POP MUSIC REVIEW : Senegalese Sensation N’Dour Rivets Audience With Rhythms

Oat bran and fish oil may be good for us, but leave it to the cigarette and beer companies to sponsor a great concert. For whatever motives, the products that require warning labels seem to have the monopoly on subsidizing (or, in the case of beer, suds -idizing) engaging, unique music.

Featuring Senegalese sensation Youssou N’Dour and Samite of Uganda, the debut offering Sunday evening of the Parliament Sound Series free performances at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre offered some of the most engaging, inspiring and dance-compelling world music ever to touch down in Orange County.

It’s a carbuncled footnote that even cigarette companies seem to be hipper than Orange County. The attendance for the show was low, filling only a few thousand seats in the orchestra section. It’s a daring thing the Parliament people did in opening their series (which also features such domestic staples as Starship and Taylor Dayne) with an African performer such as N’Dour--but not all that daring.

N’Dour is hardly unknown, having recorded and toured with Peter Gabriel and performed for hundreds of thousands on the Amnesty International “Human Rights Now!” tour and England’s globally broadcast Nelson Mandela concert in 1989. He’s a major concert draw in many parts of the world, and his two East Coast dates for Parliament reportedly were packed.

While a sea of empty seats typically dampens audience response, few in the crowd had occasion to consider the daunting emptiness behind them. Instead, most were up dancing, their eyes riveted on N’Dour, who is indeed a most riveting performer. Falling just shy of two hours, his performance was a stunning blend of traditional Senegalese music and Western funk, soul, Latin and rock influences.

The 30-year-old N’Dour comes from a line of griots , singer-storytellers who impart tradition and morals in many African cultures. Though the literal import of most of his songs was lost in the language barrier--he chiefly sang in his native Wolof--there was an unmistakable, and irresistible, passion in his plaintive high tenor voice.

N’Dour’s dancing and stagecraft displayed a surety and command--including touches of Gabriel’s studied theatricality--mixed with a playful free-floating ease. He and his 10-piece band performed with a joyous precision, rather like what one expects James Brown’s band would have sounded like had it been based on brotherhood instead of James’ system of fines for errant instrumentalists.

Eight of the show’s 15 songs were drawn from N’Dour’s forthcoming “Set” album, due out Sept. 10 on Virgin, and they show a fine progression in the artist. The traditional Senegalese elements are more central to the songs, with the European and American influences more integrated and used to better effect. The finest of these Sunday was “Miyoko,” a slinky, beguiling mesh of polyrhythms that unexpectedly romped into stunning choruses that employed the greatest dance party riff Motown never thought of.

The flamenco-flavored guitar work on “Alboury” suggested that N’Dour may have been listening to the Gipsy Kings lately, and his quarter-toned vocals highlighted the Muslim influence that runs through both cultures.

He offered a fascinating version of his “Nelson Mandela” at the center of his performance. While featuring a jaunty rhythm (punctuated by talking drum master Assane Thiam) and celebratory sing-along that reflected how much Mr. Mandela’s situation has improved since the song was penned, N’Dour also sent long, haunting falsetto notes flying over the song, perhaps a commentary on how far the struggle in South Africa has yet to go.

Seats had been removed from the orchestra pit area immediately in front of the Meadows’ stage to allow dancing, an idea whose splendidness can’t be overstated. Having that dance area near the performers seemed to enliven both the audience and N’Dour. On future scaled-down shows of a similarly rhythmic bent, the Meadows might do well to adopt this dance floor-general seating concept.

Show opener Samite of Uganda offered a set that was at once more exotic--performing exclusively traditional African music on traditional acoustic instruments--and more easily bridged, by way of Samite’s warm, humorous English-language introductions.

Prefacing one song, he described a tribe gently ridiculing missionaries’ attempts to teach English to their chief: “The chief speaks this new language,” he related, “Really? What does he say?” “A-E-I-O-U.”

Backed by two percussionists, Samite performed on kalimba (African thumb pianos), flutes and marimba. Though one of his kalimbas was no larger than two cigarette packs, when amplified it revealed an enfolding timbre and interweaving complexity that Philip Glass would be hard pressed to replicate. Another repeating melody moved “Waterfall,” a beautifully lilting tune played on the litungu , a banjo-toned Kenyan lyre. His eight-number performance earned two standing ovations.