonstrate their traditional forms of dance.
The travelers cross the continent for their third destination, the Gambia, believed to the birthplace of the banjo. Sniffing the Gambian air, Bela quips, "I can smell banjo."
Jil Ekona Jatta is the Gambian guide. He introduces Bela to the akonting, a 3-string banjo ancestor. We see an akonting constructed as American banjos had been until the early 1800s: an animal skin is nailed to a hollowed calabash with a shaved hardwood pole run through it. After several days of drying in the sun, a carved bridge is glued to the head and strings of gut or hemp fiber are attached.
"It felt really natural playing with the musicians in Gambia," Bela reports. "It felt like the banjo was supposed to be there."
The fourth and final stop is Bamako, Mali, the "crown jewel of the African music community." The hostess is Oumou Sangare, the great "songbird" of Mali's Wassulu music, who owns the hotel the filmmakers enjoy during their stay and who moves among adoring crowds with the regal grace of one born to the purple.
Bassekou Kouyate, the town griot ("keeper of customs") introduces Bela to guitar hero Djelimady Tounkara and Kamal ngoni master Harouna Samake.
As we listen to the handcrafted lutes, harps, flutes, whistles, shakers, and drums of contemporary Africans, we are hearing instruments designed to perpetuate continuity with the ancestral past as well as the throbbing heart of the present. Some of this very music comforted the enslaved people dragged away to the Americas.
Music of all cultures in every age evokes exuberance and despondency, celebration and rapture, discovery and contemplation. The modern banjo evolved to express the musical forms of our European-derived Western tradition with its machined instruments and tempered tuning systems. Does the banjo have a role in African music? Of course it does because the voice belongs to the player not the instrument. "I just want to make great music," says Bela Fleck, a man of endless imagination and expansive heart. His banjo voice is and always has been sublime. In every setting it is truly welcomed.

I first heard about this film from a friend in the music industry. I went to a private screening in Beverly HIlls, as I heard that Bela Fleck would be present, and I was anxious to re-connect with him. I had supervised the music for THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES MOVIE, and i had hired Bela to record the theme song in the early 90's. The film took me by total surprise. This documentary follows Bela as he traces the roots of the banjo through various African countries. From the first encounter I was riveted. I have always been a huge fan of African music, much more so than traditional American banjo music. The initial clash, and then blending of the two musical worlds has created one of the most intriguing soundtracks of recent memory. As the unlikely white boy musician arrives with his peculiar instrument in remote villages to meet local musicians, the magic begins and they discover and respect each others' unique talents. I purchased the soundtrack CD before leaving the theatre. I have told many friends about the importance of this picture, and with total agreement from all of them. When I learned the DVD was finally available, i rushed to purchase it. However it has now become the property of my 15 year old daughter, who became enchanted with the music months ago from the CD. This music constantly is playing in our home or car, and we've yet to tire of it. I give this film my highest rating! Enjoy!

In every sense of the word, this DVD spanned time, space, cultures and generations.
Loved the cinematographer's indulgence of focusing on the African children whenever possible.
Would make a joyous gift for families of any configuration to enjoy together.
It's sheer music -- with little explaining -- except in momentary insights, such as the horrific history behind its eponymous title.
It's golden!

We very much enjoyed this movie. We were not acquainted with Bela Fleck before, but we have lived in Africa for many years and we love authentic African music (not the big city beer hall music, but village music). It was exciting to see several instruments we had never seen before. Bela Fleck was received in the villages with true African hospitality and so obviously enjoyed "jamming" with musicians with whom he had no common language! He showed real respect for them, learned from them, and shared with them his love of music. We purchased several copies of the movie to share with friends.

Bela Fleck's journey to Africa is nominally about "finding the roots of the banjo." In reality Fleck's journey became an iconic odyssey into his own identity as a musician. As Fleck travels from one village to another, encountering splendid African musicians, you get a glimpse of the sheer power of the universal language that we call music. Sascha Paladino, Fleck's brother and the film's director, has an amazing ability to capture the subtle interactions between the musicians, even when they did not speak the same verbal language. The production team did a hero's work--usually in very primitive circumstances--capturing the unique sound of some amazing African instruments. For its humor, its musicality and its sheer humanity -- do not miss this film.

I liked the African music a lot. I'm a banjo player, and have recently become very interested in the African roots of an instrument. So I grabbed this as soon as I saw it on the shelf at my local movie rental place.

The film is very simple; just Bela interacting with other musicians and singers. His somewhat quiet but affable manner fits nicely with his hosts - he doesn't come across as some fancy rock star at all and really lets the African musicians shine. And it's those African musicians who really do make the film so special. I was touched by the woman marimba player: they said that "typically the marimba was a male instrument - but that woman is a wizard!"

My one (major) complaint is that there wasn't very much *information* in the film. The meaning of the phrase "Throw Down Your Heart" was moving, but there was little else. For instance, when in Gambia and showing the instruments being played, it would have been very nice to point out that the musicians were playing in the 'clawhammer' style - a style used in Southern US old-time music (the strings are played with the backs of the fingernails), demonstrating nicely that both the instrument and the way it is played have their roots among the African slaves. I also would have a liked a little more info about the instruments themselves, their history and the variety of ways to play them.

I think Bela's primary interest was simply to *play* the banjo with his African friends, and the film shows that very well.

Having seen Bela Fleck perform last July with Oumou Sangare (and having listened to the music from the documentary 'Throw Down Your Heart' for months), I knew I was going to love the documentary film. Even so, the footage of Fleck's musical encounters with African musicians in 4 countries was so delightful- the joy of these playful, loving moments as people from diverse cultures communicate with sound, not words- that I look forward to watching the film again, and to share it with friends.

Quite simply- this film is the most beautiful, joyful and heart-opening film I can remember. Hard to recommend anything more highly.

I rented this DVD on Netflix after seeing Bela Fleck play with Toumani Diabate at Oakland's Yoshi's night club; it was an awesome show and the DVD doesn't disappoint. A close musician friend thought Bela was 'too cerebral', but I think the show changed his mind.

About this DVD: Bela seems a bit eager to please in the main part of the film, but as it grows on you, there is an emerging and distinct sense of his enchantment and love in this adventure. The specials are tight, fun, and wide-ranging in style - all done with a genuine presence of spirit, a good dose of humility, and humor.

A long-time guitarist, I had been inspired by Pete Seeger over the (many) years, and particularly on the advent of his 90th birthday, but this movie made me buy a banjo :-)

I'm buying the DVD and maybe the CD to boot!