MADOU SIDIKI, AHMED FOFANA, ALEX WILSON - Mali Latino (Alex Wilson Records)

A slightly new angle on the familiar theme of blending West African music with Afro-Cuban and Latin styles. Hank Jones’s excellent Sarala and Dee Dee Bridgewater’s mostly successful Red Earth are probably the closest touchstones for this joyfully jazzy attack on Mande music, and Toumani Diabate’s Symmetric Orchestra is another touchstone for the marrying of traditional Malian styles with western jazz-derived sounds.

It’s Toumani’s brother Madou Sidiki Diabate who provides the kora fills for Mali Latino, with compatriot Ahmed Fofana on balafon and vocals, with Alex Wilson’s piano and Hammond organ completing a trio that forms the core of an album that veers between studied kora-jazz and rollicking, horn-driven dance numbers. It’s the big-band Bamako-meets-NY moments that are bound to draw most focus, where the trio are joined by various Malian guest vocalists (Doussouba Diabaté, Kandia Kouyaté and more) whilst bass, congas and all manner of brass instruments combine for some rip-roaring Mande-salsa. Opener Donkan is a fine example of this, the kora and balafon riffing between thick blasts of brass, and Bamako 2000 invokes 70s Latin soul, the watery warblings of Wilson’s Hammond organ to the fore (a marmite instrument if ever there was one) and balafon fitting snugly to the arrangement beneath swaying Mande harmonies.

Kansala is perhaps the best of the more reflective tracks, a showcase for Diabaté’s darting melodies, and Remercier Les Travaillers stops the album in its tracks to pay due respect to Kandia Kouyaté’s magnificence (presumably recorded some time before her recent bout of ill-health). Wilson’s piano is suitably respectful here, duetting tenderly with Diabaté kora.

However, experimental albums such as this usually have off-moments, and some of the kitchen-sink salsa moments on tracks like Ankaben can get wearing. And the sparse three-piece Voyage has some great moments but is spoilt by unnecessarily cocktail-bar piano effects from Wilson.

Not perfect by any means then, but on the whole the funky approach and spirit just about see Mali Latino through.

www.malilatino.com

JACKY MOLARD QUARTET & FOUNE DIARRA TRIO - N’Diale (Innacor Records)/DIABEL CISSOKO & RAMON GOOSE - Mansana Blues (DixieFrog)

The radiant Foune Diarra will surely be one of Mali’s next stars. Possessing a voice that’s powerful yet as sinuous as the slight frame that betrays her past as a dancer with the Malian Ballet, she dazzles and seduces with a mixture of supple soulful charm and rousing declamation worthy of an Oumou Sangaré or an Amy Sacko. Backed by the dry, chirpy strains of kamele ngoni player Kissim Sidibé (no mean vocalist himself) and Alhassane Sissoko’s animated djembe drum, the Foune Diarra Trio is an ensemble to be reckoned with. But that’s not the half of it. Bambara meets Breton on N’Diale with celebrated fiddler Jacky Molard commanding his quartet of violin, double bass, accordion and saxophone to lay an impressive array of European folk idioms over the core West African base. Celtic jaunts straddle Brittany and Ireland and Balkan textures come and go in a melange that could have amounted to bit of an unholy mess in less assured hands. Instead it all knits together with seemingly ease, these seven consummate musicians unafraid to let the tunes take as long as required to unravel (seven minutes seems an optimum time), with much of the impetus coming from the restrained Gallic jazz saxophone that Yannick Jory interlaces with the overall texture. A fine album from start to finish.

www.innacor.com

www.myspace.com/ndiale

These cross-cultural collaborations arguably miss more than they hit so we are doubly blessed this month because the meeting of Senegalese singer/kora player Diabel Cissokho and former Eric Bibb sideman Ramon Goose has much to recommend it too. This one comes from the blues end of the spectrum with Goose playing a mean old slide guitar as well as predominantly tasty acoustic picking that nestles comfortably alongside Cissokho’s engaging and economical kora melodies. Diabel has a chocolate- rich voice that’s well-suited to these rootsy mid-tempo workouts, and Ramon has a decent crack at injecting some chunky blues-rock riffs to the tougher moments. Electric bass, drums and calabash complete the picture and it all comes together most effectively on Yeurmande, a flavoursome mix of slide guitar, mellow kora and undulating Mandinka rhythms. There are some ho-hum blues-rock moments too but it’s a mostly successful outing.

BELA FLECK - Throw Down Your Heart (Rounder)

When considering past western artists’ team-ups with African musicians, it’s hard to think of a better example of how to tap into the collaborative nature of African music than that displayed on this addictive album by American banjo player Béla Fleck.
Readers may already be aware of the impressive continental spread of this part-field recording, part-studio, part-concert work which, despite lacking any logic in its sequencing, avoids the trap of becoming a hotch-potch of intermittently coherent aural sketches that certain big-name pop stars have been wont to deliver in the past. Indeed the broad palette and rambling geography only seems to underline the impressive chameleon-like nature of Fleck’s fretwork. Whether trading sprightly acoustic riffs with Madagascan guitarist D’Gary, providing sympathetically sparse accompaniment to Oumou Sangaré’s gorgeous rendition of Djorolen, adding subtle bluegrass flavours to the closing moments of the exultant stop-you-in-your-tracks opening song by Uganda’s Nakisenyi Women’s Group or fighting for space with ghostly giant marimbas, buzzy bowed lyres and spiritual choirs, Fleck manages to flavour the whole enterprise with a desire to adapt to those around him rather than impose his own musical ideas. And the plucked pursuit of the crazy melodies produced by the almost comically elastic falsetto of blind Tanzanian thumb pianist Anania is pure innocent delight - virtuosos at play!
In keeping with the spirit of the enterprise, Throw Down Your Heart comprises mostly traditional fare or that written by the local artists. The title track and D’Gary Jam are the exceptions, the latter providing the only really jarring note. A six-minute, multi-tracked, overly guest-appearanced jam that, despite its title, feels mannered alongside the joyous tone of the rest of the album. Béla should hold off from his threat to unleash a 22-minute version of this rather contrived number – he could probably cover at least a couple more countries in that time to far better effect. A small wrinkle in an otherwise excellent soundtrack.

www.rounder.com

JAYME STONE and MANSA SISSOKO

If there were a musical instrument version of the BBC’s popular personal history programme “Who Do You Think You Are”, the banjo would surely be first in line for some genealogical gap-filling, such has been the recent proliferation of attempts to revive, recapture and return the instrument to its assumed African source. Now Jayme Stone, an unaffected yet articulate banjoist originally from Toronto (now resident in Boulder, Colorado) brings his old timey and bluegrass enthusiasms to one of the more effortless family get-togethers. Stone’s album with Mansa Sissoko, Africa to Appalachia, was released early this year to relatively little fanfare, but its series of updated West African melodies and occasional bluegrass standards - including what Stone describes as “a twisted version” of The June Apple - has proven to be one of 2009’s long-fuse albums, its subtle charms and supple melodies creeping up and working their way into the imagination over the ensuing months.

With no grandiose claims to uncovering any newly discovered shared DNA between the banjo and its West African cousins, nevertheless Jayme says he sees a connection there. “I became increasingly aware of certain similarities between the banjo and instruments such as the ngoni, “explains Stone, “and in recent years I’ve spent some time over in Africa, including seven weeks spent journeying around Mali, learning about the ngoni and other Malian instruments, transcribing the songs I heard there, and meeting people like Bassekou Kouyaté and Toumani Diabaté; although actually the most important meeting of all has been with a musician based in Canada.”

Quebec resident Mansa Sissoko is a kora-playing griot, born in Baleya near Kita in western Mali and raised in the capital Bamako. “His mother, Fatamata Binta Kouyaté, was a well-known griot singer and story-teller,” explains Stone, “and although I never met her I have this strong feeling that she was a huge influence on Mansa. A lot of our songs come from her repertoire.”

That repertoire makes up the majority of Africa to Appalachia’s songs, with some familiar Malian melodies receiving Stone and Sissoko’s fluid banjo and kora treatment, with guitarist Grant Gordy in support and fiddler Casey Driessen cementing the bluegrass element where required. Mansa’s unspectacular but sturdy singing contrasts with Guinean griot Katenen Dioubaté’s soaring vocals, and bassist Paul Mathew and percussionist Nick Fraser lay down a convincing polyrhythmic groove.

“Nick and Paul are musicians from Toronto that I've played with for years,” explains Stone, “and I always love what they bring. There is a trust and understanding there, so I knew that they would fit in. Nick had never played the calabash before but he's an incredibly intuitive musician - it's in your hands as a percussionist rather than the instrument and he’s found his own way of playing it. “

The result is a friendly, empathetic marriage of styles which perhaps contrasts with the more academic approach of, for example, the (admittedly very interesting) 2007 Grammy-nominated match-up between Cheikh Hamala Diabaté and Bob Carlin. The alliterative, ambiguous album title – “designed to be evocative, summing up that the continents are related, but no more,” according to Stone - reflects this unforced, light-touch approach.

"Some traditionalists may question if I am the person to do it, because I am not a tried and trusted bluegrass player,” says Stone. “I very much come into it as a modern banjo player; I love bluegrass and old-timey and maybe I play it in an irreverent way, but for me the relationship and the energy of the collaboration is the most important thing. Even though we have different skin colours, cultures and backgrounds, and are from different countries, we both have imaginations and we found a place where our imaginations meet. There's a certain amount of study and understanding musically and culturally. But I feel that what we have come to, especially now that we have toured, is a music that's our music, it's the sound of these people; there's cross-influence and there are so many layers - I have all kinds of influences from listening to jazz, classical music, some of that trickles in, Mansa loves Bob Dylan and Bob Marley. We're sort of modern folk; it's just not an academic pursuit at all. I don’t even know how we would do it as an academic exercise at all, and it’s developing all the time as we play live.”

On paper, the smaller concert line-up (Jayme, Mansa and the rhythm section) doesn’t possess as much depth or variety as that on the album. But the sparser arrangements work well, bringing a bucolic dark edge where on the album there is smoothness and light. And there are a couple of impressive new numbers that the band has worked out on the road, and which benefit from the increased space afforded to the Stone/Sissoko melodic axis and the sparer, more acoustic rhythmic flavour in which they are framed. It’s a set that suits small halls and festivals - warm, inviting and with an understated intelligence and sincerity all of a piece with its accomplished yet modest practitioners.

DABY TOURE and SKIP McDONALD - Call My Name (Real World)/SO KALMERY - Brakka System (World Village)

Despite a keen ear for a hook and an enviably wide-ranging instrumental ability, a criticism of Daby Touré in the past has been his tendency to smooth out his catchy tunes with generic singer-songwriter sheen. So hope was raised by recent reports of a more spiky side to the Mauritanian when he teamed up in concert with Skip McDonald, the gruff-voiced Little Axe man from Ohio. Add to that the presence of McDonald's On-U Sound-mate Keith LeBlanc on drums, and with Call My Name we're surely in for a six-song EP of bleeding-edge blues with a finely wrought West African melodic sensibility, right? Not quite, unfortunately. There's some good, grungy chuntering blues guitar here and there, Skip's sandpaper vocals contrasting well at times with Daby's smooth, woody timbre. But there are no real edges here; too much of the music has been smoothed out into a not-quite-blues that verges on the less interesting electric side of Touré's blander album fare. There can be no complaints about a lack of tunes - Touré probably reads the telephone directory at perfect pitch, and McDonald is a guitarist with a fine feel for whichever mood is required. But that mood is too often one of safety-first. The final, funky track Riddem offers the best clue as to the chance missed, a chunky blues that finds Daby much deeper in tone and LeBlanc hammering away for all he's worth. Next time, take these guys out of Realworld and into the other world of LeBlanc and McDonald's Tackhead dubscapes and we might have something worth talking about. Good, but could have been much better.

www.realworldrecords.com

Daby Touré guests as bass player on the irresistible sing-along Calling, the closing track on So Kalmery's latest album titled after the urban dance style he practises. The former Papa Wemba guitarist is originally from the Congo, but there's nothing of that country's chiming soukous sound here, and in many ways the first few tracks arguably deliver what the Touré/McDonald combination promises - a straight out of the blocks blues-soul groove based on electric guitar and a tough percussive drive. Hey! Mama Liza has big, funky electric guitar lines, tough beats with a rhythmic similarity to New Orleans second-line strut, and a storming blues-rock hook. The next track Regea maintains the appeal, with soulful female backing harmonies adding variance to Kalmery's forceful vocal. The party fun continues in this vein pretty well all the way through, albeit the appeal of what is a relatively limited form takes its toll over a whole album (some rather tacky English-language lyrics don't help matters).The only exception is Kamitik Soul, which finds So Kalmery playing (quite beautifully) an oud backed by guimbri (Gnawa acoustic bass) and an Arabic backing vocal. A fascinating diversion on an interesting, upbeat set of urban dance songs.

Distributed in the UK by Harmonia Mundi www.harmoniamundi.com

African Soul Rebels - The Anvil, Basingstoke 12th March 2009

Spring has sprung and so once again a young (oh alright then, middle-aged) world music fan's fancy turns to the theoretically incongruous but in practice pretty successful agglomeration of disparate artists that make up the African Soul Rebels concept. This is the fifth year running for the brand that was presumably named for the initial triumvirate of artists billed in 2005 when soulful rappers Daara J (whatever happened to them?) were sandwiched between genuine former gun-toting desert blues rebels Tinariwen and faux rebellion of the leather-trousered variety in Algeria's Rachid Taha. Since then, despite featuring big West African hitters such as Salif Keita, Amadou and Mariam, and Femi Kuti, there has been a feeling of diminishing returns about the impact of the set-up. On paper the line-up doubts resurfaced again this year, especially as the recent UK performances of the best know artist, Senegalese singer-songwriter Baaba Maal, were full of eye-catching Lion King antics visually but had a going-through-the-motions air about them musically. Opening act Extra Golden compounded the fears, with a US-Kenyan blues-rock mix that was more barroom than benga. What melody existed tended to be drowned out by the four-square thump of drums and unimaginative indie electric guitar riffing. Somewhat surprisingly perhaps (but not in retrospect, as will become apparent) Baaba Maal was second on the bill, and the contrast could not have been greater. Here was the soul we'd been promised, Baaba in acoustic mode for this tour and sounding sure and strong. Opening with a couple of ballads, then ratcheting up the energy, he promised an African dance party and that was duly delivered with aplomb during a perfectly-paced hour-long set. As soon as Oliver Mtukudzi appeared onstage to jig along with Baaba, it was clear that the line-up order had been set with good reason, and from the moment the veteran Zimbabwean and his band kicked off the sizeable Zimbabwean community that had turned out to see their hero were up shimmying and singing along to every word. Tuku's sunny electro-jit - featuring guitar, marimba, mbira and rumbling bass alongside two syncopated percussionists - can at times be a too-smooth mix on CD, but it all comes together in a sinuous, dance-friendly fashion in concert, Mtukudzi's rough sandpapery vocals dovetailing with sweet female harmonies and his light, undulating lead guitar lines. Approaching sixty tears of age, Tuku is almost ancient by the standards of his native country, blighted as it is by the actions of the tosspot despot Robert Mugabe. And he certainly cuts a skeletal (if encouragingly energetic) figure as he shivers and shakes across the stage. There's no "chimurenga" about this music, no rebellion from a man who has chosen to remain in Africa, just pure, subtly persuasive pop music. And with that, he might just have produced the most consummate set yet of the fifteen that have now appeared under the African Soul Rebel banner.

JAYME STONE & MANSA SISSOKO - Africa to Appalachia (own label)

Another addition to the recent plethora of projects exploring the common ground between the banjo and the stringed instruments of West Africa. It's a deftly arranged collaboration of seemingly effortless ease between Canadian banjo-player Jayme Stone and Quebec-based Malian griot Mansa Sissoko. There’s a gratifying sense of balance between the two main instruments, Sissoko's disciplined yet always melodically satisfying kora playing is never over-ostentatious, and the generous use of space allows Stone to fill these crisply arranged songs with grainy touches of old Appalachia.
The duo have subtly re-worked a set of traditional songs (one exception being the Stone-composed Dakar which features some vivacious rootsy acoustic guitar picking from Grant Gordy), Mansa sharing his sinewy vocals with another Canada-based singer, griotte Katenen Dioubaté (yet another gloriously full-throated female Guinean singer). There also support from a fine cast of guitarists, percussionists and ngoni master Bassekou Kouyaté – evocatively sprinkling his standard issue scratchy but melodic fairy dust over the album - as well as American fiddler Casey Driessen and trumpeter David Travers-Smith, who respectively add rustic C&W lustre and brassy colour to a confidently delivered, finely judged album with no boundary-crossing joins showing.

Jayme Stone website

DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER

How ‘up’ are you on your modern jazz divas? Me neither, so I wouldn’t blame you if the thought of American singer Dee Dee Bridgewater getting in touch with her 'roots' by dabbling in the music of West Africa prompts no more than a sceptical “oh yeah?”.
But forget such cynicism, the album (Red Earth – a Malian Journey) features a stellar list of guests from the world-class end of the musical spectrum and an immersive approach to recording that finds Bridgewater weaving her impressive jazz phrasing around a number of griot songs and those chosen from the repertoires of her distinguished Malian guests (Oumou Sangaré, Kassé Mady Diabaté, Tata Bambo Kouyaté and Bassekou Kouyaté all feature).
The album was recorded at the legendary Bogolan studios in Bamako and arranged (both musically, and in terms of personnel) by Cheick Tidiane Seck. "I'm an ambassador for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, and I've been out to Africa a few times. I always keep my ears open to the music there, and Mali really stood out“, explains a jolly-but-jetlagged-sounding Dee Dee Bridgewater on the phone from Los Angeles. "I first heard Cheick Seck on a Hank Jones album, and as soon as I decided to record an album with Malian musicians, I thought of him. So we got in touch with his manager, and he got the ball rolling with all these great artists."
I wonder if Dee Dee has any identifiable lineage back to Mali? "No, and I would not claim that, but when I first arrived in Bamako with the river Niger there in front of me and the red earth below, I felt a connection, I felt I was home. Later, when I was speaking to my mother about it, she said 'of course there’s a connection, you've always loved red earth - even when you were a baby in Memphis you would roll around in the red dirt there', so it all feels quite natural."
Natural or not, the musical results feel organic enough to this listener, although years of nestling ever further into the ‘not having to bother trying to understand the words’ comfort zone makes the sudden arrival of English lyrics into this particular idiom something of an aural jolt initially. But the trouble Bridgewater has taken to remain faithful to each song's original theme becomes ever more apparent as ears are tuned in.
Dee Dee: “I guess you would call them loose translations. Cheick translated the original words, and I would adapt them to make sure they made sense in terms of lyrics. Sometimes it’s almost a word for word translation, others there’s more of an ad-libbed approach. I think there's a similarity to jazz in many of the songs chosen, with the social resonance, the emotion and defiance of them.”
That’s a good description of Tata Bambo Kouyaté’s classic Bambo (No More), a song relating Malian women’s fight against forced marriages. Mention of the call-and-response duet between the two produces a crackle of admiration that fizzes down 5000-plus miles of phone line. “The stature of that woman - amazing! You know, women are changing things in Mali, men no longer dictate the rules. With Tata leading the way, what chance have they got! And for her to open up the subject of forced marriages with the Government - it shows the power she has.”
That song is delivered in Dee Dee's standard soulful tone, which contrasts well with Tata Bambo’s strident blues. On the Bassekou Kouyaté song, Demissènw (Children Go 'Round), Bridgewater really lets herself go, belting out a vibrant, gospel-edged blues over a performance which perfectly captures the live sound of Kouyaté’s thrilling ngoni quartet.
“That was the only track on the album that was recorded live. We started to work together with a different, more modern set-up, but with Bassekou’s acoustic band, Ngoni Ba, the whole thing just took off.”
A call to Bassekou Kouyaté confirms the mutual respect between the performers. “When we started rehearsing, Dee Dee immediately became part of my family: she is my sister, she even looks very Malian,” he enthuses. “I love the album - it is of excellent quality musically, and this is a really positive way to approach African music, by involving it with experiments with jazz, an expression that has African music at its roots. Everyone who took part feels very positive about the collaboration and will be glad to work with her in future. For me, I know it is just the start of a very fruitful collaboration, and I hope she will come back and do further albums with Ngoni Ba.”
"Yes, I may have another album coming with Bassekou," confirms Dee Dee, "He is writing the songs at the moment, and we'll maybe add even more traditional instruments like the bolon.” Meanwhile, Dee Dee has been touring Red Earth with some of the lesser-known (but still impressive) names that feature on the album (Mamani Keita and Baba Sissoko amongst them), with the possibility of a visit to the UK early in 2008. So, this is some commitment to the music of West Africa, and its relationship to American jazz and blues. I suggest to Dee Dee that there must be an element of indulgence on the part of her record company Universal, given the time she is spending in what is very much a specialist genre. “Oh, I have been producing myself since 1993 - I do whatever I please, I cannot have a record company dictating what I do. I'm a 21st Century girl!”

This feature first appeared in fRoots magazine.