We talked with Joel Laviolette of Rattletree about his latest musical project, a Zimbabwean style marimba band based out of Austin, Texas.

AUSTIN DAZE: Tell me where the idea came from to bring African Music to Austin.

JOEL L: I’ve played Zimbabwean music for about 15 years now. I discovered this music when I was going to jazz guitar school in Denton—I was a jazz guitar major. Then I discovered Thomas Mapfumo and the Zimbabwean stuff and I started to learn that and the mbira—which is the traditional Zimbabwean instrument. I met a guy in New Mexico who played the mbira and I dropped out of school and moved to New Mexico and joined a band there, Jaka. We played for several years together and toured and all that kind of stuff—this was in Santa Fe. This whole time I had been traveling around the country studying the imbira (for about 8 years) from whoever I could. I finally tapped that well of mbira players in America and realized I needed to go to Zimbabwe. I was also doing field and studio recordings of different types of Zimbabwean music and I came back to New Mexico and started a non profit record company called Mhumhi Records. I have the twelve recordings that I made in Zimbabwe and the money that I made from those recordings go back to musicians in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. When the music scene in Albuquerque dried up I came to Austin one day to visit a friend and instantly, that weekend, found a job, found a capoeira group that I could play with and met a woman. It was all just, “Austin is the place to be.” So I packed up and moved to Austin and because I moved here the music came. It wasn’t a plan other than that’s just what I do. Read the rest of this entry »