ASA joins Quincy Jones & other musical greats - Samod Biobaku writes

Asa joins Fela, Quincy Jones & other musical greats

· As she performs at Montreux Jazz Festival

By Samod Biobaku

Sixthsense34@yahoo.com

Last week, Nigeria’s premier Jazz and Soul export, Asa (born Bukola Elemide) joined an exclusive league of musical greats, as she performed at the 44th edition of the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival.

Since renowned Swiss Claude Nobs founded the event, it has become an annual gathering place for lovers of jazz from all over the world.

Legends such as Quincy Jones, James Brown, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Earth, Wind & Fire, Wu Tang Clan and Nigerian legend Fela Kuti have all performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

“All the musical greats have been at Montreux,” Asa says, revealing that she has followed the festival closely and collected and studied videos from previous editions. “It’s exciting to join the list. This is huge!” she said.

This year’s edition of the annual event held from 1 – 16 July. Apart from being one of the few Nigerians to have performed on the platform of the Montreux Jazz Festival, Asa was also one of the youngest this year, alongside Grammy award-winning jazz bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding and others.

However of all the young artistes, it was Asa who was selected to perform alongside Seal at the most prominent venue of the festival, the Stravinsky Hall.

Videos from the show, distributed by Eagle Vision, will be made available to the public in the future.

Asa has been touring the world since January – as has become an annual tradition with her, booked for big cities and small towns across Europe. “Asa was not one to publicise her tours previously as it’s a given for any serious artiste,” a representative said. “But fans have complained about short notice, and so here we are!”

In January she held fort in Montréal, Paris, Marseille and Cannes, moving to Zurich, Lausanne, Milan, Barcelona, Madrid and Berlin in February. In the following months, Asa performed in Australia (Womad Festival), Belgium (Festival les Nuits du Botanique), the United Kingdom (Indigo) and Canada (Festival d’Eté) among others.

Straight from the Montreux Jazz Festival this July, Asa will be in Aix Les Bains, La Rochelle and Nimes in France, as well as Wiltshire in the UK.

The singer has also released her global tour dates for the rest of the year 2011. We’ll keep you posted next week.

Born Bukola Elemide, Aṣa was born in Paris, France to Nigerian parents. She was two years old when her family returned to live in Nigeria. Aṣa grew up in Lagos, in the south-western part of Nigeria.