Music from Mali
World Music Choice
Trish Howley |
The first article I ever wrote for World Music Choice featured Malian singer Oumou Sangare and the late, great guitarist Ali Farke Touré and in the years since then, it has been my pleasure to research and share with Africa readers an amazing number of musical treasures from around the globe. Now, at the end of the series, ever more enthralled by Mali’s music and its new generation of musicians, I want to share two more gorgeous albums that I have recently discovered.
A collection of solo and ensemble pieces, 3MA (3 Musicians of Africa) features Malian kora maestro Ballaké Sissoko, Moroccan oud player Driss El-Maloumi and Madagascar’s Rajery playing valiha. This is THE string band of the decade, breathtaking in the brilliance of the musicianship, the precision, the clarity, the unity in the playing. Having released their debut album on the Contre-jour label in 2008, the trio has been touring worldwide, piling up awards and delighting audiences with their unique blend of original compositions drawn from each player’s distinctive musical heritage.
Driss El-Maloumi is a master classical oud player (11-stringed lute) in the tradition of the Magreb, Islamic North Africa. No stranger to cross-cultural experiment, Driss has also performed with baroque ensembles, various jazz get-togethers and is an expert on the Arab-Andalus music of southern Spain. Ballaké Sissoko brings to the trio the expertise of his ancestral griot heritage — mastery in the art of Mandinka song and kora playing (21-stringed Mandinka harp). Like Driss, Ballaké has forged connections with musicians of other cultural backgrounds such as American bluesman Taj Mahal and classical cellist Vincent Segal, besides the important work he has done within his own tradition with fellow kora maestro Toumani Diabaté.
Rajery, from Madagascar, champion of the valiha (a long tubular instrument made from giant bamboo strung with up to 20 bicycle brake cables, with a dual function as a plucked-stringed and a percussion instrument) brings to the ensemble completely different melodic and rhythmic patterns – Malagasy music having influences from all around the Indian Ocean basin as well as southeast Africa. Rajery has established a valiha orchestra and a quartet dedicated to experimental music making in the Malagasy tradition influenced by jazz.
‘3MD’, the title track, is a wonderfully rhythmic piece, Ballaké’s kora creating all kinds of cross-rhythms against the hypnotic rhythm of Driss’s repeated bass notes on the oud. ‘Kouroukenfouga’ achieves a mood of abstract meditation while ‘Mainte’ is a light, airy wonder of finger-picking on the valiha. ‘Taxi Brousse’ is very much a jazz composition, Rajery’s voice doubling the melody, and a marvel of precision string playing by the trio. 3MA has a really unique sound that will thrill all string players. If you get a chance to hear them in concert, go for it!
Listening to Rokia Traoré, one becomes lulled by the trance-like effect of the caressingly rhythmic songs that she writes mostly in the Bambana language of Mali. Bowmboď (2003, Nonesuch) is a collection of ten songs that philosophically describe different states of life — childhood, friendship, marriage, fate, spirituality — Rokia’s voice bird-like, fragile in the higher notes, caressing in the lower tones, absolutely rhythmic throughout and absolutely of Mali in the way the songs are crafted on the traditional rhythms of her language. ‘Mariama’, performed with the griot singer Ousmane Sacko, is the highlight of this album that also features the Kronos Quartet — a daring and successful choice — on two of these lovely songs. Rokia, who also features on Ballaké Sissoko’s album Tomora (2005, Indigo), was awarded Best Songlines Artist of 2009.
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