Spirited Away | MontereyCountyWeekly.

com 2/19/11 2:42 PM

Second Neville: Armed with his saxophone and partnered with a Senegalese kora player, Charles Neville
constantly evolves his craft.

Spirited Away
Charles Neville takes an atypical music duo to Big Sur Spirit Garden.
By Adam Joseph

Thursday, November 11, 2010

For 72 years – which have included bouts with heroin addiction, stints in prison and racism – music
always has remained the one constant lifeline for Charles Neville.

“It’s one of the main things that makes my life important,” the saxophonist says. “Music is a great gift
that I get to share with other people.”

Neville, who plays with Youssoupha Sidibe at the Big Sur Spirit Garden on Monday night, has shared
his musical gift with the world for decades in many different manifestations, most famously with his
three brothers in the New Orleans blues and funk outfit the Neville Brothers.

For Charles, the second oldest Neville brother, music is a perpetual exploration into every genre. And
there has never been a type of music that the 72-year-old hasn’t immersed himself in.

Most recently Neville hooked up with Sidibe – a Senegalese West African kora player who’s recorded
with everyone from Matisyahu and Michael Franti to Be´la Fleck and the Flecktones and Michael Kang
of String Cheese Incident – in Huntington, Mass., where both musicians reside.

The 21-stringed harp lute, or kora, yields a pleasant sound that can best be described as a mix between a
traditional orchestral harp and a flamenco-style guitar.

“[Sidibe] asked me if I’d be interested in experimenting with what he did,” Neville says. “I thought it

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Spirited Away | MontereyCountyWeekly.com 2/19/11 2:42 PM

was a great idea so we got together a few times, felt each other out and tried to figure out how to make
something really compatible.”

The culmination of those sessions was Tree of Life, an intimate and dreamy instrumental savannah
guided by only a saxophone and kora. Sidibe had already written all the tracks on the album, so Neville’s
challenge was introducing his Western instrument to a soundscape of traditional West African music.

“I’ve played with harps, cellos and bassoons in full orchestras and I’ve played with Haitian and Cuban
musicians and jazz and blues musicians,” says Neville. “For me, this was just about trying to blend with
another instrument and I realized that long tones on the saxophone complemented the kora.”

The duo has not one note of music written down on paper, which results in heavy improvisation during
its live shows, something very familiar to Neville.

“That’s the way music is approached in New Orleans,” he says. “There’s always a basic structure to the
songs but each musician brings his own thing.”

Neville, who grew up on Valence Street in New Orleans, says he carries that spontaneity into every
musical project he’s ever been involved in, from Carlos Santana and the Grateful Dead to B.B. King and
notable Cuban session musicians.

“The improvisation approach allows me to fit in with any other musician,” he says.

And that’s probably why the unlikely marriage between the kora and saxophone seems to work so well.
It may also have to do with the fact that Neville has no fear when armed with his shiny woodwind.

“Music is my life,” he says. “It’s what I do. It allows me to express what my spirit is all about.”

CHARLES NEVILLE and YOUSSOUPHA SIDIBE play 8pm Monday, Nov. 15, at
Big Sur Spirit Garden, 47540 Highway 1, Big Sur. $20. 667-1300.
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