complexion

Recorded on December 5th 2013 as a tribute to Nelson Mandela. With John Ellis (piano) Neil Yates (flugelhorn) Gavin Barras (bass) Luke Flowers (drums)

Water From An Ancient Well - Abdullah Ibrahim

Oualahila Ar Tesninam live - Tinariwen

Mali is a fabled land of musical giants and this Rough Guide features the towering figures of Oumou Sangare, Ali Farka Touré and Basekou Kouyate. However the music of Mali is now under threat as never before. In the words of singer Fatoumata Diawara, ‘music has always brought hope in Mali. Music has always been strong and spiritual.’

For more information, visit http://www.worldmusic.net/store/item/RGNET1311

Before the March 2012 coup d’etat of President Amadou Toumani Touré, very few outside of West Africa knew much about Mali (except for perhaps a group of historians and world music devotees). Much of Mali is encompassed by the Sahara desert, which, despite its often scorching temperatures, has been aptly described as an ‘inland sea’, connecting the Arab and Berber cultures of the north, with the Fulani, Bambara, Mandinka and others in the south. After Muammar Gaddafi fell in the Libyan civil war, huge caches of heavy weapons were left unguarded – many ended up crossing that ‘desert sea’ and arrived in Mali. Fueled by outside groups, Al Qaeda gained a stronghold in northern Mali, installing Sharia law, closing schools, and banning so-called ‘Satan’s music’. Tragically, the region that had long been known for its ancient manuscripts, magnificent mud-architectural mosques, and captivating folk music was engulfed in conflict.

Mali’s musicians have never shied away from mixing politics and song. Vocalist Oumou Sangare (who is also a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador) has been outspoken on issues including women’s rights and polygamy since the 1990s. In 2013, when the conflict made it impossible for Mali to host its renowned Festival in the Desert, Sangare helped to take the show on the road, headlining the Caravan For Peace, performing in Tuareg refugee camps in Burkina Faso. Similarly, Khaira Arby (cousin of legendary guitarist Ali Farka Touré) has taken on issues such as female circumcision in her music. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that when war threatened to engulf Mali, its leading musicians banded together. Fatoumata Diawara gathered the nation’s leading musicians together to produce a video calling for a peaceful end to the conflict, most of whom are featured on this compilation, including Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabate, Vieux Farka Touré, Nahawa Doumbia and Khaira Arby.

The role of these musicians cannot be underestimated, as it both galvanized the Malian public, and the international community into action, leading to military involvement by France as well as United Nations peacekeepers that quickly restored calm to most of Mali. Musically and ethnically, Mali is an incredibly diverse country. This album reflects that diversity, featuring driving Tuareg grooves rooted in a nomadic Saharan past, generations-old ‘social advice’ songs, Wassoulou music from the south, and of course there are a host of songs from Mali’s next generation of stars.

Samba Touré: Koye Ma (taken from the Rough Guide To Mali)

Boubacar Traoré - Mouso Teke Soma Ye

Release date : June 20th, 2014
Get the album here: http://glitterbeat.com/glitterbeat_store/

Noura Mint Seymali, from Mauritania, comes from an ancient family of griots, and she has a commanding, wide-open voice…the pentatonic melodies of her songs had something in common with the blues. But her fusion was particular and selective…She only meets American music on her own terms.
+++New York Times, January 13th, 2014

She cleverly merges her powerful voice with the twangy guitar sound created by her husband…this Mauritanian music is an excellent example of roots rocketed into the 21st century.
+++Songlines, April/May 2014

TZENNI in Hassaniya means to circulate, to spin, to turn. It’s the name for a whirling dance performed to the music of Moorish griots, often under khaima tents thrown up for street gatherings in the sandy quartiers of Nouakchott and out across the wide deserts of Mauritania. Tzenni is an orbit, the movement of the earth around the sun, the daily progression of light and dark, lunar cycles, tides and winds. Tzenni, the dance, comes forth as the cyclical trajectory of a Moorish musical gathering builds to a fervorous pitch. It’s a word whose expansive valence reminds us how only the most basic reality can create such romantic metaphor.

Produced and recorded across an appropriately dizzying array of locations and social contexts (New York City, Dakar, Nouakchott) the album Tzenni is a contemporary articulation of Moorish griot music from Mauritania—an artform that has been evolving and gaining momentum for centuries—as voiced by Noura Mint Seymali, an artist profoundly steeped in its history and rigorously devoted to its global resonance.

Noura Mint Seymali comes from a long line of visionary musicians. Seymali Ould Ahmed Vall, her father, was a scholar-artist instrumental in opening Mauritanian music to the world; devising the first system for Moorish melodic notation, adapting music for the national anthem, and composing works popularized by his wife (Noura’s step-mother), the great Dimi Mint Abba. From her precocious beginnings as a teenaged backing vocalist with Dimi Mint Abba, Noura Mint Seymali now drives the legacy forward, re-calibrating Moorish music for our contemporary moment. Her band’s arrangements, rigor, and experimental spirit may be understood as a continuation of the tradition of Seymali, Dimi, her grandmother Mounina, and countless others.

Together with her husband, heroic guitarist Jeiche Ould Chighaly, who brings the force of yet another powerful branch of Moorish musical lineage, the band on this recording was conceived as a distillation of essential elements, the “azawan” and the backbeat. The ardine & tidinit (or guitar) together are the “azawan,” the leading ensemble of Moorish traditional music, while bass & drums, played here by Ousmane Touré and Matthew Tinari, fortify it with genre transcendent funk and a basic pop urgency. Tzenni re-visits several classics of the Moorish repertoire, but does so within a novel formation, conversant in the pop idiom, and with Noura Mint Seymali’s personal history interwoven throughout. The practice of aligning music to a given socio-historical and personal moment is an essential charge of the iggawen, or griot, and, we believe, of artists everywhere.

As we seek to convey another turn in the Mauritanian musical dialectic, Tzenni is ultimately an album about shape shifting, faith, and stability found through instability. It’s about taking the positive with the negative in a world that can only ever keep turning at break neck speed. We invite you to spin with us, to dance with us, through the music on this recording!

--Matthew Tinari: producer/drummer for Noura Mint Seymali

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Noura Mint Seymali - Tzenni

[Madagascar] [Mali] [Marruecos] Rajery, Ballaké Sissoko & Driss El Maloumi - 3 MA (2008)

Rajery, Ballaké Sissoko & Driss El Maloumi - Anfass

Album improvisé et improbable au ukulele piccolo. Les titres se veulent sans prétentions, pris sur le vif dans une location de vacances, lieu propice au repos et aux plaisirs. 

Album improvvisato e improbabile con l'ukulele piccolo. I titoli vogliono essere senza pretese, presi al volo in una casa vacanze, luogo favorevole al riposo e ai piaceri.

Improvised and improbable album with piccolo ukulele. The titles are unpretentious, taken on the spot in a holiday rental, a place conducive to rest and pleasure.

Jour 7 Ballade rue des menuisiers

Hill Climbers.m4a

Inspired by the big man that is @Sangobeats 


Download

Pineapple Pool Party (Sango taught me)

Ali Farka Touré

De la chair pour le béton © Clémentine Fort

Abdullah Ibrahim - Blue Bolero

TINARIWEN

All tracks aranged and performed by Tom Woodruff '08


BLACK ORPHEUS (Luis Bonfa)

This Rough Guide takes the listener on a criss-crossing journey across the African continent, sponging up the most evocative unplugged music emanating from the great continent along the way. Enjoy the rich desert blues of Etran Finatawa, the Baye Fall Gnawa of Nuru Kane, the masakanda magic of Shiyani Ncgobo, and the Mozambican melodies of Mabulu.

http://www.worldmusic.net/store/item/RGNET1297

The Rough Guide To Acoustic Africa

So ubiquitous is the sound of slapping strings and strumming chords across the vast African continent that acoustic music curls into practically every corner of life and culture there. Charting the different acoustic styles included here takes the listener on a criss-crossing journey across Africa: we begin in Niger, before visiting Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Cameroon, Mali, Sudan, Senegal and the Republic of Guinea. Not a bad round trip for just over seventy minutes’ worth of time, and without the cost of the air fare! 

Heading up a healthy West African contingent, we have Baye Fall Gnawa musician Nuru Kane and singer-songwriter Amadou Diagne both from Senegal. Also hailing from this region is the Guinean kora maestro Mory Kanté, Malian guitarist Samba Touré, Ghanaian palm-wine veteran Koo Nimo and Touareg troubadours Etran Finatawa. Swooping down to west Central Africa, Sally Nyolo fom Cameroon provides the upbeat and carefree track ‘Obili Éba’. Congolese guitarist Syran Mbenza celebrates the legacy of the great Congolese musician Franco with a new approach. Abdel Gadir Salim from Northern Sudan provides a sensitive oud-based composition on ‘Lemon Bara’. The unbelievable sounds of Zulu maskanda guitarist Shiyani Ngcobo are heard on this collection too. As are Sotho Sounds who hail from Lesotho and bring their brand of junk funk to the party.

The bonus album is an exclusive debut release by kora player Noumoucounda Cissoko. He weaves together his griot heritage with mbalax, blues, jazz, hip-hop and rock-inspired inspirations. Faling is his debut solo album and features Cissoko accompanied by Swiss musicians, Phat 4.

Samba Toure: White Crocodile Blues (taken from The Rough Guide To Acoustic Africa)

Ali & Toumani

Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate - "Sabu Yerkoy"

7 The Mountain (Abdullah Ibrahim)

WMN is one of the leading forces on the world music scene & consists of 4 labels – Music Rough Guides, Think Global, Riverboat Records & Introducing.

Samba Toure: White Crocodile Blues (taken from The Rough Guide To Acoustic Africa)

World Music Network

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