mali

MUSIC OF MALI

	KELETIGUI DIABATE SANDIYA (Contrejour 012) I am not a huge fan of xylophone and can't abide the sound of the vibraphone, but the pentatonic Balinese gender and Malian balafon with their more "natural" sounds appeal to me in the right context. Veteran Malian band-leader Kélétigui has been enjoying a comeback of late, touring with Habib Koite, and has now resumed his rightful place in the centre stage with a fine album of acoustic Malian traditional music pummeling his wooden keys with an array of guest artists. Kélétigui started out over 40 years ago as leader (& left-handed guitarist) of the first National Orchestra of Mali, known as National "A". The band split into Rail Band and Ambassadeurs, with Kélétigui going to the latter formation. He also played behind Salif Keita in some of the more grandiose formations of that inconsistent star. But he works best in an instrumental context and on this album he is well-served by being teamed with kora player Toumani Diabaté and guitarist Djelymadi Tounkara as well as Habib Koite and a roster of lesser-known performers. With the kora in the lead on track two, the album takes on the right dreamy feeling to settle you into a contemplative state of mind. Once the musical Vikodan takes effect, you are ready for any amount of flute or violin overlaying the continuo of balafon. To bring you round with no ill effects, the album ends with a big bomber: the Ensemble Traditionnel du Mali (a dozen female vocalists with kora and djembé) doing a version of the epic "Soundiata," followed by a novelty: Gershwin's light and refreshing "Summertime," done Bamako style by Kélétigui with his touring band, Bamada.
	AMADOU AND MARIAM TJE NI MOUSSO (Universal/Polydor) TJE NI MOUSSO, the second releases from Amadou and Mariam, the blind duo from Mali, builds on their last CD, SOU NI TILÉ (recorded in 1997 and released Stateside by Tinder), adding a little more punch to the up-tempo numbers and a jazzier flavour to their horn & keyboard parts. After meeting Mariam at the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako, the capital of Mali, and marrying her over the objections of their families, Amadou took her to Ivory Coast where they attained great popularity through a series of cassette releases. Returning to Bamako, Amadou gigged for a while in the late sixties with Les Ambassadeurs du Motel, the group that also launched Salif Keita's career. On tour in Europe they met a violinist from Syria, a Cuban trumpeter, a Colombian trombonist, and other musicians who performed with them. Their music has been called the Bambara Blues, and thanks to the success of artists like Ali Farka Touré, Boubacar Traoré, and Lobi Traoré, it's becoming more familiar to Western ears accustomed to John Lee Hooker & Mississippi Delta blues. An interesting conjunction in the electric blues is what's known in the USA as the "Bo Diddley beat" (think of the Stones' "Not Fade Away"), which is in fact the Cuban clavé, or five stressed notes in a four-four measure. That underlies the second track on the new Amadou and Mariam album, "Djagnèba," which has a rocking trombone solo (it's a twelve-bar blues progression but the solo veers towards "House of the Rising Sun"). It's a simple song but the band tears it up. While the songs are rooted in the Malian griot tradition, they do show the signs of the foreign influences brought by the international band members. "Bali Maou" features flamenco guitar played by Manuel Soto; Pedro Soares plays cavaquinho on "Sini kan," a track that has a soukous feel to it. Valentin Clastrier plays vielle, a four-stringed instrument played with a small wheel (like a hurdy-gurdy) on two tracks, and is featured on "Minaga Titi," a call to arms to the farmers of Mianga. All the stops are out on the last track, "Nangaraba," which goes "Trouble maker! I'm talking to you! That's enough!" The bass player works up a sweat and the trombonist returns for two solos. The engineer throws a little dub at the end of his breaks for added excitement. TJE NI MOUSSO is a very satisfactory album that is extremely well produced and nicely packaged, and bound to garner Amadou and Mariam many more fans.
	BADENYA SENIWE (Trace, Switzerland) Ready for a little rocking djembe music? SENIWE, the new release from the Coulibaly brothers' group Badenya, puts the djembes centre-stage and backs them with balafon, ngoni and more drums. It's traditional Bwaba music from Burkina Faso, though they do occasionally use drum programming and bass guitar. But still the wide array of drums get prominence. Not since Issa Bagayogo's SYA has a folkloric album sounded so fresh. That's not a coincidence as music deeply rooted in folk traditions has a better chance to thrive when modern instruments are brought into the mix, along with ngoni and traditional percussion. Published by Trace in Switzerland, this album will pass by a lot of people, which is a shame. On the instrumental level the music is truly profound. Unfortunately we cannot really get the full dimension of the songs but the liner notes tell us that, as griots, the Coulibaly brothers are aware of their importance in keeping alive the ancestral wisdom through proverbs and spreading a message that deals with contemporary concerns: the transformation of the rainforest into desert; starvation and epidemics which decimate the cities and villages; the respect due to elders; and the importance of solidarity. Beautifully recorded (in Geneva) the Coulibaly Brothers (six hands with one mind!) bring their tradition whole into the modern world.
	DJELIMADY TOUNKARA SIGUI (Indigo) Djelimady Tounkara is not a household name but his music is beloved by fans of modern Malian music. For years he has been composer/arranger and lead guitarist of the sensational Super Rail Band of the Buffet Bar of the Station Hotel in Bamako. Not only one of the longest-lived (& titled) bands in Mali, it launched the careers of Salif Keita and Mory Kanté, while through it all Tounkara and his guitar remained at the helm. He toured the US last year with a stripped-down band, lacking horns, and now has temporarily abandoned his electric guitar (gone fashionably unplugged) for a new release on the Indigo label, SIGUI. It certainly stands above the majority of acoustic pop albums from Mali but I'm sure many fans would prefer what he does best, as the market seems already saturated with Traorés, Tourés, Diabatés and Manfilas. But change is good. When Sekou Diabaté Bembeya (aka "Diamond Fingers") went solo, he nodded to his influences by covering Peter Green's "Albatross," a song on the influential Fleetwood Mac album THEN PLAY ON. (Fans still think "Black Magic Woman" is a Santana composition). Tounkara's Western influences are more of the (Andrès) Segovia variety and he turns in a stellar solo cut redolent of Spanish classical music, titled "Samakoun." The ensemble returns and he takes his place beside a rhythm guitar and ngoni. The riffs may seem familiar at this point, but the recording is very clear and Tounkara acquits himself brilliantly throughout.
	VARIOUS ARTISTS FESTIVAL IN THE DESERT (World Village 468020) René Goiffon of Harmonia Mundi asked me last year if I wanted to go to the festival in the desert, a celebration of Tuareg music which takes place in an oasis north of Timbuktu, Mali. I idly thought about it, as I surely would love to go to Mali, but I can't afford to cancel my classes and hop on a plane, despite the lure of the festival. Now, of course, I'm wishing I'd gone because the CD is great and in fact there's a danger that next year, or certainly the year after, it will be a scene like Burning Man where self-respecting music nuts will be too embarrassed to say they went. Stalwarts of Malian music like Oumou Sangaré, Lobi Traoré (not on the CD though the reputed show-stopper) and Ali Farka Touré were headliners, but acts from all over West Africa and Europe also played in the two day shindig, which had swordplay, a crafts fair and the obligatory camel races to complement the music and dancing. Robert Plant is conspicuous. He turns in a moody ad-libbed blues potpourri with pretty poor guitar work that must mean he's not talking to Jimmy Page. Plant says the festival is one of the few honest thing he's ever been involved in (which tells you where he's been at). And I guess he brought the ice so they had to let him play. The first three tracks, by Afel Bocoum, Takamba Super Onze and Tartit flow together and create a wonderful trancelike mood that is broken by Plant, though some may be ready for a break after three intensely repetitious tracks of rhythmic cycles. The drone quality of Malian music is one of its appeals, though from time to time it sounds like a washing machine thudding away. Things perk up with Oumou Sangaré and then a track from Ali Farka which fades up in the middle of a jam. This is followed by another of the high spots: Tinariwen's haunting insistent "Aldachan Manin." It's so immediate that you truly feel as though you are there. Electricity meets the n'goni on Adama Yalomba's track which is also urgent and compelling. I am not a purist, I dig Issa Bagayogo's fusion stuff, but the jam between Ludovico Einaudi on piano and kora player Ballake Sissoko did nothing for me: those Keith Jarrett chord patterns are tired. But then we are back in the Sahel with Kel Tin Lokiene (more droning washing-machine music made with voice, drums and handclaps). You have to act fast and skip the next track or be subjected to French rapping. Shudder! Tindé from Tessalit in Northeastern Mali, near Algeria, are another acapella group with a rhythmic pulse, and they brought to mind a night in the desert in Sudan. I was unable to sleep (the moon was full) and heard a noise like people chanting that seemed to be coming from across the river. I tried to get closer but couldn't locate the source of the music. Also I didn't want to waken any sleeping crocodiles, however I was entranced. After about half an hour wandering about with my tape recorder running it finally dawned on me that it was in fact frogs and insects making this celestial sound. Baba Salah of Oumou Sangaré's band turns out some hard blues riffs fronting his own combo and seems headed to a solo career, which may doom him to obscurity as his backup was rather ragged. Blackfire, a Navajo rock band from Arizona, seem like a novelty. Other than the yodelling back-up singer it sounded like Journey or one of those dire musical dinosaurs. The album ends with a Malian singer/songwriter known as Django in a contemplative mood. Many gems on here you won't find anywhere else. And book your ticket now before the World Beat Weenies ruin it!
	FRA FRA SOUND MALI JAZZ (Pramisi Records, Holland) Fra Fra Sound's MALI JAZZ is another great jazz album worth adding to your collection. The melodies are pentatonic (based on a five-note scale) but the richness and improvisational skill is far-ranging. Keyboard-player Cheikh Tidiane Seck, who collaborated with Hank Jones on SARALA seven years earlier, appears on one track. Other big-name guests are the Diabatés: Kélétigui on balafon and Toumani on kora. "Vieux" Kanté plays kamal ngoni on four tracks and Lansiné Kouyate appears on balafon on three other selections. Fra Fra Sound consists of young Surinamese. This CD came about as a result of their West African tour of 1997. When they got to Bamako the three virtuosi, Toumani Diabaté (kora), Basekou Kouyaté (ngoni) and Kélétigui (balafon), spontaneously jumped in. For this recording cornetist Graham Haynes and percussionist Daniel Moreno (from the New York scene) are also added. The obvious bridge from Africa to jazz and back again is erected and from its summit we can observe both banks. Vieux Kanté starts out "Reminiscence of Bamako" by playing dampened strings (or behind the bridge?) on the ngoni. It brought to mind Hans Reichel's experimental guitar heard on DEATH OF THE RARE BIRD YMIR, as he spiraled down into a blues. Similarly Basekou Kouyaté bends his ngoni notes down a half-tone at the end of phrases in "Anne Sidi Ki" -- now don't tell me there's no connection between Mali and the blues! (Ali Farka Touré told me he'd never heard of Howling Wolf; was he being coy?) "Sosomali," written by Biswane, has an insistent short riff on top of which the two guest soloists, Vieux Kante on ngoni and Lansiné Kouyaté on balafon, go riffing. You can tell the man from Surinam is reaching out too, pushing himself to the limit on his guitar. Vieux Kantéé does a solo blues on ngoni -- "Dounia" -- again I heard the eerie Reichel guitar sound, then the John Lee Hooker jag of "I'm Mad Again" starts pacing ominously around the vocals. After an ensemble piece where the Malians acquit themselves better in the solos than their hosts, the album ends with a balafon solo, a perfect way to wind down the collaboration.
	DIEFADIMA KANTE FRANKONODOU (Frikyiwa FRICKCD 1752) HADJA KOUYATE & ALI BOULO SANT0 MANDING-KO (Frikyiwa FKW001) If traditional Malian music is your thing, you'll revel in a new series of releases from Frikyiwa. French club DJ and producer Frederic Galliano has gone to town on the packaging and done a great mixing job on several traditional albums of balafon, guitar and vocal music from everyone's favourite West African desert destination. With a great ear he has uncovered some stunning talent unknown outside Mali, Guinea and Senegal and produced a series of six albums and a sampler in unique cardboard folders with superb photography. Diéfadima Kanté has a throaty voice and sounds like she's lived a bit, the band are light and solid at the same time. She has been a praise-singer since the '60s and is in full effect here. Her daughter Hadja Kouyaté's album features Ali Boulo Santo on kora and her uncle Kanté Manfila on electric guitar on one track. There's a wah-wah effect on the kora on three tracks, but it's tastefully done. I haven't heard the whole series but I plan on getting the sampler BON COIN as soon as it turns up on these shores.
	HABIB KOITÉ & BAMADA FOLY! LIVE AROUND THE WORLD (WorldVillage 468021 double CD 2003) Habib Koité, from Wassoulou, has been around for a while, and put out a couple of albums on Putumayo, as well as another on World Village. His touring band includes the great Malian balafon player, Kélétigui Diabate, who led his own phenomenal band, Kélétigui et ses Tambourinis back in the heyday of electrified Manding pop championed by Syliphone. This double album, recorded in Europe in the summer of 2002, captures the excitement and spontaneity of a Malian band in concert. It starts off with Koité's hit "Muso Ko" (also the title of his earlier World Village album). When the band starts to jam, things really open up, though after the first album it starts sprawling. There are a couple of ten-minute tracks on each disc and a 16-minute jam on "Kunfeta" at the end. Inevitably on a double live album there are flat spots, like when the bass player does a popping solo, or the gratuitous reggae number, but fans of Habib Koité will forgive that and add this to their collection.
	HANK JONES MEETS CHEICK TIDIANE SECK AND THE MANDINKAS SARALA (Gitanes Jazz/Verve 314 528 783-2) Legendary American pianist Hank Jones has more spark than musicians half his age. In a welcome encounter, he furthers the cause of Pan-African music by jamming with an all-star line-up of West African musicians in an album that is exciting to jazz fans as well as diehard African music traditionalists. The Mandinkas, including Ousmane Kouyaté on guitar, Lansine Kouyaté on balafon and Cheick Tidiane Seck on Hammond B3, weave their magic around some traditional griot riffs. Guests include Amina and Kanté Manfila. Flute, hand percussion, and acoustic instruments create an ambiance as the tracks mellow. Call and response vocals rise over the bubbling organ, which, although its appearance is novel, is handled deftly by Seck, the arranger, and blends well with the tone of the hardwood balafon. Absolutely one of the greatest world fusion albums ever recorded.
	ISSA BAGAYOGO SYA (Cobalt left; Six Degrees in USA [below]) Issa Bagayogo's debut album SYA is rooted in the folk music of Mali but has a modern production that makes it very intriguing. It is not your usual clash of folksy authenticity slicked up with speedy drum machines, but a nice balance between roots music, played by Bagayogo on n'goni (a stringed instrument that is plucked but not fretted) accompanied by dry guitar and percussion (calabash and djembe) and, for variety, some light drum programming and synth touches. These are sparingly used and simply serve to heighten the focus on the n'goni and organic percussion. Also the fact that is very well recorded makes for a pleasurable listening experience. Credit is due to Yves Wernert, the first French producer to actually enhance the sound of African music rather than swamp it in studio dreck. The first track is so unusual and so well done in its synthesis of traditional and modern forms that it instantly overcame my prejudice against adding studio effects onto traditional instruments. It's so catchy I played it every morning for three months. In his native Mali, Issa (a bus driver) is known as "Techno Issa," because of his facility with drum programming. In March this year he was named "Mali's Brightest New Hope" by national television and radio for the songs on this album. It showcases a whole new approach to the recording studio and opens the door to the prospect of a new type of West African dub.
	ISSA BAGAYOGO TIMBUKTU ( Six Degrees Records) The long-awaited second CD from Issa Bagayogo is called TIMBUKTU -- and it's a gem. It's even better than the first, which was my album of the year in 1999. It's a continuation of the project (as was the solo album from his backing vocalist Mamou Sidibé last year), with programmed backing tracks and samples. Now, you know I bristle at the mere mention of "le programmation terrible" but somehow Issa and his trusty French boy Yves Wernert keep the arrangements spare so we hear Issa's voice and kamale ngoni, as well as the acoustic guitar and percussion. There's a gentle dub-like quality to the vocals and the acoustic guitar and ngoni weaving in and out of each other create a magical suspension of time into which we inevitably fall in wakeful dreaming. I taped an advance copy of the CD from a friend's copy, and took it to LA where I spent four days driving around with Issa inuring me from the madness on the roads. It worked, but I left the tape in the rental car!
	KAIRA BEN SINGA (Stern's STCD 1072 1996) As artists like Baaba Maal and the Rail Band wow Western audiences with their live acts, the plaintive vocals of West African music are becoming less strange to our ears. A new group, Kaira Ben, boasts members with impressive pedigrees from Malian and Senegalese bands. Zoumana Diarra has played guitar with Alpha Blondy, Super Biton, and Super Djata where he met vocalist Idrissa Magassa (who had started out alongside Youssou Ndour in a traditional troupe). Accompanying them are hard hitters Tidiane Koné on saxophone and the legendary Kélétigui on hardwood balafon. Compositions such as "Sara," the classic song by Kanté Manfila (a big hit in the seventies for Les Balladins), help create this album's dreamy, refreshing quality. Another highlight is the haunting "Masani Cissé" a praise song in the style of classic Super Biton with guitar, balafon and sax floating along with Islamic insistency over varied percussion, supplied by Abdramane Fall, and a subtle electric pulse.
	MAMA SISSOKO SOLEIL DE MINUIT (Buda Musique) Mama Sissoko is a West African guitarist/singer/composer whose time has come. It has been three years since his last album AMOURS-JARABI (Melodie); before that he only put out two cassettes in the nineties, but he has been maturing as a composer and performer. Born in 1949, he studied guitar beginning at age 11 when he idolised Boubakar Traoré, the classic Malian bluesman. Young Mamadou persuaded the mayor of his town to buy him an electric guitar and, while still in school, joined up with the National Orchestra "A" of Bamako, Mali. At 24 he was fronting the mythic Super Biton de Segou as singer and lead guitarist. The Super Biton won the Biennial Festival for Youth Orchestras so many times they were elevated to a National Orchestra (which meant state support) and banned from competing. At the height of their powers, in 1986, they toured Europe and recorded the great album AFRO JAZZ DU MALI (Bolibana). Sissoko struck out on his own, staying in Paris and forming another band. They opened for B.B. King. He collaborated with a Brazilian singer on his first solo album but has returned to a solid Malian line-up for this brilliant offering, SOLEIL DE MINUIT. The Mandingo current is strengthened when Toumani Diakité joins the ensemble on donzo n'goni for a hunting song, "Boma ma." Wisely, Sissoko saves his latin track, which is also the title cut, "Soleil de minuit (Midnight sun)", till the middle of the album. By then you least expect it, and he slaps you with a classic salsa dancefloor groove. Panamanian salsero Azuquita sings, adding the latin tinge to juxtapose with Sissoko's own melancholy voice and glittering guitar work. Although latin tracks are becoming somewhat obligatory on African albums, Sissoko does it right one time and then returns to his classic sound for the rest of the set. The songs are tightly turned, with no slack, though I imagine in concert they stretch out like the old Super Biton and Rail Band albums. In fact I kept thinking I was listening to Super Biton in a really great recording, so he's lost none of the magic. There's an amusing bit of theatre in the track "Commisariat" where a dialogue ensues between a French customs official and an innocent from Africa who insists he is just African, not from anywhere in particular: there are plenty of Frenchmen wandering around in Africa, why can't he just wander round France? The chorus asks "Where are your papers?" On his last album, Sissoko paid his dues and delivered up homages to two of his mentors, the Super Biton band, and "Fodé" (nickname of Kasse Mady, leader of National Badema). This time it's the Kafkaesque final instrumental fragment "Hommage à K" that tips his hat to the style of the great Kélétigui and his Guinean band, the Tambourinis. This album is a rich tapestry of the musical heritages of Mali and Guinea delivered by one of the greats.
	MAMOU SIDIBÉ NAKAN (Cobalt) For me finding something new on the MALI K7 label, a subsidiary of Cobalt, is an immediate rush, because after Issa Bagayogo's fabulous SYA, I have been looking for more things from this small Bamako-based outfit. Producer Yves Wernert who brought Issa's talents to such a pinnacle in SYA has done it again with NAKAN (Destiny) by Mamou Sidibé. Sidibé comes from a musical family (her father is a professional balafon player; her mother a well-known singer) and made her recording debut as a backup singer for Oumou Sangaré, one of Mali's top divas. After a decade backing Sangaré she has gone solo. The production is similar to Bagayogo's SYA, with atmospheric effects that add to the overall appeal and a drum-and-bass-in-the-bush feel to the dance tracks. Sidibé sang backup on SYA in fact, so now I'll think of these two albums as part of a set. Other common factors are the acoustic guitar of Moussa Koné and producer Wernert on bass as well as mixing console. This is truly a great album: if you dug SYA, grab this.
	MORY KANTÉ TOUMA (Mango 162 539 903-1) Too much of a good thing, in this case the Paris music scene, has taken the guts out of Mory Kanté's music, which is now an undifferentiated mush of synth strings, synth kora and balafon, drum machines and brief tasty guest solos by Santana and others (I can't read the credits in tiny type!). Most tracks are "danceable," but Kanté & Co's remake of Solomon Linda's "Wimoweh," which opens side B, is execrable. When you consider how badly recorded the Rail Band albums were just a decade ago, you can see why the Malian pop stars would want high production values today, but, like Salif Keita's KO-YAN, the overconfidence of the production swamps any soul or even musical integrity. It has become gum-chewing Griot muzak for the MTV generation.
	OUMOU SANGARÉ OUMOU (World Circuit 067) After much hoopla we finally have a domestic (U.S.) release of the double Oumou Sangaré CD set that features her greatest hits plus a relatively new batch of tunes, culled from a Mali cassette-only release. Greatest Hits packages usually signal the artist has peaked and is about to go downhill, or they need to take time off from touring and go home and think afresh. This is different and has a great selection, familiar and new, of the Malian songbird. Disc one kicks off with her biggest hit "Ah Ndiya" which I played to death from the LIVE AT THE HEIMATKLANG compilation. Four tracks from her last release WOROTAN are interspersed with the four previously-unreleased-on-CD tracks and a remix of "Djorolen," also from WOROTAN. The new material is diverse as her influences seem to be from near and far. On one track the band sounds like Salif Keita's big pompous stadium band getting riled up, on another she sounds eerily like Sade, the lounge singer whose every song is identical. Then there's the "Riders on the Storm" feel to a rocky cut with Farfisa and wigging-out guitar. A great reminder of the power of one of Mali's greatest singers.
	NATIONAL BADEMA ORIGINAL KASSÉ MADY (SD40 CDS 7071) Another favourite rediscovery from the Sylla treasure chest is ORIGINAL KASSE MADY by National Badema. The first track, "Nama," recorded in 1983, was the last cut the band recorded with Kassé Mady, and their biggest hit. It's a haunting Malinké ballad about a ferry disaster when a group of young girls drowned on their way to an independence celebration in 1971. It has really spooky guitar and was previously reissued on LES NUITS DE BAMAKO, a great compilation CD, but here it leads off an hour of great Malian jazz from the eighties. Kassé Mady was Badema's answer to young Salif Keita and the two rivals were equal stars in the Malian musical firmament until their defection to Paris in the late 80s.
	SUPER BITON DE SEGOU BELLE EPOQUE (SD40 7072) Seven great cuts by le Super Biton, one of Mali's legendary regional bands, can be found on BELLE EPOQUE. This is a reissue of the Mali Stars album from 1988 (SYL 8356) with the addition of one track from SYL 8389 which came out the following year. Named for Biton Coulibaly, founder of the Bambara Empire in Segou, the group was created by trumpeter Amadou Ba out of three pre-existing groups. In the heyday of Malian music, the 1970s, they won the Youth Biennial four times in a row, after which they were not allowed to compete further. They went on to become one of the most popular bands in Mali, and standard bearer of Bambara music which uses a pentatonic scale, rather than the more familiar western scales of Malinké music heard in the work of Salif Keita. Organ and brass often take the lead making a nice change from the more common guitar bands. This belongs, with their classic AFRO-JAZZ DE MALI (on the Bolibana label), on everyone's frequent rotation list.