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Monday, November 10
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Toumani Diabate
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Ticket Price: $23.50 adv / $25.00 dos
Doors at 7:00 PM, Show at 8:00 PM
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Toumani Diabate
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TOUMANI DIABATE is the holder of the torch for one of the world's most breathtakingly beautiful art forms. This is a music that has been nurtured and revered for centuries, and Toumani, a true virtuoso and master of his art, produces a music in which this noble history is both reaffirmed and enabled to connect with a contemporary audience with heart-stopping and uplifting spirituality - Nick Gold.
Toumani Diabaté plays the kora, a harp unique to West Africa with 21 strings; and more than any other kora player, it is Toumani who is responsible for bringing this instrument to audiences around the world. Not only is he a performer of truly exceptional virtuosity and creativity - some one who shows that the kora can rival the worlds greatest instruments; but he also plays a vital role as band leader, teacher, musical conservationist and composer at home in Bamako, capital of Mali where he was born and has lived all his life.
Toumani's music has an expressiveness and beauty that takes the powerful ancient traditions of Malis griots to new heights and into new territories. He is at the vanguard of a new generation of Malian griots who are constantly looking for ways of modernizing this tradition while still honouring it. He founded, built, finances and directs a music school in Bamako where dozens of Malian children from different social backgrounds learn to play traditional instruments and to dance. There is no doubt that his music reflects a profoundly positive image of Africa, and makes an impact on the world market, thus inverting the usual power role between the local and global. Music, in effect, is Malis greatest resource, as Toumani amply demonstrates.
Toumani was born in the 1960s in Bamako, Mali into a family of exceptional griots, 71 generations of kora players from father to son. The most notable was his father, Sidiki Diabaté (c. 1922-96), a kora player of legendary fame in West Africa - dubbed King of the Kora at the prestigious international Black Arts Festival Festac in 1977, and a continuing inspiration to all kora players to this day. Sidiki was born in the Gambia of Malian parents. He settled in Mali after the second world war, where he became famous for his virtuoso hot and idiosyncratic style of playing (echoes of which can be heard in Toumanis style as in his Alla laa ke). After Mali became independent in 1960, Sidiki was invited to join the Ensemble National Instrumental, along with his first wife, Toumanis mother, the singer Nene Koita. Sidiki and Nene were much favoured by the first president, Modibo Keita who gave them the land on which the family house now stands, underneath the presidential palace in Bamako. This was the musical environment in which Toumani was raised - though in fact, he was self-taught, never learning directly from his father except by listening.
A childhood illness left him with one leg paralysed, so that he has always had to walk with crutches. This has, of course, affected his mobility, but not his spirit. In a country like Mali, where there is little if any formal-sector help for the disabled, Toumani has had to struggle twice as hard as other musicians to establish a place for himself. In Bamako, he pays special attention to the handicapped.
A child prodigy, Toumani began playing the kora at the age of five, and at school in Bamako, would often be asked to play. At that time, Mali was engaged in an active programme of encouraging regional ensembles to represent local folklore. Toumani was recruited to the ensemble from Koulikoro (some 60 kms east of Bamako) with whom he made his public debut at the age of 13 to great local acclaim. In 1984 Toumani joined the group of brilliant young musicians who accompanied the great diva Kandia Kouyate, the best known and most powerful female griot singer in Mali, with whom he toured Africa extensively, still only 19 years old. Since this first tour outside of Mali, Toumani has been around the world many times, playing over 2000 concerts and participating in over 170 festivals across the globe.
Toumani first came to the UK in 1986 to accompany another Malian singer, Ousmane Sacko, and ended up staying in London for seven months. During this period, at the age of 21, he recorded his first solo album Kaira. This was a groundbreaking album it was the first ever solo kora album, and he recorded it effortlessly without retakes in a single afternoon in a London studio. It still remains a best seller and one of the finest albums of kora music to date.
At the same time while in the UK he met and worked informally with many different musicians from different fields of music and encountered traditions that he had not previously known, such as Indian classical music, from which he derived the jugalbandi idea (musical dialogue between two instruments) that has since become one of his hallmarks.
His first major collaboration, with the Spanish flamenco group Ketama, came about largely by coincidence. Toumani had been invited to play at a party in London in 1988, and Ketama, signed to the same label, were also there. Immediately they began doing palmas (interlocked flamenco clapping) to his music - to Toumanis amazement - he couldnt believe that that they could have such an understanding of the rhythmic complexities of his music. The next day they all went to journalist and broadcaster Lucy Durans house and within a few minutes they were playing the most sublime music together, as if they had always been listening to each others traditions. The result of this was Songhai 1, with pieces like Jarabi, a perfect synthesis of kora and flamenco.
This spirit of collaboration continued with Toumanis elaborate 1992 project with The Symmetric Orchestra, Shake The Whole World, released only in Japan and Mali, confirmed his reputation as a maverick. By this point, even the purist could not deny his talent; for Toumani experimentation is simply part of the job of a modern griot, The griots role is making communication between people, but not just historical communication. In Mali I can work in the traditional way, elsewhere I can work in a different way. Why not?
In the early-mid 1990s, now back in Bamako, Toumani began to gather around him a number of exceptionally talented young musicians such as the brilliant Ba Sekou Kouyate on the ngoni, and cultivating a certain sound and approach to his music with a type of jazz-jugalbandi-griot instrumental ensemble which can be heard on his album Djelika (as in the piece Kandjoura). This was a period in Mali when synthesizers, electric guitars and drum programmes were all the rage, but Toumani steadfastedly held out for an all-acoustic sound, finding other ways of modernizing the tradition. Also in the same year Toumani went to Madrid to record Songhai 2, which he believes to be even better than the first album.
Toumani is an active and dynamic member of the Malian musical community, respected by all. He has participated in many other recording projects both at home and abroad, for example Ali Farka Tourés eponymous debut album for World Circuit; Salif Keitas Grammy winning album Papa, and Kasse Mady Diabatés 2004 Grammy nominated album Kassi Kasse.
Over the past decade he has gradually built up his audience in Mali and abroad; whilst in New York in 1996 Toumanis pioneering spirit was in evidence when, in the company of writers, artists, and African academics, he made the first ever CD Rom of African Arts titled The Inroad of Africa. At home he has been one of the most influential musicians, showing the way forward to the new generation. In 1998 Toumani recorded a kora duet album with Ballake Sissoko; their two fathers released the 1970s classic Cordes Anciennes (Ancient Strings), so the new album was called New Ancient Strings, it was their tribute to the original record and an attempt at bringing such material to a modern audience. This is the spirit that he brought to the project Kulanjan, a wonderful, uplifting and deep collaboration with bluesman Taj Mahal whom he nicknamed Daddy Kouyate.
Taj, Toumani and six other Malian musicians including the singers Kasse Mady and Ramata Diakite, explored the common ground between the blues and the great musical traditions of Western Mali. The connections between the blues and West African music are well known. Taj Mahal had listened to, and played with, many great kora players, and what most struck him as bearing an uncanny resemblance with the blues was the plucking techniques of the kora and other Malian string instruments. One piece of music in particular stuck in his mind: Kulanjan - an ancient song that Taj had first heard recorded on the Cordes Anciennes album. Kulanjan was what I called all of this music, this sound, the sound of Malian music, says Taj. I didnt know much about it but I knew if I could really work on that Kulanjan sound, Id find what I was looking for. They say that blues and jazz came from Africa says Toumani. The kora and ngoni, theyre very old, many centuries old. So maybe the blues were once being played on these instruments. Making an album with Taj is like bringing the old and new together.
2001 saw the release of Jarabi Best Of, the first ever internationally released compilation of its kind from an individual kora player, and testament to Toumanis status as the worlds premier korist. Constantly looking to evolve and innovate, Toumanis next album MALIcool with American free jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd saw him take another step out on the edge. The arrangements on this album are sparse, leaving everybody room to improvise, and there are a few unexpected pieces such as an interpretation of Thelonius Monks Hank, a swinging version of a Welsh folk song, and a leftfield take on Beethovens Ode to Joy.
In recent years Toumanis has been enjoying recognition for his contribution to the development of the kora, and as a key figure in African music. In 2003 he received the Tamani dor, a prize awarded to the best kora player in the world; the following year saw Toumani receive the Zyriab des Virtuoses, a UNESCO prize awarded at the Mawazine Festival organised by King Mohammed 6th of Morocco, he is the first black African ever to be given the prize. Toumani has been taking steps to help preserve the legacy of traditional kora music in Mali, and to educate future generations of their rich musical heritage, whilst encouraging them to also explore the creative possibilities within music. He is President/Director of Mandinka Kora Productions, who actively promote the kora through workshops, festivals, and various cultural events. Toumani is also a teacher of the kora and of modern and traditional music at the Balla Fasseke Conservatoire of Arts, Culture and Multimedia, which opened at the end of 2004. Toumani has also entered into a creatively furtive period; he reunited with Ballake Sissoko for a track on Ballakes new album Tomora and also appears on the title track of Salif Keitas latest recording Mbemba.
Toumani started working with World Circuit in 2004 where recording began in Mali. These recordings are part of a trilogy of albums recorded at sessions in the Mandé Hotel in Bamako. The first release from these sessions, the duets album In the Heart of the Moon recorded with the great Ali Farka Touré was released to universal critical acclaim in summer 2005, culminating in its winning a GRAMMY award for Best Traditional World Music Album. Released in March 2006 is the album Boulevard de l'Indépendance by Toumani Diabatés Symmetric Orchestra, and the third album to be released is Alis new solo album Savane. In addition to this hive of activity, Toumani has also began work on an album of solo material; each of the albums is distinctly unique and highlight his diversity as a musician. This is indeed what Toumani is so good at bringing together the old and new in timeless beautiful music, the very best that Africa has.
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