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Nico, Rochereau, Roger & L'African Fiesta - Volume 1 (1962-1963)

Nico, Rochereau, Roger & L'African Fiesta - Volume 1 (1962-1963)

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Nico, Rochereau, Roger & L'African Fiesta - Volume 1 (1962-1963)

Frank Gunderson | Michael E. Veal

Music / Individual Composer & Musician

Nico, Rochereau, Roger & L'African Fiesta - Volume 1 (1962-1963) played a crucial role in developing the careers of Tabu Ley Rochereau and Docteur Nico, and more importantly, the genre of Congolese rhumba music.

The extraordinary Congolese musicians Nicolas Kasanda aka “Docteur” Nico (1939-1985), guitarist, together with Tabu Ley Pascal “Rochereau” (1937-2013), singer, songwriter, and bandleader, first worked together under “Le Grande Kallé” Joseph Kabasélé and what has been considered the first truly great Congolese orchestra, l'African Jazz. They are considered among the pioneers of Congolese rumba, a genre that originated during the 1940s and has been enormously influential worldwide.

The album Nico, Rochereau, Roger & L'African Fiesta - Volume 1 (1962-1963) also featuring Mwamba Charles “Dechaud” on rhythm guitar and Roger Iziedi on vocals, contains some of their first Vita Label studio singles, recorded after the musicians left l'African Jazz to form L'African Fiesta. Subsequently re-released on SonoDisc, this collection of songs (curated by Iziedi) represented a significant new direction for Congolese rumba as the literal soundtrack for the heady and hopeful years of post-Independence life for much of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Frank Gunderson is Professor of Ethnomusicology at Florida State University, USA. He served as editor (2018-2022) of the journal Ethnomusicology and has conducted extensive fieldwork in East Africa. He is the author of Sukuma Labor Songs from Western Tanzania (2019), which was the 2009-2011 winner of the Kwabena Nketia Book Award for best African music monograph, as well as The Legacy of Tanzanian Musicians Muhidin Gurumo and Hassan Bitchuka – Rhumba Kiserebuka! (2018). He co-edited with Robert Lancefield and Bret Woods The Oxford Handbook of Musical Repatriation (2019). His recent film Stories about Mlimani Park Orchestra is playing in film festivals worldwide.

Publication Date: 12 November 2026
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN-13: 9798765119723
Format: Paperback softback
Page Count: 216
Weight (oz): 8.48

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