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Submitted by webmaster on Mon, 03/01/2010 - 11:36
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba at the Jools Holland 2007
Posted by reebeeking
March 10, 2008
Video Summary:
Video of Malian musicians & vocalist performing in concert
Contact
Email: jambalayah17@yahoo.com
Copyright © 2010-2011 Azizi Powell; All Rights Reserved
3 comments
Selected comments from the YouTube viewer comment thread of this featured video:
http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=cTwugDonGfs&fromur...
Elaneban (1 year ago) One of my lectures from my uni (soas) Produced the albu. Lucy Duran
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coby1bs (1 year ago) This is brilliant!
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Azizip17 (1 year ago) Thanks for sharing this video!
The music is wonderful! I love the ngoni instruments, along with the drum and sekere guord rattle. And I also love the singing, especially the soloist. She has great stage presence.. And, as a woman, I also love her mudcloth dress!
-an African American sister
Btw, what is that drum called? And is the guord rattle called a sekere in Mali, West Africa? That's the name someone told me who I believe was from Nigeria. Thanks in advance for that information
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soukous70 (1 year ago) Thanks for directing me to this video,Azizip! I was going to comment on that mudcloth dress,but you beat me to it!
I think that drum is simply referred to as a calabash,which is the type of gourd from which it was made.I don't recall hearing it called by another name,but I could be wrong...
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Poptheprolapse (10 months ago) When they came to the theatre where I work, the drum was on the stage diagram as a calabash.
It's actually not as prominent as it should be in this recording. I think it's something to do with how it's amplified. The mic should go under the dome, rather than outside it.
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Mythezza (2 weeks ago) Just saw them tonight with Bela Fleck. WICKED awesome.
Here is an excerpt of a 2007 review of Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba's album "Segu Blue" from
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=25184
African Jazz | Published: March 28, 2007 By Chris May
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba
Segu Blue
Out Here
2007
"Bassekou Kouyate is a virtuoso of the ngoni (West African lute), approximating the larger kora (West African harp) in sound but with a tougher, more percussive edge. Outside his home country of Mali, where he is widely celebrated, Kouyate is known for his work with artists like the late guitarist Ali Farka Toure—he was featured on Toure's posthumous album Savane (World Circuit, 2006)—kora player Toumani Diabete and American roots musician Taj Mahal.
Segu Blue, Kouyate's debut recording as leader, ought to fast-track him into the front ranks of African music star exports. It's an album of understated but awesome beauty, full of lush melodies and supple rhythms, deep, peaceful and healing; happier sounding than Ali Farka Toure's music, but equally weighty and mesmeric.
Kouyate's band, Ngoni Ba ("the big ngoni") is a quartet of ngoni players—treble, mid range and bass—augmented by Kouyate's wife, Ami Sacko, on lead vocals, and two percussionists. Guest singers and musicians are featured on six of the fourteen tracks.
The earthy tenor Zoumani Tereta takes lead vocals on two tunes; shades-of-Ali Farka Toure electric guitarist Lobi Traoré is featured on another. All the tunes are drawn from, or closely based on, traditional Bambara music from the Segu region of Mali: three are traditional, all but one of the others are composed by Kouyate.
The album is almost as much Sacko's as it is Kouyate's (in the Malian capital, Bamako, husband and wife are the musicians-of-choice at wedding celebrations, feast days and other traditional gatherings). She's known locally as "the Tina Turner of Mali," but this must be for her looks more than her voice, which—apart from her cathartic delivery on "Lament For Ali Farka"—is lightfooted and soft-textured.
Behind Sacko, the four ngoni players weave in and out of each other's lines with such intricate intimacy that, pitch aside, it's often hard to tell where one instrument stops and another one starts. The effect is rather like hearing a broader-ranged kora played by eight hands. The treble and mid range players favour crisp, brisk, tumbling riffs, the bass anchors them with more measured ostinatos. "Segu Blue" itself is one of just two instrumental tracks, and the piece closest to Ali Farka Toure's savannah blues in feel and notation."...
Here's an excerpt from a 2004 mali-music.com review of "Fassan Diarabi", an album by Sekou Kouyate:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.mali-musi... (translated from French to English).
Editor's note. I am posting this entire 2004 article as a means of helping to increase the number of people who have access to it. Several sentences in this translation were repeated two times. I'm only posting one of those sentences. Also, apparent omitted words and my corrections of what I consider to be apparent incorrect translations or typos are provided in brackets. The jambalayah.com featured video is of a later work than the album "Fassan Diarabi" which is the topic of the following mali-music.com review.
This review is reposted for cultural/educational purposes. I thank the authors of that review and I encourage jambalayah visitors to visit the mali-music.com site.
-Azizi Powell
"Author, composer, is from Sekou Kouyate. Koulikoro [is the] second administrative region of Mali. Koulikoro is a legendary and historical city because it is said in the legend that Soumangorou Kanté, the king of Sosso disappeared in the cave of Koulikoro.
Koulikoro is a cultural town where flows the Djoliba (river Niger) and an intermediary with the region of the north of Mali because the river is navigable from Koulikoro. The capital of the Méguetan is situated at 60 km of Bamako. In Koulikoro, the griots still respect the tradition by transmitting orally the outstanding events of Mali's history to the young generation.
Koulikoro is a cultural town where flows the Djoliba (river Niger) and an intermediary with the region of the north of Mali because the river is navigable from Koulikoro
[Sekou Kouyaté's career] His carrier began in a popular training animating "Apollo" of Koulikoroba in 1974. Because of the success of his band, Sekou is enrolled a few years later in the regional band of his town: the Mega Star.
His passage in this band will not last long because the year after, the department of culture in Mali engaged him for the orchestra Sandiya in Bamako. Since then, nothing could have stopped the ascension of this singular artist.
In 1978, the orchestra of Bamako “ the Bama Saba " (three crocodile) appeal to him to revive the dying band. In 1978, the orchestra of Bamako "the Bama Saba" (three crocodile) appeal to him to revive the dying band.
Virtuoso of the n'goni , great song writer, Sékou Kouyaté met Djelimady Tounkara , excellent guitar player and leader of the mythical orchestra the “ Rail Band ” of Salif Keïta and Mory Kanté . Together they formed the Mandingo trio in 1981. Virtuoso of the n'goni, great song writer, Sekou Kouyate is Djelimady Tounkara, excellent guitar player and leader of the orchestra the mythical "Rail Band" of Salif Keita and Mory Kante. Together they formed the Mandingo Trio in 1981.
From success to success, he joins the Rail Band when Salif Kéita leaves for the Ambassadors of the Motel then after for the international ambassador Mory Kanté (Ivory Coast), Magan Ganès and Tidiane koné (Benin), Cheick Tidiane Seck (France).
Sékou Kouyaté is always in search of perfection and had no difficulty for that because he's able to give a wonderful dimension to a simple popular melody. Simple, intelligent and courageous, he undertakes a solo carrier [career]. His band [was] composed of five persons Djénèba Seck , Awa Damba , Madou Koné and Diawoye Diarra has a great success with the song "Diagnèba" on Malian TV and his fame spreads beyond the frontiers.
At the beginning of the 90s, the griot went to Paris with the only ambition to give to his music an international dimension without loosing his soul. In Paris, to make him remarked [better known], he recorded a second version of "Diagnèba". It had a great success and a few years later, he recorded a new album on which one can find the hit “Koulikoro”. A real success!
From his meeting with Syllart production will come out his first real album. A wonderful work arranged by Jean Philip Rykiel . “ When Ibrahim Sylla decides to produce, he doesn't count the money invested in the production.. All is important to him is the result, it means the satisfaction of the artist and of the music lovers; this is why artist prefer to work with him ” reckon the child of Koulikoroba.
In 200 [2000], he arranges the album "Djourou" of Djénèba Seck . When Sylla proposed me to arrange the album of Djénèba Seck , nobody trusted in my qualities of arranger, only Sylla had guessed my talent.. The result is here. Very good because by the same way he recorded a duet with Djénèba Seck : "Sékou ni Djénèba" ("Sékou and Djénèba").
This album "Fassan Diarabi" reveals the state of mind of our artist. Defender of our traditional values, his music even if turned toward modernity does not loose it soul. "Fassan Diarabi" is a panorama of the Bamanan culture. Sékou sings the daily life of compatriots, against depravation of values, love which is essential to peace, union which is the only way to succeed. " Produced by Syllart production, "Fassan Diarabi" is an acoustic album of ten tracks on which the emotive voice of Sékou leads us in the secret Bamanan circle.
P 04/03/2004