The Whole Music Experience

21st Century Songs of Mandinka     I first heard the modern griot and kora player Seckou Keita when he performed with the UK band Baka Beyond. The second time I heard Seckou perform was on an album with his international quartet on the album Silimbo Passage. So when Arc Music sent me a press release for Seckou's solo album, 22 Strings, I requested an e-mail interview with the Senegalese musician. And since that release of his CD last May, Seckou has experienced limelight and acclaim. Whole Music Experience: Similar to many traditional musicians (from musical dynasties), you received intense musical and religious training as a child, rebelled as a young adult, and now you have returned to your musical tradition, in this case, that of a griot. Do you feel like you have traveled full circle? And how have your other musical experiences with Celtic musicians, your quartet, and other genres shaped who you are as a musician today? ...

World   Dieter Iby Didgeridoo Street Music   Arc Music On visits to YouTube, I have encountered street musicians playing didgeridoo on street corners and sidewalks.   I can’t imagine encountering didgeridoo players on the streets where I reside, however, I can listen to Dieter Iby perform his world fusion on Didgeridoo Street Music .   The musician arranges didgeridoo with West African percussion instruments and he partners with kora player (West African harp) Stefan Charisius on Sim.Mah (Pisces) with spectacular otherworldly results.   Iby also pleases me with his song titles which feature signs of the Zodiac.   I’m not sure if the musician is familiar with astrological energies, but he certainly matches the right song to the right sign. For instance, the opener, Gu.an.na (Taurus) feels sensual and grounding to me similar to the sign Taurus and the track I already mentioned for Pisces also feels right on.   The second track, n...

World/ Classical Ballaké Sissoko At Peace Six Degrees Records West African kora, cello, guitar, and balafon (a West African xylophone) comprise Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko’s At Peace .   After the success of his duo project with French cellist Vincent Segal, Chamber Music , the musical partnership remains strong.   However, At Peace is clearly Sissoko’s spotlight recording with Segal, Moussa Diabate (guitar), Aboubacar Diabate (guitar) and Fassery Diabate (balafon) coming aboard as guests.   During a time when Mali experiences war and oppression, At Peace comes as a sweet breath of air.   During a time when the brightest stars of Mali (the country’s musicians) have been shut out, this music ripples throughout the world.   To put it mildly, the warring factions banned music and musicians in Mali.   However, that hasn’t prevented the musicians from gathering and recording CDs and videos which you can find on YouTube. The...

World / Jazz Ablaye Cissoko/Volker Goetze Amanké Dionti Motema (2012) The world music duo Ablaye Cissoko, a griot kora player from Senegal and Volker Goetze, a trumpeter originally from Germany returned with another masterful recording, Amanké Dionti .   After the duo’s critically-acclaimed Sira (2008), which married a trumpet’s clear tones with the delicacy of a kora (West African harp) and Cissoko’s Senegalese vocals, transformed both world music and jazz.   Not long after, Sira came into the world, another Euro-African duo, Vincent Segal (France) and Ballaké Sissoko (Mali) wed cello with the kora (this duo has an album out in February 2013). When I listen to Amanké Dionti I wonder what Miles Davis or John Coltrane would have thought of the musical marriage.   The recording fits easily and comfortably into jazz and world music.   I would even squeeze it into world classical and if a new ager didn’t reflect on the socio-political messages ...

Mamadou Diabate Courage World Village The old year has barely turned over and already the stunning fifth recording, Courage by Malian kora master Mamadou Diabate, arrived on the scene. Following his Grammy Award winning Douga Mansa (2009), the new recording leans towards a fuller more contemporary sound. The kora pairs up with ngoni (Malian banjo), balaphone, calabash and djembe. The playing here is fiery one minute with rapid notes of the kora glimmering over the top of the other instruments, and ethereal on some tracks. Yet, even those ethereal moments find themselves locked in a West African groove.  A West African griot, Diabate walks the talk, and though the songs are instrumental, the musician punctuates his liner notes with morality lessons and tributes. On the track Bogna , Diabate offers these wise words about music in general, “Respect is the healing medicine of peace. Peace is the healing medicine of love. Love is the healing medicine of life. Life is the h...

Ballakè Sissoko Vincent Segal Chamber Music Six Degrees Records When we think of the cello, we hear a somber, melancholic sound, mostly attached to European classical music. And when we hear the shimmering sound of a West African kora, the mood that arrives, (though no less sedate than the mood of a cello), feels spiritually uplifting. So pairing these two instruments might seem awkward at first. That is until you hear the beautiful marriage of tones and timbre. While I’m not sure that I would call Ballakè Sissoko (kora) and Vincent Segal (cello) album Chamber Music groundbreaking, certainly it represents one of the most spellbinding albums to come along. The moods of the cello and kora appear to balance each other out, leaving listeners somewhere between melancholy and relaxation. I find this music healing, even powerfully so. Personally, I find Chamber Music deeply relaxing, so relaxing in fact, that I want to crawl back in bed and absorb its warm tones, rather than ty...

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba Speak Fula Next Ambiance/Subpop I love griot music of Mali—the kora, n’goni (West African banjo), calabashes, and soaring vocals. You might have already read numerous reviews on The Whole Music Experience featuring Malian music and no doubt, you’ll read more in the future. I was listening to NPR’s “All Things Considered” one evening and heard a segment on the n’goni player and rising music star, Bassekou Kouyate. I stopped whatever I was doing at the time, sat down and listened to the stunning music rising from my portable stereo. The piece that I heard possessed ambient qualities with Malian female vocals surfing over the top of jagged rhythms and traditional instruments. The vocalist, Amy Sacko that captured my attention is Kouyate's wife. But she’s only one of many stars on this album which also features the son of Ali Farka Toure (Vieux Farka Toure), a singer with a golden throat, Kasse Mady Diabate, kora master Toumani Diabate, and ...

Ablaye Cissoko + Volker Goetze Sira Obliqsound Imagine the clear tones of a jazz trumpet mingling with the shimmering notes of the West African harp, (kora) with no other distractions. While there are many West African-European or North American fusion projects, many worthwhile, this is the first time I have heard jazz trumpet along side the kora. The result of this musical marriage falls nothing short of spectacular. I know little about jazz trumpeter Volker Goetze and Griot kora player Ablaye Cissoko since I only just heard of them a couple of weeks ago. However, I have become intimate with this recording, Sira (named after Ablaye's daughter). The trumpet playing reminds me of some of Miles Davis' work, but also Terrance Blanchard from New Orleans. The kora playing is also masterful and breathtaking as are Ablaye's vocals. The musical passages played on horn, kora or sung possess thoughtfulness and eloquence. Some of these passages also play in my thoughts a lon...

Mamadou Diabate Douga Mansa World Village Regular readers of this blog will know about my fascination with West African griot music and instruments. I was quite pleased to receive a review copy of Malian griot kora player Mamadou Diabate's Douga Mansa . It falls into West African classical music with Diabate playing solo kora throughout. And yet, with this single instrument, Diabate coaxes a rich tapestry of moods from his harp, not to mention an array of striking rhythms. The press notes cited, "..in Diabate's hands, the kora proves capable of infinite variation, encompassing delicately articulated structures, swirling eddies of glissandi, pounding vertical rhythms and roaring cataracts of arpeggio." Which sounds a lot like a review of European classical music and why I am treating this CD as African classical music. West African is not short of virtuoso kora players, a category in which Mamadou finds himself. His cousin is Toumani Diabate, another fabulous ...

photos: from Rock Paper Scissors Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko Africa to Appalachia Independent Release Canada Seckou Keita SKQ TheSilimbo Passage World Artventures UK Like some of you that visit this blog, I am also a huge fan of West African griot music and especially the West African harp, the kora. I am also keen on cultural exchange between West African countries and folk music of North America (blues, Appalachian, traditional folk). Not long ago I read an article on World Music Central regarding the banjo and its ancestor, the West African n'goni. I was fascinated with the article and through synchronicity, I would encounter Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko's exploration of the ordinary banjo--not so ordinary at all. While the banjo has been a staple of bluegrass, folk and other types of North American musical genres, it has also suffered a bad reputation as an instrument that can't seem to stay in tune and in some corners it might just seem rather outd...