mama Africa..Homeland for someone, future destination for someone else.

Miriam Makeba - Liwawechi

En solo, Ablaye Cissoko nous fait un cadeau : le morceau Sira, joué live dans L'Afrique Enchantée!

ABLAYE CISSOKO avec "SIRA", en live dans l'Afrique Enchantée

Toumani Diabate Kora Competition - by Dan Wilkins - Ibe Nyaadi

If memory serves correctly, this was recorded in early 1993. There was another track I had been working on that morphed into this one.

Fretless Dream

As part of the Pan African Space Station program in 2009, Toumani Diabate appears live in concert for his first run of South African performances in Cape Town. The king of the kora offers an incredible solo set in the equally beautiful setting of St. Georges Catherdral. 

Recorded live at St. Georges Cathedral, Cape Town, RSA on the 2nd October 2009. 

Toumani Diabate - kora

www.toumani-diabate.com

Toumani Diabate - St. Georges Cathedral, Cape Town, 2nd October 2009

Transparent Water is the new studio collaboration between 7-time GRAMMY-nominated pianist-composer-bandleader Omar Sosa and Nottingham-based Senegalese singer and kora master Seckou Keita.  It’s slated for release in February 2017.

The project idea grew out of Sosa’s impromptu addition to a mid–2012 date with drummer Marque Gilmore at the CLF Art Café in London, in what was Sosa and Keita’s first musical encounter.  Profoundly moved by the experience, Omar told Seckou he wanted to invite him to work together on a future recording project.
Given their respective touring and recording schedules, it took a year, but in July 2013 Omar and Seckou went into the Fattoria Musica recording studio in Osnabrück, Germany and laid down the core tracks for Transparent Water.

Another chance meeting informs Transparent Water:  in April 2013, Galician bagpiper-pianist-composer Cristina Pato invited Omar to Santiago de Compostela, where Pato hosts an annual residency frequented by associates of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.  There Omar met Silk Road charter member and sheng master Wu Tong, whom Omar was moved to bring into the project.  In connection with a concert date in Shanghai in July 2014, Omar arranged a side trip to Beijing to record Wu Tong’s traditional flute overdubs.

Tokyo-born, Paris-based koto player Mieko Miyazaki came to Omar’s attention via her recorded work with French jazz guitarist Nguyên Lê.  When Omar finally had the chance to meet her, Mieko’s creative spirit utterly impressed him, and he enlisted her distinctive voice for Transparent Water.

For percussion, Omar turned to longtime collaborator Gustavo Ovalles, who divides his time between France and his native Venezuela.  Ovalles (who can be heard on three prior Sosa projects—Sentir, Ayaguna, and Eggūn) brings the polyrhythmic soul of the African Diaspora to Transparent Water.

Paris-based drummer-producer Steve Argüelles crafted the mix with Omar, having previously worked on Sosa’s award-winning Mulatos and Afreecanos CDs.

Transparent Water is the latest example of Omar Sosa’s transcendent determination to seek new combinations, a manifestation of improvisatory freedom wherein the musical destination is subordinate to the extemporaneous joy of shared artistic expression.  Omar observes that, as he did with Sentir, “What I wanted to do was create something totally improvised.”

Transparent Water—suggestive of translucence and flowing light—is a deeply spiritual recording that reveals its inspiration in the close and compassionate listening of artists engaged in a genial and captivating musical conversation, liberated from time itself, reaching across five continents to probe the collective spirit of the human condition.

Dary (5.09)

Maimouna

Djelimady Tounkara - Nima Diyala

Dorygui-Ba

On the road between Memphis & Bamako. The musical merger of Habib Koité and Eric Bibb brings together two soulful histories into a never-before heard guitar sound that is passionate and ebullient. Growing up in Mali, West Africa, Koité is heir to an ancestral knowledge set to song that places him among the most influential voices of contemporary Africa, while Bibb’s lineage in the traditional blues sound has produced an earthy mix of folk and gospel dating back to the work songs of the deep south. Forging a bridge across the Atlantic, Bibb and Koité are two talents too exhilarating to ignore.

This tune is taken from the album: Brothers In Bamako.

Eric Bibb & Habib Koité - Touma Ni Kelen/Needed Time

The Vaults of (Roots Music) Heaven: Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music Unlocks the Lost Gems and Wild Creativity of its Live Archives 

Venerable vernacular music institution releases 127 live tracks by the best in American and global music from last half century. 

On a stacks of cassettes, reel to reel tapes and digital audio tapes lay the history of American music. There were local legends and major icons, global musicians and indie rockers. Some captured beautifully from the board, some gleaned quietly from the dusty archives of a radio station, the recordings held wildly creative decades of sound from Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, a roots-music touchstone for nearly 55 years. And no one had heard them.

Joan Baez and Donovan, Big Bill Broonzy and Ella Jenkins, Pete Seeger and Taj Mahal, Martin Carthy and Steve Earle, Doc Watson and Mahalia Jackson: It was a literal who’s-who of folk, gospel, country, bluegrass, blues, and world music, caught in hours of exciting performances. But someone had to put the pieces together—all 127 tracks worth—and someone had to clear all the rights with 85 different artists.

They succeeded, against odds that would have stopped others in their tracks. Live From The Old Town School (Old Town School Recordings; release: December 13, 2011) reveals not only the venerable institution’s storied start, but its role in the recent infusion of new energy into the roots music world, with everyone from Toumani Diabate and Oumou Sangare to Andrew Bird and Lila Downs. 

Dary (5.09)

Omar Sosa

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