Regis Gizavo in Concert with David Mirandon

The Enchanter and the Squeezebox
Regis Gizavo in Concert with David Mirandon, May 2, 2007, Pune.

Lying on the east coast of Africa, the island of Madagascar is a unique place, as it has a rare ecology characterized by several species of flora and fauna, including the lemur and a variety of baobab trees. On Wednesday evening, I saw yet another unique aspect of Madagascar; the squeezebox or accordion playing of Regis Gizavo.

Regis Gizavo was born in Tulear on the west coast of Madagascar, nearly 40 summers ago. Madagascar was invaded by the French in the late 19-century who then established dominion until 1960, after which Madagascar became independent. The British had been there before the French, and the Portuguese, even earlier. The colonizers brought with them greed, rapine, and also music in the form of European hymns and instruments. The accordion was supposedly invented in 19-century Germany, and then introduced into Europe, the New World, and the African colonies by European immigrants. The Diatonic accordion incorporated itself into Malagasy music and was adapted by local musicians for their purposes.

Regis grew up playing on borrowed diatonic accordions, but his father a strict schoolteacher, thought that his son would end up a good for nothing, and promptly took action by smashing the accordions that he found in the house. That could not stop Regis playing however, and he soon achieved a local reputation as an accordion player. Ten years ago he came to France, where he won a music prize, which gave him the money to buy his own accordion. Regis currently plays a 120 button chromatic accordion.

The music of Regis is influenced by all that he has heard; he cannot read a single note of music. The people of Malagasy have a special relationship with their dead ancestors, and spirit trances, and spirit possessions are very common.

The sound of the diatonic accordion is an essential part of such spirit rituals and is used to induce trance like states. This usage has led to the huffing, panting style of accordion playing with its twisting and whirling melodies. Regis is a master of this style, and has also assimilated influences ranging from chanson music in France – a classical lyric driven style exemplified by singers Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel, to jazz and blues from New Orleans.

The concert embodied all these and more that evening. Regis opened with “Ho Anareo”, a song for the people he left behind in Madagascar as he traveled far to earn a living. The moment he started playing, you knew that this was the son that stirred your blood; linked as it was to the cadences of a particular land, its people, and their daily lives. As his right hand spun out the melody and accompaniment, his left hand was doing stupendous things, fermenting flowing bass lines that cascaded along the melody in quick time. This was the primal sound for which a decade ago, Ry Cooder had journeyed to Cuba and found the music flowing like a river in the songs of Ibrahim Ferrer and the piano playing of Rubin Gonsalves; the sound that is closest to Earth, Life, and Living.

Regis played songs of love, longing, and loss, of good luck and bad luck, of desolation and loneliness, of homes being created and abandoned, of the very triumphs and disasters of the human spirit. David Mirandon harmonized with him on drums and congas, his sound giving just the right gloss to Regis’s singing and playing.

From the Fruit to the Root – so said Drew Bundini Brown, and Regis music epitomized it. Ultimately all music draws its sustenance from people, community, their lives, and their interactions. Ultimately all music must flow back to its source, from whence it came, to renew and recreate the cycle of genesis, that is manifested in the cosmogony of all cultures. It is very easy to look one’s nose down at “folk” music, as “primitive” and “unsophisticated”; as lacking in abstraction and intellectual aspirations; as paying too much attention to the Body and its sensual demands. Regis sang and played his heart out and his incandescent music was the morning of all creation. In the silence that followed, the soul remembered what it had once known.

Ironically, when I met Regis after the show, he told me how glad he was to be in India and that he wanted to come back again as fast as possible, because here in this country was that Source, that Garden of Eden that all musicians seek.