Papa Noël, who has died aged 83, was a songwriter and guitar hero during the golden age of Congolese music from the 1950s to the 70s, when rumba and soukous dominated the African music scene. The electric guitar played a key role in the charming, lilting, Cuban-influenced dance music that emerged from a country battered by corruption and fighting, and Noël was known for a style that was elegant and technically brilliant, with a quick-fingered virtuosity that was light and never over-flashy.
He played with a remarkable array of bands, both in Léopoldville (known as Kinshasa after 1966) and across the river in the neighbouring country of Congo-Brazzaville, working with the two key figures in Congolese music, Joseph Kabasele (le Grand Kallé), leader of the band African Jazz, and Franco, a guitarist who ran the massively successful OK Jazz.
Noël became famed for his guitar work alongside Franco, which showed off their contrasting styles – Franco often taking a heavier, more aggressive approach. After Franco’s death he moved to Europe, where he continued to promote classic Congolese rumba, also playing acoustic guitar while working with musicians from Cuba and France as well as veterans from what had then been renamed Zaire.
Born Antoine Monswet in Léopoldville, then the capital of the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), he grew up listening to son cubano music played on the much-prized phonograph owned by his mother, a shopkeeper. He never discussed his father, who was from Brazzaville, but did say that his grandmother bought him his first guitar, and that he taught himself to play, learning Cuban styles, Django Reinhardt pieces (with help from the Belgian jazz guitarist Bill Alexandre), and the early rumba songs released by the fledgling Congolese recording industry.
Gradually he got to know the new rumba stars, who were impressed by his talent, and at 16 he made his first recording, playing alongside his idol Leon Bukasa on his hit Clara Badimuene. But in 1958 he quit to join Rock-a-Mambo, working alongside former members of OK Jazz. In 1960, the year of Congolese independence, he moved to Brazzaville to play with another successful band, Orchestre Bantou, which included more former members of OK Jazz.
By 1962 he was back in Léopoldville, where he joined Kabasele in Orchestre African Jazz, replacing Docteur Nico (Nico Kasanda), widely regarded as the finest Congolese guitarist of the era. Noël fitted in well, but in 1968 he left to form his own band, Orchestre Bamboula. He did not enjoy the administrative work, so went back to playing in a succession of other bands.
Then in 1978 he was invited by Franco to join what was now called Tout Puissant OK Jazz. It was another successful move, with Franco at times allowing him to share the lead guitar role, and to provide songs for the band. These included the 1982 hit Tangawizi, the story of a marriage break-up as seen from the viewpoints of both women involved. He toured widely with TPOK Jazz in Africa and Europe – but there was a downside in playing with such a high-profile band. Soon after Noël had joined, Franco was jailed in Zaire for what were considered obscene lyrics to the songs Helene and Jacky. Some band members, including Noël, were also locked up for three weeks, before being released on a presidential pardon.
There was further trouble in 1984, when Noël crossed to Brazzaville to record his first solo album, Bon Samaritain, which consisted of his own compositions and proved to be a major success. Franco was furious that he hadn’t been told, and Noël expected to be fired. But he stayed on, and Franco even invited Noël’s singer, Carlyto Lassa, to join TPOK Jazz.
After Franco’s death in 1989 Noël recorded an album with surviving band members in Zaire before moving to Europe to keep the classic rumba style alive. In 1994 he recorded a second solo album of his own songs, Haute Tension (again with Lassa) in Paris, and in 1998 played on Galo Negro, an album by the former TPOK singer Sam Mangwana, and became the director of Mangwana’s touring band. In 2000 Noël gave a celebrated “unplugged” performance at Womad in the UK, alongside the Congolese guitarists Mose Fan Fan and Syran Mbenza. The following year he played on Rumba Congo, the debut album by Kékéle, a band of seasoned veterans that was seen as the country’s answer to Cuba’s Buena Vista Social Club.
Wanting to explore rumba’s Cuban roots, he also recorded with the Cuban singer-songwriter Adan Pedroso and travelled to Havana to work with the Cuban tres player Papi Oviedo. Their acoustic album Bana Congo was released in 2002. Five years later he recorded a new solo album, Café Noir, in which he was joined by a cast that included Cuban musicians and the Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango.
In 2013 he released Color, a “duo rumbaccordion” set with the French accordion player Viviane Arnoux, who had worked with him on the Mangwana and Kékéle projects, and with whom he toured in France and South Africa. She described him as “fun, interesting, happy to teach me his culture … sometimes difficult because he had a strong character, but very human”.
It was widely accepted that Papa Noël was given his stage name because he was born on Christmas Day – a story he encouraged. But he also told friends that he had been born on 29 December – confirmed by his wife as the correct date – and that he took it because Noël is the backwards spelling of Leon, a tribute to Leon Bukasa.
He is survived by Danielle “Dadie” Nedule Monswet (nee Rosso), a French painter whom he married in 1992, and by seven children from two earlier marriages.
• Antoine Nedule Monswet (Papa Noël), guitarist and songwriter, born 29 December 1940; died 11 November 2024
