This past Saturday night, in a concert sponsored by the Music Department, the Center for the Arts, and the Wesleyan Student Assembly, Crowell Concert Hall rang with the sounds of an internationally-renowned jazz ensemble: the Lionel Loueke Trio.

Lionel Loueke, the leader of the group, wasted no time in engaging the audience and treating them to a taste of his sense of humor. As the trio’s deservedly warm welcome died down, an audience member yelled, “Woo-hoo!” So Loueke responded in kind, to much laughter.

The laughter continued when drummer Ferenc Nemeth placed a small recording device near the front of the stage as Loueke said, “No recording allowed.”

Still, the humor, while prevalent, only constituted a small part of this imaginative performance, which was driven by a boundlessly creative guitarist who was joined by a bassist and drummer with the same exploratory spirit.

Nemeth, who is Hungarian, and the Swedish-Italian bassist Massimo Biolcati comprised the rest of what Loueke deemed his “international trio.” All three of them received scholarships to Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass., where they met.

According to the program, “Both [Biolcati and Nemeth] had extensively studied African music and were drawn to Loueke, who was just beginning to fuse a jazz technique with his African roots.”

They have played together for over ten years—as Loueke noted during the concert—but the exorbitant chemistry that arose during the performance gave listeners the impression that they have played together for a couple more decades.

His engaging, free-floating set began with “Karibu,” the title track of a 2008 album that he recorded. The heavily syncopated opening theme, first performed solo in his trademark style and then accompanied with bass and drums, bookended the first of several free-floating explorations by the trio.

The trio often expanded harmonically and metrically. Loueke improvised in an economical but still hauntingly melodic fashion. In keeping with the metrically expansionist theme of the set, the trio continued with a piece entitled “Seven Teens,” referring to the unique 17/4 time signature. The meter was the only consistent structural aspect of the entire performance, although that itself was changed. The pace shifted frequently, as did the timbre. The result: a thrilling sonic journey.

After the exquisite performance of a heartfelt ballad—for which Loueke did not announce the title—Nemeth delivered a searching and searing drum solo. Loueke and Biolcati then participated in a guitar-bass duet in a similar mold. The experimental impetus was so strong that the two even engaged in a percussional duet, during which the two tapped on their respective instruments as percussion instruments. This was soon followed by an a cappella section, performed by Loueke with self-accompaniment. Of his impromptu improvisation, Loueke quipped, “It works.”

The next tune, “Nonvignon,” was described as a “song about being brothers and sisters.”  In that spirit, he invited the audience to sing along to a phrase that he taught them. If he hadn’t already engaged each and every person in the concert hall, this bit of audience participation really got everyone invested in his music. The forward drive of the performance captivated the audience and held its attention until the thrilling encore, one that he described as a song about peace—true to the zeitgeist that he promoted throughout the evening. And on that note (quite literally), the concert ended.

During the course of the performance, Loueke told the audience, just like he told about thirty students and faculty members at an earlier workshop in the Music Studios, that he loved the possibilities for which the spontaneity of his music allowed.

“That’s what I like about this,” he said. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen.”

Loueke mentioned that he has approached Afropop music from a jazz perspective in the past, but the concert showcased a unique style of music in which his African roots seemed not to drive his approach to jazz but rather to converge with it. In many instances, he performed on a custom-tuned guitar and his own vocal accompaniment, which consisted of singing and tongue clicks. He also played with effects, such as a hauntingly beautiful guitar delay, self-harmonized vocals, and exotic guitar tones that resemble those of rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Indeed, Loueke’s sound suggests what Hendrix could have sounded like had he calmed down and not been consumed by the excesses of psychedelia.

A significant component of Loueke’s style are his signature tongue clicks, which, contrary to widespread belief, do not stem from a native language. He uses Swahili words in his work and titles, but tongue clicks do not exist in the Fongbe language, which is widely spoken in southern Benin. Instead, Loueke asserts that the idea came spontaneously while he toured with Herbie Hancock.

As for his personal backstory, Loueke was born in 1973 in Benin. He spent much of his youth at the community center in Cotonou, the capital of Benin, recording transcriptions of solos by George Benson and Jim Hall, among others. After Benin’s dictatorship fell in 1990, he studied music at the National Institute of Art in Cote d’Ivoire.

As Sarah Politz explained in her pre-concert talk, since no formal jazz program existed at the institution, he studied music history. This seems to have had quite an impact on his style—Loueke has said in interviews that pre-jazz music has been a major influence.

Prior to Loueke’s studies in Cote d’Ivoire, a friend brought him a recording of George Benson’s Weekend in L.A. from Paris. Loueke was inspired to study in Paris, and in 1994, he pursued jazz studies at the American School of Modern Music there. The program is taught by American musicians in French.

In 1999, he earned a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston; this was his first time in America. At Berklee, he met Biolcati and Nemeth, with whom he participated in frequent jam sessions.

All three members then studied at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in Los Angeles, whose faculty members include Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter.

Regarding Loueke’s audition tape, Hancock said, “I flipped. I’d never heard any guitar player play anything close to what I was hearing from him. There was no territory that was forbidden, and he was fearless!”

Hancock’s assertions have proven true over Loueke’s career. His discography includes four albums as a leader, the last two for Blue Note Records. He has recorded and played with Hancock, Shorter, Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, and many others.

All in all, Wesleyan witnessed something special last Saturday. Everyone in Crowell got a taste of Loueke’s particular jazz style, which encompasses so many parts of the globe. From tongue clicks to guitar riffs to improvised sing-alongs, the entire trio wowed and engaged the audience.