African Rhythms and Instruments, Vol. 1

The Lyrichord label has long released music from all over the world that help us better have access and exposure to recordings, live and in the studio, that enrich the experience of what constitutes music when we're born and trained to listen in a certain way to specific forms and means of performance.  Much of what Lyrichord does is also historical in helping to preserve traditional musics that face uncertain futures for a variety of reasons, economic, political/military or social.

African Rhythms and Instruments, Volume 1 was recorded at the first Pan-African Cultural Festival, with the liner notes remarking that "the primary scope of these recording is to document the highlights of one of the most important cultural events in the history of contemporary Africa," which was held from 26 July to 1 August 1969 in Algiers, Algeria.  It features performances by percussionists and others from a half-dozen nations: Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

The liners add that the event was "an immense, exciting political and cultural manifestation" as some 5,000 persons from throughout Africa attended an "enormous stage for music, dance, cinema and theater."  Of course, it continued, the recordings could not capture the experience, but they were asserted to be "attempts of the African nations to develop their own modes of expression and communication . . . as a foundation for their emancipation from colonialism," which took place since World War II.

Also of note was that "these recording were made under very difficult circumstances" with regard to these happening in a large stadium as well as in city squares, so the sound quality varied significantly because microphones were placed in the best position possible given the environment.  The idea, ultimately, was to "preserve the atmosphere of enthusiasm and participation in which these performances took place."

So, this is not a "high quality" recording, but it is a fascinating document, albeit "low fi," of dances and performances of highly complex and compelling music in a large section of a continent undergoing tremendous transformation.  Among this listener's favorites are the fast-paced and hypnotic Ghanian singers and percussionists, the Malians with excellent xylophone playing along with female vocalists and drummers, the Nigerian Tiv performance with the reedy undulating sound of the oboe, and, especially, the intense and joyous playing by musicians, utilizing rattles, whistles, xylophone and singing from Upper Volta.

Listening to this album is an uplifting and moving experience, as well as a musical journey back almost six decades when enthusiasm and hope for post-colonial Africa was in full display, even if much of what transpired afterward belied the aims and ambitions of much of what was expressed.  In these days of much turmoil there, here and elsewhere, music like this is a needed tonic.

The Percussionists of Guinea

This amazing recording of the National Ensemble of the Percussionists of Guinea was made in a live performance in fall 1988 in France and issued under the Musique du Monde (Music from the World) series by the Buda Records label.

It features nine stellar percussionists demonstrating nine complex, propulsive, compelling and exhilirating pieces and came about after a 1987 meeting between an Afro-French percussionist and the Guinean National Director of Culture and a French cultural advisor in Guinea.

When the ensemble was assembled, it rehearsed and developed its program and was launched on an European tour, during which this album was recorded.  Instruments include:

• the djembe, which has a goatskin head and laced cording on a redwood body; 
• the doundoumba, which is a bass drum using 55 gallon metal containers, rather than the older wood models, that are wrapped in skin applied with tension; 
• the sangbeni, made of smaller metal containers with tensioned skin and generally attached to the doundoumba, for a different bass sound; 
• the kenkeni, which is a smaller version of the previous two and hit with a stick; 
• the krin, which is a hollowed portion of a tree trunk with slots and hit with two sticks; 
• the wassakhoumba, a castanet-like instrument made of calabashes; 
• the fedoundoun, a water drum made of two calabashes; 
• and the sikko, which is a five-part instrument has a square wood frame with a goatskin head that can be tuned.

Of the nine pieces, several are played by the entire ensemble, while others have soloists, ranging from  one to seven of the players in the group.  Some reflect tribal dancers, others tell stories based on the traditions of tribal groups, one reflects the use of coded messages used in forests, and another comes from a circumcision ceremony.

Not only are these pieces played with consummate skill, power and intensity, but the recording conditions were excellent and the sound is stunning, adding to the impact the ensemble generates.  Anyone who loves percussion and African drumming in particular will be especially impressed by this fantastic album.

Mali Lolo! Stars of Mali

This stellar 2003 release on Smithsonian Folkways provides a wide array of traditional modern sounds from the west African nation of Mali, where the ages-old tradition of Mandingo griots has been fused with all kinds of external influences.

The kora, balafon, ngoni, talking drums and many other traditional Malian instruments are joined by guitars, drums, basses and other modern instruments with soulful and passionate vocals underpinning the 16 songs, all excellent.

Some names may be familiar, including the great guitarist Ali Farka Toure and the kora master Toumani Diabate, but the other musicians and bands on this compilation show just how musically rich Mali has been over the years, including the Bambara Blues genre that Toure has been known for.

It really is hard to pinpoint particular songs, because they are all so good and have their various notable elements, whether it is the rhythmic intensity, the fine melodies and harmonies in the vocals, with lyrics often hearkening to stories and legends from the country's history, the excellent kora work, skilled use of electric Western instrumentation, and so on.

Habib Koite and Bamada's "Nimato" is very impressive--percolating percussion, an insistent rhythm added to with guitar and bass, and a precise and well-produced sound by seasoned musicians playing in tune with one another.  It is a great blend of traditional and modern elements.

Yoro Sidibe's "Noumou Koulouba" is all traditional and is sensational.  Fine vocalizing by the leader and the great sound of the ngoni, or lute-like stringed instrument, propels this song with light percussion.

"Ya La" by Oumou Sangare is more pop-driven, but is totally infectious in its driving rhythms, horns, percussion, and title refrain, while the leader is an excellent singer.

The comes the gorgeous "Cheikhna Demba" by Toumani Diabate and Ballake Sissoko and its traditional evocation of one of the most engrossing of all instruments: the staggering kora.

These four songs, comprising only a quarter of this amazing album, showcase the varied elements of Malian music from purely traditional to a mixture of that with modern sounds, but all brought about in a way that is so well done.

There is so much more, though, including Abdoulaye Diabate's masterful vocals on "Fakoli", the guitar work and plantive singing on "Tessalit" by the duo Tinariwen, the call-and-response chanting and percussion on "Iya Heniya" by Tartit, and so on.  The rapping on "Pirates" is complemented by traditional stringed instruments and has a topical lyric blasting pirated music to boot.

The liner notes are full of great information about Malian music, the features performers, and the songs.  There is a good grounding here for understanding just how vital and alive this music really is.

Thanks to compiler Jon Kertzer, Banning Eyre for his notes,the great Smithsonian Folkways label and, of course, these superior musicians for a memorable recording!

Sounds of West Africa: The Kora & The Xylophone

This is a beautiful and compelling album of music from the nations of Ghana, Gambia and Senegal featuring the gorgeous, lush sounds of the lute-like kora and the hypnotic and highly rhythmic xylophone or balophon, and released by the Lyrichord label.

The latter is the specialty of the Lobi and Dagarti peoples of northern Ghana, who, as the informative liner notes by Richard Hill indicate, preserved their music despite pressures from Muslim and European influences.

Conversely, the kora is an instrument that came from Islamic sources in north Africa, even if the rhythms generated by it are reflective of sub-Saharan antecedents.

The recording features sixteen mainly short (3 minutes and under) pieces with a few longer works in the 4-5 minute range--the effect is to get a notable variety of musical elements that reflect the rich diversity found in the three countries.

Works performed at festivals, work songs, wedding pieces, and songs reflecting the importance of the griot in preserving oral tradition are found on the album.  For this listener, the xylophone is a fascinating instrument with a strong sense of timbre, as well as rhythm, while the kora pieces impress grearly with the complexity, virtuosity and agility of the performers accompanied by interesting vocalizations.

The tenth track, Nabaya, and the trio of tunes at the end of the record include Foday Musa Suso, whose music has been featured previously on this blog (along with another excellent kora master, Alhaji Bai Konte.)

Someone coming to west African music for the first time will benefit from hearing the range of songs and instrumentation featured on this album, but those who have some experience with this amazing music will enjoy the selections, too, as representative of a remarkable tradition.

Alhaji Bai Konte: Kora Melodies from The Gambia

This was another memorable purchase in the early Nineties as explorations in "world music" were beginning and it was the first introduction, outside of an abridged piece on a JVC sampler CD, to the amazing and rich sound of the kora.

The 21-stringed gourd-like instrument has so much range and complexity and, in the hands of a master griot like Bai Konte, it takes on an otherworldly quality to it.  Beautiful melodies, deft arpeggios, and an assured technique mark this 1973 recording, released to coincide with Bai Konte's first tour of the United States and released by Rounder Records.

Then a three-year old company, Rounder was becoming well-known for its releases of folk, bluegrass and other American forms of music, but the beauty of this music inspired the label to issue the album because it seemed to relate in spirit to the rest of Rounder's expanding catalog.

The 1990s purchase of the album was on cassette, so the great thing about the CD version is the presence of four extra tracks, three of them recorded at a college concert in Pennsylvania.  The remainder of the album was recorded in The Gambia, including one of the bonus tracks which was taped at a performance in the town of Sinanor.

Most of the insert is about the sights and sounds encountered when the producers spent time with Bai Konte in The Gambia and give some idea of the important of Islam, Gambian traditions, and family in the musical world of the kora master.

After this first foray into world music, Rounder later released over fifty volumes of the remarkable "Anthology of World Music" series.  More selections from that series to come soon!

Jali Kunda: Griots of West Africa and Beyond

This is another excellent release by the Ellipsis Arts label, in which kora master Foday Musa Suso, whose work has been highlighted on this blog previously, worked on selecting, coordinating and arranging the selections on this record.

There are fifteen tracks, most recorded in the west African nations of Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia and Senegal, with three featuring collaborations between Suso and Western musicians, including composer Philip Glass, jazz saxophone titan Pharoah Sanders, and the ubiquitous Bill Laswell, among others.  These three works are well-done and complement the more traditional pieces, although the liners do explain that "this recording was made with both authenticity and an international audience in mind," specifically in that "the length of the pieces has been substantially shortened."

 

 

That said, there are some marvelous pieces to savor on this record.  There are a few examples, moreover, of duplicated works, though usually with different instrumentation, vocalizations and in location.  For example, the bookend pieces, consisting of a Muslim invocation to Allah, includes a version from Senegal and another from The Gambia.  What is described in the notes as "the most famous Griot song," called "Sunjata," celebrating the warrior king who established the great Mandinka empire in the 1200s, has a version from Guinea-Bissau and another from Senegal.  And, the excellent "Lambango" has a version that uses the xylophone-like balafon and which was recorded in one community in Guinea-Bissau, while another, employing the harp-like kora is from another part of that country.  Another highlight is "Sorrie," a Mandinka tune from The Gambia that has great balafon playing.  One other piece to point out is "Yata Kaya," a Fulani piece from Senegal, which Suso stated was a favorite tune utilizing the one-string fiddle called the nyanyer and which represents the type of music that is starting to fade from the music scene in that country.

 

Of the three "fusion" pieces, "Spring Waterfall" is a Suso piece in which he used effects to create what is described in the notes as "cascading layers of the kora" with Glass playing a non-intrusive piano accompaniment.  "Lamnbasy Dub" has been featured in some compilations produced by Laswell and was originally released on an album called New World Power by Suso's The Mandingo Griot Society and released on the late, great Axiom label, in which he plays an electric kora, while Laswell employs the bass and samples, Jeff Bova, known for his ambient electronic music, plays electric keyboards, and frequent Laswell collaborator Nicky Skopelitis and Clive Smith utilize other programming.  Laswell's bass is particularly effective here.  Finally, there is "Samma," another standout on this record, in which Suso on kora is joined by Sanders on tenor sax for a great blending of instruments, expertise and melody and sound.

 

Ellipsis Arts put together a string of well-chosen, sequenced and produced "world music" recordings in the 1990s and Jali Kunda is an excellent example of the quality of the label's offerings, of which more will be featured here in the future.

 

Jali Kunda: Griots of West Africa and Beyond (Ellipsis Arts . . . 1997)

 

1.  Allah l'aake  2:38

2.  Sunjata  5:40

3.  Sinyaro  3:00

4.  Mariama  4:24

5.  Spring Waterfall  7:17

6.  Jula Faso  3:14

7.  Sunjata  3:03

8.  Lamnbasy Dub  8:19

9.  Jula Jekereh  4:42

10.  Lambango  2:42

11.  Samma  8:25

12.  Sorrie  3:32

13.  Yata Kaya  4:54

14.  Lambango  7:51

15.  Allah l'aake  3:30