Rachid Halihal - Traditional Songs of Fez, Morocco

I'd never heard of this guy before picking up the cd used a year ago. But it's pretty damn good music, I must say. It might be worth mentioning that all the guitars and fiddles in the world have evolved from things basically like what Rachid plays (oud & Moroccan fiddle), and he's quite masterful on both.

How to describe this music?

It's like a a party that's a devotion at the same time. Like your call-and-response exquisite church music got a life and became ecstatic call-and-response festival. And it has all these crazy microtones - in the singing, the oud and violin playing. It's actually quite affecting to hear someone whose voice can be gruff and guttural one moment reach scintillating heights of delicacy the next. Kinda like Blind Willie Johnson... only different.

Anyway, I don't have too much to say about this. It's just thoroughly enjoyable. So enjoy!

Artist’s biography for Rachid Halihal:

As a world-class musician, Rachid Halihal brings to the community the true character and spirit of musics from the classical Egyptian repertoire which is much loved throughout the Middle East; from the Fertile Crescent; from diverse regions of Morocco and North Africa; and also the mezmerizing music of the Arabian Gulf.

As a child, growing up in Fez, Morocco, Rachid played the nei and sang, imitating the famous singers of the time. At age fourteen he entered "Dar Aadyil" the Conservatory of Music in Fez. At first he studied Western classical and Andalus music on piano and violin. He soon expanded to include a variety of other instruments in order to better express his native music. In addition to his voice, which is best featured in the Andalus style, his strongest instruments are the oud (similar to a lute without frets) and the violin, which he plays in both the classical manner and upright resting on the knee for Moroccan folkloric music.

Until 1986, Rachid played in an Andalus orchestra in Fez, and at various occasions throughout Casablanca. Then, over a span of fourteen years, he presented his music to a more varied audience. This included an extended stay in the Ivory Coast; one year in Sweden; one year in Finland, where he and his seven piece band played at the Helsinki International Music Festival sharing the bill with Cheb Khaled; and in the coastal city of Agadir, Morocco, Rachid fully managed a night club, its musicians, and folkloric troupe for seven of those years, playing his music every night for the club’s primarily touristic and Arabian clientele. On his violin, he accompanied many of Morocco's well known singers who toured to Agadir. On many occasions he played with Mohammed Abdo, one of the Arabian Gulf's most loved singers. During two years, Rachid was invited numerous times to the Arabian Gulf as a singer and oud player in his own right.

In Summer 2004 Rachid toured the USA with The Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble playing Moroccan Andalus music with Abdelfattah Bennis, including Genesis at the Crossroads Festival in Chicago. He was presented at Columbia University in concert with visiting Israeli singer, Michel Cohen, with Moroccan singer Pinhas in New York and Miami, as well as other ethnic concerts and events throughout New York City. In 2003-4, Rachid was presented with his band at Denver's Global Groove World Music Festival, with Nawang Kechong in Aspen, in two separate Mid-East Dance concerts at the Boulder Theater, Colorado, with Souhail Kaspar in Denver, Boulder, Portland, and Los Angeles. Rachid also played at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the inaugural King Tut exhibit in the US on June 15, 05. In Summer of '05 Rachid toured the USA and Canada with Rachid Taha (Algerian/French) Rai-rock band.

Rachid Halihal - Traditional Songs of Fez, Morocco

Year: 2006

Tracks:

01 Allala Ylali

02 Dor Biha

03 Lemlain

04 Elazri

05 Mahani Ezin

06 Khalini Maak

07 Kaftank Mahloul

08 Jeet Nsaydou

09 Lattar

10 Ana Dene Den Allah

11 Ane Layle Moulate

12 Fen Shak Leatetk

13 Rasael Algeran

Pascal Diatta & Sona Mané - Simnadé + 4

For any of you looking for the African equivalent of Joseph Spence and the Pinder Family, this is it. Like Spence, Pascal Diatta has a style all his own, as inimitable as it is distinctive and fitting to the music. Sudden stops and starts, rhythms that repeat like you wouldn't expect them to, and very hand-crafted harmonies make this album a treat of raw, funky, sparse, delicious music. It is totally devoid of pretension, and totally full of musicality. The guitar playing is so full of syncopation that practically every note and strum occurs when you wouldn't expect it, and is unlike any other African guitar styles, being based neither on the patterns of kora/ngoni nor on those of the mbira thumb piano. And like the Pinders, Sona Mané's vocals come from somewhere in the same dimension as the guitar: untrained, unexpected, unassuming, and fantastic!

On the surface, this music seems very naked, rough, even 'primitive'. And there is a sort of 3rd-world happiness that pervades the tunes which have a quality of celebratory ordinariness. But behind this rough, simple exterior we find a very complex sense of rhythm weaving its way through the guitar lines and a refreshingly honest directness to the singing which conveys the wealth of human experience through the prism of joyful shouts and wails. If you're anything like me, it may take a couple of listens to really 'get' it, but once you do, you won't be able to put it down! The music is totally infectious: it gets inside your skin and makes your heart jump, but without any of the usual tactics of pop production.


Pascal Diatta & Sona Mané (Senegal)

Pascal Diatta is from the Balanta people living in the Casamance (South Senegal), close to the border with Guinée Bissau. He grew up as an orphan, and became interested in the guitar, but poverty forced him to build one himself. Over the years, he has developed a very distinct way of guitar playing, uncomparable with other West African guitarists. He sings together with his wife Sona Mané, following the same rhythm and tempo changes as Pascal's guitar. The title song of their album, Simnadé, means "listen", and I have nothing to add to that. A pity that the album, recorded in 1988, is difficult to find nowadays, and it is the only one.

Rogue Records, UK, 1989
With the music of Senegal reaching American ears by the thousands this year, the chance to hear this record was an incredible joy. Pascal Diatta is a most unusual guitar player. He plays a beaten Ovation guitar, a gift from a Western admirer, in a finger-picking style that owes more to the percussive sounds of the balafon than the melody of strings. He claims no influences, and living the simple life he does, it is almost believable that he owes this music to his soul alone. At times he sounds like a strange blend of Ry Cooder, merengue and too-fast ragtime picking. He taught his wife, Sona Mane, to sing in a style specific to the songs he writes, and the close har- mony of the voices tied tightly to the guitar lines makes for a striking and different-sounding music. I couldn't begin to recommend a particular cut on the album, but rather that you follow Pascal and Sona's advice: "Simnade-Listen!" - CF (1989)


Pascal Diatta & Sona Mané - Simnadé + 4

Year: 1989/1994
Label: Rogue Records

Acoustic guitar and voice, live from Casamance, southern Senegal.
Re-mastered for CD with 4 extra tracks, the complete 1988 recordings.

"Manes's passionate, husky voice stuns and enchants, sending shivers down the spine. But it is Diatta's amazing finger-picking stop/start guitar that really takes the breath away, providing looping and spiralling patterns over and under the swooping and soaring voices. This is utterly extraordinary music" (**** Q Magazine review of original vinyl release)

Tracks:
1. Mesin Sedy
2. Bougna Oudistile
3. Quinto Djiranna
4. Simnade
5. Adjilabone
6. Gniakintidje
7. Dioudiou Coumbouta
8. Bouly Diatta
9. Farancounda
10. Diasine Mandina
11. Ado Camara Ile

soul food.
mp3 >256kbps vbr | w/ full scans

*out of print (only $114 at Amazon...)

for Nauma

Boubacar Traoré - Kar Kar

One of the coolest things about Mississippi John Hurt and Elizabeth Cotten is how their guitar would mimic their voice, playing the same notes at the same time as they sang them. Now, imagine that same approach as applied to the high, lilting, rapidfire vocals of West African music. A feeling very close to the blues, though perhaps in an even more hypnotic scale and cyclical nature, like oud music perhaps. Wrap into that a sense of polyrhythm like the kora music but applied to the solo acoustic 'dry' guitar, and you'd be approaching the unique brilliance of Boubacar Traoré. Need I say more? Oh, yes - though I don't have a clue what the words he sings are, I know what he means: the blues is a feeling, afterall, and with every song he buries over some mournful regret under the clear night sky of his parched and stirring voice.

Boubacar Traoré

Biography by Chris Nickson

Boubacar Traoré has gone from being the voice of Mali to obscurity, and bounced back to become an internationally respected singer, guitarist, and songwriter -- all in all, not a bad career arc. Born in Kayes, in the sandy west of Mali, his passion as a boy was soccer, and his skills won him the nickname he still carries, 'Kar Kar' - 'the one who dribbles too much' in Bambara, a reference to his soccer playing: "a nickname I got from playing soccer when I was young. People would yell 'Kari, Kari' - dribble, dribble - the name stuck with me"..

But music caught his attention, and the round ball faded into the background. He had taught himself to play guitar and developed a unique style that blended American Blues music, Arab music, and pentatonic structures found in West Africa's Mande cultural region. He began sitting in with orchestras around Kayes (including the Orchestra Regional de Kayes), playing his guitar and singing, before moving to the country's capital, Bamako, to try his luck. In the '60s, following Mali's independence from France, it seemed as though he'd made the big time. Every morning Traoré would be on national radio, greeting the country with his song "Mali Twist," a love letter to the new nation. Everyone knew Kar Kar and his voice, although he never recorded, simply from from his appearances on the radio and in person. That didn't pay the bills, though, and Traoré had a family to feed. So music moved onto the back burner as he became a tailor, a shopkeeper, a farmer, a schoolteacher, and even an agricultural agent away from Bamako to keep food on the table. He played music occasionally, but there were more urgent priorities in his life. During the 1970s Traoré's popularity faded.

Everything changed, however, in 1987, when his wife Pierrette died. With most of his children grown, Traoré began playing gigs again, being "rediscovered" in Mali. But now the place held bad memories for him and, he said, "I didn't want to be there any more." Instead, he traveled to France, where he worked construction jobs with other Malians, sharing the rough-and-ready boarding house system, making money to send home to support the rest of his family. He had his guitar, but rarely touched it until a British producer managed to track him down, taking him to England to record his first CD, Mariama. Two years later he returned to Mali, making his home once again in Bamako and playing regularly. His reappearance came as a shock to many Malians, who assumed his silence meant he'd died. Instead, he was more active than ever, writing songs in the pentatonic style of his native Kayes, not unlike the northern Mali style of his friend Ali Farka Toure. Mariama traveled well in world music circles, and even prompted Ry Cooder and David Lindley to suggest a collaboration, which never happened. Instead, Traoré returned to Europe in 1992, recording Kar Kar, whose songs often touched on lost love, before undertaking another tour. He began dividing his time between Bamako, where he slowly built a house with his own hands, and Europe, where he toured frequently. But it wasn't until 1996 that he issued Sa Golo, his third album, in France (released 2000 U.S.), where his voice and guitar were accompanied by Baba Dramé on calabash. Three years later, Indigo in France put out Maciré, Traoré's fourth release (2000 U.S.), named for his brother, which saw his songs receive much fuller arrangements, thanks to help from rising Malian star Habib Koité and his band Bamada. The record included a song that had been big for Traoré in the '60s -- "Kar Kar Madison," his own take on the American dance craze, the Madison. In the early fall of 2000, Traoré undertook an extensive and well-received U.S. tour.


Boubacar Traoré - Kar Kar

Year: 1992/1994
Label: Sterns

Review by John Storm Roberts, Original Music

Traoré sings his own songs to a solo acoustic guitar backing that stylistically and emotionally echoes traditional koras without actually imitating them, rather as the early Congo guitarists picked up on finger-piano patterns.

Tracks:
1. Adieu Pierrette
2. Secheresse
3. Santa Mariya
4. Kavana
5. Kevalle
6. Kar Kar
7. Badialo
8. Narena
9. Farafina
10. Sougourouny

the thrill is here.
mp3 >192kbps vbr | w/ cover | 80mb

he has many albums in print. find them. buy them. support the man. he's worked hard, y'know.

and don't miss all the great African guitar music Nauma's been posting over at Freedom Blues.

Amadu Bansang Jobarteh - Tabara: Gambian Kora Music

Ok guys, you've gotta get this one. No joke. This guy is the elder statesman of the kora. Great uncle of Toumani Diabate. And he knows his stuff. Even if you pass up all the other kora albums, get this one. It's so mind-boggling what he does, and yet so elegant and modest. I only wish I understood the words, I'm sure he's recounting tales of fetching heroes and wretching wenches. This music will lift your spirit. Clean out of your body.

Amadu Bansang Jobarteh

Biography by Craig Harris

The musical traditions and historical recollections of West Africa are expressed through the music of kora player and vocalist Amadu Bansang Jobarteh. Although not as well known as younger musicians in his family -- Toumani Diabate and Sidiki Diabate -- Jobarteh continues to expand on the musical traditions of his homeland. According to Rootsworld, Jobarteh's "music is at once ancient and new, praising the heroes and benefactors of his home and family, telling the history of his people, and doing it within a series of structures that leave room for individual expression through improvisation." The son of a griot father, Jobarteh moved with his family to Bansang, Gambia, where he was taught to play the kora. Jobarteh's album, Tabara, showcases his talents as a solo performer.

Amadu Bansang Jobarteh (kora, voice) is a jali: an oral historian and hereditary praise singer from among the Mandinka people of Gambia, West Africa. Amadu's family background clearly illustrates the hereditary nature of jalis in West African society. In the late 1800s, and at the request of a Gambian chief, Amadu's father Jali Fili Jobarteh emigrated from Mali and settled with his family in the town of Bansang. Although the father played koni, his children learned the kora, which was the favored instrument in that area of Gambia.

Amadu first learned kora from his elder brother Bala, whose son Sidiki Diabate is now considered one of the most accomplished jalis in all of Mali. Sidiki's son, Toumani Diabate, is well known in the West, and has numerous recordings to his credit. Now is his late seventies, Amadu Bansang Jobarteh embodies the wisdom and maturity of a grand master, and is one of the oldest and most respected kora players of our time. Despite his age, his musical mind is sharp and his fingers are incredibly nimble. He has performed around the world and has taught in Europe and the United States.

Amadu Jobarteh passed away in April of 2001.


Amadu Bansang Jobarteh - Tabara: Gambian Kora Music

Recorded: 1987
Released: 1993
Label: Music of the World

Review by Jason Ankeny

The expertly recorded Tabara is a showcase for Amadu Bansang Jobarteh's mastery of the kora, the 21-string West African harp made of wood, calabash gourd, cowhide and nylon strings. Sweet and serene, his playing adheres strongly to tradition yet remains fresh and exciting, equally at home on instrumentals and vocal tracks.

Tracks
1 Tabara 8:31
2 Jula Faso 11:52
3 Lamban 7:18
4 Kelefaba 11:03
5 Fode Kaba 9:42
6 Hama Ba Jata 3:00
7 Jula Jegere 10:51
8 Alfa Yaya 8:39

faba-lus.
mp3 256kbps | w/ cover | 113mb

Djeli Keba Kouate/Fodé Drame & Bana Sissoko - Air Mail Music: Senegal

Djeli Keba Kouate/Fodé Drame & Bana Sissoko - Air Mail Music: Sénégal

Year: 1998
Label: Playasound

"Sénégal" is the perfect recording for some one who is just getting started with the kora. Featuring two long tracks of traditional Manding kora music. This CD starts with a 20 minute solo performance by Dejli Keba Kouate followed by a 31 minute kora duet performed by Fodé Drame and Bana Sissoko. This is a very clear recording without vocals, making it perfect for learning kora music. It also makes for great background music.

*It's WAY better than background music, guys!

Tracks:
01 Djeli Keba Kouate: Improvisation Sur Des Themes Malinkés 20:11
02 Fodé Drame & Bana Sissoko: Suite De Themes Pour Deux Kora 30:23

sweeter than icing on a spaceship.
mp3 256kbps | w/ small cover | 85mb

pick up some more kora at WeLove-Music

and if you'd like to purchase some, I'd recommend www.kora-music.com or http://www.coraconnection.com/.

Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyateh - Kairaba Jabi

More kora music. This time, a traditional kora duet with singing. Sweet. Pure. Heavenly and gorgeous.

"The kora is sounding, the drums are sounding, Saliya is lying dead. The people of Niomi Juffure are weeping... I am afraid of death-the loneliness of being left behind." - from the song "Saliya"

Since 1987, Gambia's Dembo Konte and Senegal's Kausu Kuyateh have toured worldwide as the best international ambassadors of the kora, West Africa's multi-stringed harp-lute. Their duo albums have been acclaimed as the most accessible from this fabulous tradition: here's a 76+ minute selection of the best, including lots on CD for the first time.

Kausu Kuyateh is one of first jelis or hereditary musicians to add extra bass strings to the kora. Born in Guinea-Bissau, which was part of the ancient Kabou empire, Kausu with his 24 string kora, is renowned for his masterful version of the musical style, called Yeyengo. This style is played in a kora tuning know as Tomora Ba. The tuning has a bluesy minor sound, similar to the western dorian mode.


On "Kairaba Jabi" jeli Kausu Kuyateh and Dembo Konte, play and sing with a passion that is unmatched! This compact disc includes all the tracks from their 1987 release. "Simbomba--The Great Hunter", (now out of print).

"The interplay of the two is fascinating, as they twist and turn around the melody, fighting against each other and then suddenly forming a unison that shimmers up and down a scale before parting ways again." - Cliff Furnald, Dirty Linen (1990)

"Nothing is ever quite the same after the first time you hear a kora played live in a West African setting. Dembo Konte was the musician who opened my ears, and he made these recordings with Kausu Kuyateh soon afterwards. They still sound powerful and raw, evocative and timeless." Charlie Gillett, 1998.


Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyateh - Kairaba Jabi

Year: 1987/1994
Label: Weekend Beatnik

Tracks
1 Kairaba Jabi 4:26
2 Simbomba 4:11
3 Ngaleng Sonko 8:27
4 Saliya 6:37
5 Mamma Maneh 4:58
6 Mammadu Sanyang 4:14
7 Demba Hajada 3:37
8 Banta Toure 7:15
9 Yeyengo 6:19
10 Tiramakhan 6:33
11 Fayinkunko 8:53
12 Sunkariba 6:01
13 Solo 3:52

it takes two to solo.
mp3 256kbps | w/ cover | 122mb

and get some more kora music over at Freedom Blues!

Foday Musa Suso - Hand Power

So before I get too caried away into the inexorable void of banjoism, I thought it appropriate to revisit the banjo's roots. Though mostly played by white people nowadays, the banjo was originally a 'black' instrument. It evolved in the south of the US from combining the fingerboard of the guitar with the skin/gourd structure of the African ngoni. African music also heavily influenced the strongly rhythmic, cyclical and 'odd' nature of banjo-music. The ngoni is also related to (and often accompanies) the kora, a 19-to-24-stringed gourd-lute-harp, which will be featured in several of my next posts. Incidentally, it's kinda the hip thing for banjo-players now to go and retrace their roots and play with African musicians. Look up Béla Fleck's new album and Jayme Stone with Mansa Sissoko to hear some. If you downloaded the Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabate album that I posted ages ago, then you know already how dreamlike and incredible the kora sounds, given a suitably virtuosic player. If you haven't heard it yet, go listen!

Though Foday Musa Suso is renowned as a master Kora-ploayer, this album isn't strictly a kora album. Inbetween make-your-brain-explode flurries of string-plucking and cascades of liquid arpeggios there is singing, percussion, and even some traditional Gambian electric guitar (har har). But it's all so solid and natural, and when the rhythms overlap 2 and 3 times over it makes me wet as a baby and, well, stop reading just listen.

Biography by Jason Ankeny

Griot, composer, and kora master Foday Musa Suso loomed large over the worldbeat landscape both before and after the Graceland groundswell. The solo records of this relentlessly innovative performer and tireless ambassador of African culture remained rooted in the meditative folk traditions of his native Gambia, but he also collaborated with similarly omnivorous Western musicians including Bill Laswell, Herbie Hancock, and Philip Glass to fuse West African music with classical minimalism, free jazz, and avant funk. Born in 1950 into a family of Mandingo griots -- musicians, historians, and oral storytellers -- dating back about a thousand years, Suso spent his formative years on a peanut farm, studying the kora (the harplike 21-string instrument that dominates West African music) at the feet of his father, Saikou Suso. At the age of ten he was sent to a nearby village to continue his education under the tutelage of an uncle. When Suso was 18, a group of Western tourists funded his airfare to Sweden, and in exchange he spent six months playing solo in bars and restaurants throughout the Scandinavian region. While in Stockholm he befriended a French accordionist, and together they performed across Europe for the next five years, with Suso finally returning to Africa in 1974 to teach kora at the University of Ghana. While at the university Suso met Chicago-based percussionist Adam Rudolph, and in mid-1977 he relocated to the Windy City, forming the world fusion outfit Mandingo Griot Society with Rudolph, percussionist Hamid Drake, and bassist Joe Thomas. The group's first performance at the Daley Center in downtown Chicago earned significant media exposure and landed Suso a job with the Illinois Arts Council teaching African culture in area schools. Following just their second gig, the Mandingo Griot Society signed with the local Flying Fish label, in 1978 recording their self-titled debut LP with the great Don Cherry on trumpet. A follow-up, Mighty Rhythm, appeared in 1981, but after Rudolph relocated to Los Angeles and Drake began focusing his energies almost exclusively on his burgeoning collaboration with saxophonist Fred Anderson, the unit effectively dissolved, and Suso returned to his solo career. In 1983 he contacted Laswell, inspired by the producer's work on Hancock's groundbreaking Future Shock album, and Laswell invited Suso to contribute to Hancock's follow-up, Sound-System. The legendary keyboardist was so pleased with the end result that he invited Suso to join his band for a Japanese tour that yielded the live LP Village Life. Suso signed to the Celluloid label to release his 1984 solo debut, Watto Sitta, recorded with the core Mandingo Griot Society lineup with contributions from Hancock and djembe master Manu Washington. After he and Hancock jointly headlined a 1986 live record entitled Jazz Africa, Suso returned to West Africa for a month in the company of composer Philip Glass, then preparing his score for filmmaker Godfrey Reggio's Powaqqatsi, and upon coming back to the U.S. they agreed to collaborate, ultimately scoring Minneapolis' Guthrie Theater's 1989 production of The Screens, Jean Genet's stage drama about Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Glass' influence profoundly affected the minimalist aesthetic dominant on Suso's 1990 LP, Dreamtime. Glass also introduced Suso to Kronos Quartet violinist David Harrington, and in 1992 he played kora on the avant classical group's Pieces of Africa. In 1995 the original Mandingo Griot Society lineup reunited to perform at the African Festival of the Arts, and the following year Suso's contributions to the Jali Kunda: Griots of West Africa and Beyond collection earned widespread attention from the mainstream media. In the years to follow he collaborated with jazz legends Pharoah Sanders and Jack DeJohnette, and in June 2004 he and Glass traveled to Athens, Greece, to perform Orion, a new piece commissioned in honor of the Summer Olympic Games.

Longer Biography:
Foday Musa Suso is an internationally recognised Kora playing Mandingo griot who was born in 1950 in the Gambian village of Sarre Hamadi, a village in the Wuli District, in the Upper River Region. He is a virtuoso master kora performer and composer from a hereditary lineage of other Jalis.

After spending his childhood in Banjul, the capital, he was sent to Pasamasi Village where he was taught by Saikou Suso, his uncle, when he was nine years old. He would sometimes be under the tutelage of another of his uncles Falimada Suso. After 7 years of rigorous formal training he became an accomplished player of the kora, balaphone (African xylophone) and the tama. Such an apprenticeship is a standard feature of learning music in Manding because it is considered important for achieving proper discipline and concentration. Unlike most musicians in Manding society, Suso's talents are shared among many instruments. When he had finished his training he had now put to memory past tribal conflicts, family lineages, the epic oral histories of the Manding people and its cultural heroes from the great Sujatta onwards.

Foday Musa Suso made trips to a number of European, Asian and African countries teaching, and performing, as well as learning from others. He spent two years at the Institute of African Studies, University of Legon, Ghana, as a resident instructor of the Kora.

In 1977, Suso flew to Chicago in the US where he began his recording career as well as forming a group, Mandingo Griot Society, with the percussionist Adam Rudolph. The group have appeared at New York's Carnegie Hall and Central Park Summerstage, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Frankfurt International Jazz Festival in Germany and at the Cultural Center in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Since then, he has taught and recorded with many well known jazz artists, including the trumpeter Don Cherry, and Herbie Hancock, with whom he recorded the album, Village Life, while on their tour of Japan. The group opened new ground in what is known as World Music in numerous other collaborations, such as with Ginger Baker using Suso's skillful and heavenly playing of the West African lute in a number of pieces.

After the band broke up they Suso re-united with its members Rudolph and Hamid Drake in 1984 to create the album Watto Sitta. The album was produced by Bill Laswell, and was a milestone of modern African music, skillfully and effortlessly merging Suso's cutting-edge kora playing with an effortless equilibrium of natural and synthesised tunes.

Since the early 80's his various collaborations and work has included working with Pharoah Sanders, Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet an ensemble who commissioned him to compose five works. They collaborated at venues ranging from New York's Lincoln Center and California's Institute of the Arts to the Staatsoper Opera House in Vienna, Austria and the Royal Festival Hall in London In traditional, contemporary, minimalist, classical and avant-garde settings he's cast the kora in both lead and supporting roles where its emotive, shimmering sound finds ever new levels of beauty and boldness.


Career High Points:
Foday has also performed on several film soundtracks including Roots, Powaqqatsi, and Mountain of the Moon. Other high-lights of his career include working as a performer and consultant for a Japanese documentary film on African music and the book/CD, Jali Kunda: Griots of West Africa and Beyond.

Official Website: www.fmsuso.com


Foday Musa Suso - Hand Power

Year: 1984
Label: Flying Fish

This is a solo album of traditional Gambian acoustic music.

Tracks:
1. Sir Dawda Jawara
2. Tesito
3. Fatoto Camara Kunda
4. Julla Fasso
5. Tramakang
6. Ye Goni

and how many hands can one man have?
mp3 >192kbps vbr | w/ cover | 71mb

and don't miss his duets with jazz drummer Jack de Johnette at Musical Heritage/Babeblogue and with Herbie Hancock at Guitar & the Wind and Nothing is v2.0 and with Pharaoh Sanders & Eberhard Weber at Pathway to Unknown Worlds and with trumpeter Don Cherry at Babelblogue

Grand Papa Diabaté - Guitar Extra Dry

This isn't him - it's his brother, Sekou Diabate, from 1956

There's very little information (and no photos I could find) about (Grand) Papa Diabaté, at least on the interweb. Which is a shame, because he's basically the father of Guinean guitar music, which makes him essentially one of the grandfathers of the vast and mindblowing genre of Afropop. To put things in perspective, he's like Doc Watson, Andrés Segovia, or Django Reinhardt; he did things on the guitar that nobody had ever done before. And he taught his brother and many others how to transfer onto guitar the traditional, centuries-old melodies they had learned on kora.

The music -- o, how to describe it? It's like two or three voices are singing the most amazing thing and repeating it at different intervals, exploring every possible permutation and direction without losing the connection to each other or the source. Like Fahey in some ways, Phillip Glass in others, free-jazz and choral music in yet other ways. Polyrhythm is everywhere. Melody is everywhere. Chordal progression is virtually absent. The texture is rough and raw, much more so than the polished (though still awesome) electric guitar music you may have heard coming out of Africa in the past 30 years. It's not strictly solo, there's often guitar duos or singing or kora playing, but it's always acoustic and achieves that rare combination of virtuosity and relaxedness. The effect? Well, time ceases to exist pretty quick, let me tell you. You're caught halfway between dream and dance. I suppose in this sense, it could aproach trance (the state, not the music). Peculiarly, by engaging the senses and filling the brain with all these wonderful overlapping patterns, the mind vanishes of its own accord. Leave it to the Africans: brilliant!

I found this information in the liner notes of an album by his family's group African Virtuosos:

In the late 1950s, as most African nations were gaining their political independence, Papa Diabate (born in Faranah, Guinea, 1936) was developing a new single-note style of African guitar playing based on using a plectrum rather than the thumb and index finger technique used throughout Africa. Having learned his scales and other European musical techniques at the conservatory of music in Dakar, Papa set about merging those techniques with Guinean music to create an original guitar style that could cut through and help power the brass-based dance orchestras that were on the rise. He may indeed have been the first of his generation in Guinea to play the electric guitar. Certainly he was the most prominent. The list of electric guitarists who cite him as their inspiration and teacher includes the best that Guinea had to offer in the 1960s and 70s: Manfila Kante, who ended up in Mali co-leading Les Ambassadeurs with vocalist Salif Keita, Sekou “Bembeya” Diabate of Bembeya Jazz (no immediate relation, although they can trace their connection generations back to two brothers), and Papa’s younger brother Sekou “Docteur” Diabate, who was the soloist with Bala et ses Balladins, one of the top Guinean national orchestras.Although Papa Diabate trained the initial generation of Guinean electric guitarists, he himself rarely recorded commercially in his early years. Diabate was a strong individualist and ultimately did not get along with the Sekou Touré regime in Guinea, the one that installed the extensive network of regional and national orchestras that established Guinea as a leader in government-patronized modern dance music. What may be his first commercial recording, an extraordinary 17-minute acoustic guitar duet made when he was in his mid-30s with his younger brother Sekou “Docteur,” is included as the last track on this CD, and is a true gem. Initially issued on the LP “Discotheque 70”, featuring some of the best music the state Syliphone label had to offer in 1970, this was the first installment of an ensemble that ultimately came to be known as the “African Virtuoses” or “Les Frères Diabate”. After a few more isolated selections issued on the Syliphone “Discotheque 71” and “Discotheque 72” LPs, Papa Diabate’s recording career was quiet for over two decades. In the late 1990s he was coaxed out of retirement and recorded on the Popular African Music label again (this one).
…
The Diabate brothers are by birth jelis, hereditary professional musicians who trace their lineage back to the founding of the 13th century Mali empire, and are what the early French travelers to the region called griots. The Diabate brothers, however, were not practicing griots in the sense of playing for traditional events and engaging in the art of praise-singing. Their father Sidikiba Diabate (not to be confused with kora player Sidiki Diabate, father of Malian kora player Toumani Diabate) was a renowned musician who pioneered the use of the guitar in Guinea in the 1920s and set the model for them as guitarists. Sidikiba understood how traditional music worked and was entrusted by president Sekou Touré with forming the first national instrumental ensemble of Guinea at the dawn of independence. The Diabate brothers inherited this ancient tradition, normally played on the kora, balafon (xylophone), and koni (lute), but used the guitar as their vehicle of expression and Papa Diabate is largely credited with bringing this tradition into the modern brass orchestras that flourished after independence.
…
Papa plays lead backed by Sekou playing clear arpeggios or bass lines throughout. Papa does not display the kind of speed that marks younger brother Abdoulaye, but rather specializes in an intensely personal and very deliberate melodic sensibility.


Grand Papa Diabaté - Guitar Extra Dry
Year: 1999
Label: Popular African Music PAM AG 703

Tracks:
1 Mamaya, 14ème Partie - Diabaté - 10:14
2 Mami Wata - Traditional - 9:40
3 Nanfoulé - Traditional - 8:41
4 Mamaya, 15ème Partie - Diabaté, Diabaté - 4:50
5 Ni Bara T'I La - Traditional - 9:18
6 Domamo Ni Koromamo - Traditional - 8:08
7 Lamban - Traditional - 5:09
8 Domamo Ni Koromamo - Traditional - 5:40
9 Iyé Iyé - Traditional - 5:13

Papa Diabaté - Guitar, Vocals (bckgr), Musician
Sona Diabate - Vocals
Gunter Gretz - Liner Notes, Design, Photography
Djessou Mory Kante - Musician
Morikeba Kouyate - Musician
Kante Manfila - Musician

*out of print
extra dry.
*note, some people had trouble extracting this file. here is a new upload.
mp3 192kbps | w/ cover | 92mb

if you like this stuff and you want to hear more check out some of these blogs: Awesome Tapes from Africa, Freedom Blues, Coleção de Sons, Snap, Crackle & Pop, plus of course Babeblogue and Magic of Juju and probably others over there in my blogroll.

you can read the rest of the liner notes and purchase the African Virtuosos album for download here.