VARIOUS ARTISTS - Sénégal – Echo Musical (Syllart )

African Pearls number...difficult to keep up – nine or ten is it?...takes us back for some more of the dense Cubano-to-mbalax dance music of the mid-1970s that crept into the earlier, more earthy and folkloric collection in this series, Teranga Spirit and then broke forth on the excellent Sénégal 70 – Musical Effervescence. Featured here are many of the stellar acts that represent the apogee of urban Senegal’s vibrant mbalax scene. Star Band, Youssou (how clear, how pristine that voice was even in the early days), Ifang Bondi and Super Diamono are the headline acts on what is probably the best of the Senegal collections in the series so far. As an introduction to the sabar-thwacking polyrhythm, meaty guitar lines that ripple out in all sorts of ear-grabbing sonic directions, oh-so-seventies keyboard wigs-out and thumping brass that took this nation on a great musical leap forward, you probably couldn’t wish for more. It’s good to see Orchestre Guelewar de Banjul amongst the choices. Originally hailing from Gambia, on Wartef Jigen they exemplify the gritty, urban soul that speaks so redolently of the urbanisation of the West African musical milieu at the time.

As with all of these carefully-chosen, well-annotated and informative rounds-up of Ibrama Sylla's golden-era Syliphone productions, Echo Musical comes highly recommended for all those who are interested in the gold-dust days of West African popular music. And this one, rich as it is in some of the cherry-picked tracks from some of the best albums of the era, goes down as the best starting point yet for this possibly never-to-be-bettered period for Senegalese music.

KANDIA KOUYATE - Ngara (Syllart)

There’s no more befitting a description than ngara, “master Jeli”, for the force of musical presence that is Kandia Kouyaté, although her rich, booming voice and domineering position as one of Mali’s leading griots suffered a setback five years ago when she suffered a stroke. This re-release of some of her older recordings underlines the impact she made prior to her unfortunate bout of ill-health.

The first five of the seven tracks here were recorded in Paris in 1999 and presaged her remarkable Biriko album (released three years later) in their stripped back configuration of balafon, ngoni, percussion and vocals. Two of the tracks – Douwawou and Doninke – originally appeared on the singer’s Kita Kan album, standing out as enduring pearls on an uneven album containing a number of over-ambitious arrangements.

Kandia never sounded better than on these less cluttered recordings – her voice is expressive, steeped in history and lightly sanded by experience and emotion but with a strong sense of melody when set against a sweetened, uplifting choir of female backing vocals (an arrangement pioneered by Kandia, and taken for granted now).

And there’s lots of space for the exemplary musicians (Moriba Keita on ngoni is in supreme form) in the sparse, echoing chamber-style arrangements. Hypnotic stuff.

In addition to those five entrancing tracks, there are two lo-fi recordings presumably taken straight off two of the many cassette tapes Kandia Kouyaté has recorded over the years. Sarama is a grainy recording made in Abidjan back in 1984 that’s nevertheless full of charged emotion, despite the slightly incongruous passages of saxophone that weave in and out of balafon, ngoni and some girlish backing harmonies. We are taken back further to Bamako circa 1981 for the fourteen-minute closing track, Yo Lele, where Kandia’s voice is high, bold, more improvisatory and less compromising than on later recordings.

It is said by some that you really need to understand Kandia Kouyaté’s words to fully appreciate her power, as they carry a resonance and message like no other. Maybe so, but the voice at its best - as it was in this period - speaks volumes enough to this listener.

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine

VARIOUS - African Pearls: Guinea/Mali/Senegal (Syllart)/RAIL BAND - Belle Epoque 3: Diola (Stern's)

Continuing the excellent African Pearls series digging into Ibrama Sylla's Syliphone recordings from the Congo, Guinea, Mali and Senegal. This is the second raft of compilations covering the latter three countries, taking us into the 1970s and a move away from the state-funded infusion of traditional music (although it's still evident) into a more direct attempt to modernise sounds for the popular market.

The Guinea volume is culled from a number of sources, although as the title suggests chiefly the annual “Discotheque” compilations of the 1970s.
The artists featured were still nodding towards the authenticité cultural programme of President Sekou Touré but unafraid to follow US soul music and Nigerian Afrobeat trends with extended organ and electric guitar wig-outs.
This is the sound of boys playing with their new musical toys, although finessed by the seductive sound of punchy horns, ringing guitar and bright soulful vocals. Most of the greats are represented - Bembeya Jazz, Keletigui et Ses Tambourinis, Super Boiro Band, plus the slightly lesser known Horoya Band National, who are the real revelation. They only released one album and a handful of singles, but are represented by five tracks that shimmer and sway with warmth and joy. Warning: there are two or three overlaps with 2007’s excellent Aunthenticité compilation, but that still leaves over twenty songs to serve as a worthy follow up to that album.

Of the three countries, Senegal was the country to hold onto the Cuban influences the longest, but as seen on Musical Effervescence, its artists threw themselves with some sabar-drum slapping gusto into heavily localised idioms. Much of this compilation is the sound of urban Dakar, where we can hear the burgeoning mbalax scene, where Latin rhythms competed with dense, polyrhythmic grooves and wild keyboards, vibrant guitars and strident bursts of brass exemplified best by Super Diamono de Dakar and their impassioned vocalist Omar Pene, plus the various Star and Etoile bands out of which a young Youssou can be heard heralding a new era for Senegalese music. Orchestra Baobab were caught in the cross-fire, their languid, melodic Afro-Cuban here sounding wonderfully familiar and yet almost wilfully anachronistic in this context.
Modern, experimental, uniquely rooted in tradition but pan-continental in its appeal, the music of Mali in the 1970s was characterised by a move away from the polarisation of short, Afro-Latin songs and lengthy traditional praise songs into slow, winding bluesy songs drawing on the best of both approaches. Electric guitarists push the rhythm; saxophones and electric organ wind their way around kit drum; singers declaim, chant, shout; the ever-present horns remain defiantly off-kilter. Regional orchestras started to split, although they're still here in number (Orchestre Regional De Sikasso, Orchestre Regional De Mopti, Orchestre National de Badema) but Les Ambassadeurs and Rail Band have taken centre-stage, as well as the evergreen and long-standing Super Djata Band (some wild and wailing wah-wah guitar from them). Wide-ranging and expressive, this music has remained as vital and fresh-sounding as the day it was made.
This takes us neatly onto the final volume in the Rail Band retrospective that overlaps and follows on from the period covered by the African Pearls series. This takes us through the band’s most fractious days (from 1977 to 1983) where the loss of Mory Kanté and Djelimady Tounkara (although the latter returned to add his lyrical guitar work to much of the music here) affected the overall standard of output of a band with ever-changing personnel. You wouldn’t know it from the judiciously selected tracks here though, all of which show a band of exceptional ability and verve. Sometimes bright and swinging, other times dense and winding, always pushing the boundaries of what's possible and taking in the influences necessary to do that (Afrobeat, jazz, traditional Mande praise songs). True to form for this series, the compilers have given themselves licence to make the odd musical flashback, perhaps to keep the attraction of Salif Keita and Mory Kanté across all three volumes. This shouldn't detract from a consistently impressive vocal supporting cast - in particular, Lanfia Diabaté sounds hard, soulful and full of clarity throughout.
Ironic to think that all this great music from West Africa predated most of the western world’s interest in music from this region. Who will dare take a step into the next era, where Sylla and his like decamped to Paris to record albums that arguably fail to stand the test of time in quite the way these great moments do.

BAKO DAGNON - Titati (Syllart)

For three decades and more, Bako Dagnon has stood imperiously over the music scene in Mali as a past member of the influential Ensemble Instrumental du Mali, fixture on the wedding party circuit, mentor to celebrated singers such as Kandia Kouyaté, and cultural guru to the late Ali Farka Touré.
All of which makes it slightly mystifying that she's remained relatively unheralded outside of West Africa, with none of her previous five solo albums seeing the light of day outside her native country.
Her commanding appearances on the Ibrahima Sylla-produced Mandekalou recordings went some way towards addressing that oversight, and that correction continues on this impressive showcase of songs covering the full history of Bako's career, recorded last year by Sylla and stalwarts of the legendary Bogolan studios of Bamako, François Bréant and Yves Wernert.
Bako's no untarnished siren like a Rokia Traore, nor does she possess the soulful tone of an Oumou Sangare, but her rough-hewn voice is the perfect instrument for these part-sung, part-spoken narratives, all delivered across a pulsing Mandé groove. Malian session musician mainstay Mama Sissokho and cohort Fantamady Kouyaté are the acoustic guitar-playing hub around which revolve the rest of the ensemble, and there's an mature control in Dagnon's vocals that cuts through the serene ensemble playing and sweet female harmonies (including those of Hadja Kouyaté, another singer well overdue further exposure). On the difficult-to-get-past Donsoké, a melodic, interweaving repeat-play of an opening song, we get the full range, from talkative through to declamatory (Kerfala Konte guests beautifully on this track), and there's passion in the voice too, at times, most notably when working against a dramatic string arrangement on Salimou (tunes are prudently coloured by violins, flute and wafts of bluesy harmonica throughout the album) and when driving against rousing female harmonies on Bélébélé, a song that reaches all the way back to the start of Bako's career in 1972. Every song's a gem, in fact, and the lady delivers them all with understated authority, aided by a sterling backing band and production team. Long-justified and well-overdue recognition awaits.

UK distribution via Discovery Records

This review first appeared in fRoots magazine.