Ti Frere

 

Jean Alphonse Ravaton, alias Ti Frere, was born on April 29th, 1900. His father was Madagascan ( Ravaton is a Madagascan surname) and a sega artist too, the art form being characteristically passed on from father to son, and groups often made up of members of the same family. A coachman to a well-to-do-family, his father not only performed the sega but also conducted a dance band, the kind prolific at the time with accordion, banjo, percussion, and sometimes violin. Such orchestras performed European dance repertoire like the "cottish", "mazok", "lavalse" and "quadrilles", dances which, although they have disappeared in Mauritius, are still popular on Rodrigues, the neighbouring island. Ti Frere learnt to sing the sega and ballads too through accompanying his father. Later he would sing with his own dance band, playing especially for " zarico" (z’haricot) (bean) dances. "Zarico" dances were Saturday night country affairs put on in the courtyards of homes and during which a cake containing a bean was shared out: whoever got the bean had to put on the next Saturday’s dance. These dances would always finish with a few segas, something that still happens today at marriages or parties and that harkens back to the time when the sega, frowned upon and sometimes forbidden, was only danced as the night would close and restrictions eased up a little.
The segas marginally never threatened its existence: Ti Frere has performed it all his life. He would be called upon for parties, beach picnics, drinks after shooting parties which he himself would participate as a beater and sometimes as hunter. His sega artist reputation was firmly established through veritable tournaments, "pariages sega", contests with no prize and no jury, put on from village to village, which would last all night long, even today into the next day with only judges being the dancers and their audience.

Although Ti Frere was reputed locally, he had to wait until 1964 to achieve fame on a national scale. On October 30th of that year occurred the famous " Night Of the Sega". Held on Mt. Le Morne, it was a musical and theatrical happening which Mauritians still remember. In some ways this happening was the official reinstatement of the sega and the first step towards an awareness of Afro-Mauritian cultural identity. Four years away from independence and cohabitating with Indian, Moslem, European, Chinese ethnic groups, the Afro-Mauritian, so called Creole community felt the need to assert its identity through a rediscovery and conservation of its roots. On that night a sega contest was organised after which Ti Frere was crowned " King of sega". From then on, he was in the public eye and recorded a series of 45’s which are unobtainable today. To the traditional ravanne, maravane , and triangle, Ti Frere would sometimes add the accordion, influenced by his father  (and his own) dance band instruments. Like other sega artist , Ti Frere has never been able to live from it. He has had many different trades: wood cutter, cane-cutter, " casseur roches" (boulder breaker), bus conductor, forester.

Ti Frere has artistry that is totally unique. This is in part due to his strong artistic personality but also to what has influenced his make-up. Ti Frere was initiated by his father, but the latter had already been triply influenced by the Bohjpuri language, his Madagascan birth ( Ti Frere still remembers the Madagascan songs his father taught him) and by his contact with the European dance music performed by his orchestra, music and in other towns no doubt also influenced his father. According to A.Pitot (1910), vestigates of this music still live on in the sega , just as in new Orleans, Blacks were imitating bands on parade.

This unique situation made Ti Frere a synthesis of African and European roots, and able, by assimilation away from the structure of African-inherited classical sega ( drumcall, soloist, choir), to adopt a form inspirited by European models: Sega’s with verse and a refrain sung from beginning to end by a soloist where melody counted above all. The " drawing room sega" followed similar lines but Ti Frere remained traditional without losing any of the rhythmic intensity and inspiration of the original rhythmic framework and ravanne sega instrumentation.

American bluesmen too left far behind them the songs of their ancestors, especially work songs, opting for newer European forms and instrumentation and creating unique new forms of expression- the old songs lived on nevertheless and evolved quite naturally into Negro Spirituals. Ti frere, without losing any of the rhythmic intensity and inspiration of the original sega art from has written superb melodies. This is how segas were born, even if their repertoire is now well-known to all Mauritians. Simple everyday things would take them off: words of advice to a drunkard, for a neighbours child, domestic rows...
Ti Frere tells great stories but then a sega artist cannot help but be a storyteller, a kind of chansonnier, piecing together over the years a musical patchwork of the events, the characters and the ups and downs of an entire community.