MFA Kera (13 cents)

Have you ever heard of MFA Kera? This is the name of a woman with an extraordinary voice who was born on Madagascar, raised in Senegal and has spent her adult years living in Paris and Berlin. We saw her with the Black Heritage Band (that is her group, along with singer/guitarist Mike Russell's) at the Hirshhorn's Thursday night jazz concert yesterday.

The group has only a guitar, bass, keyboard and drums. Playing with them last night was a Nigerian conga drummer.

The entire event was somewhat overamplified, but that did not detract from Kera's range and use of various languages and inflections in a variety of songs. Most had an African base, I think, but she clearly has what would be termed an international style.

I was sorry that the program did not detail the songs, because none were familiar. Perhaps the most memorable was a train song, the train going from Senegal to Gabon, with a woman passenger, who got on with three goats (she does a great goat imitation). But one goat was pregnant and delivered on the train. How many goats needed to be paid for? That caused all the trouble.

There were over 100 people in the audience, and many then went into the musuem to hear scholar John Neff talk about Kiefer (more a lecture than a tour). My wife thought Neff very interesting; I thought he droned on much too long.