Timbuktu, the birthplace of blues

[mikeweil]

I still recommend Gerhard Kubik's groundbreaking book "Africa and the Blues" - nobody seems to bother reading it.

Amazon link

Edited March 9, 2010 by mikeweil

[seeline]

Paul Oliver's Savannah Syncopators is really good, too - another book that nobody seems to talk about much - or read - anymore.

[Hot Ptah]

Heard this? Bridgewater went to Mali and recorded with Malian musicians.

The album hasn't gotten nearly the acclaim that it ought to.

Here's a track from the album - with vocalist Ami Sacko and her husband Bassekou Kouyate and his group, Ngoni ba. (The last are currently touring with Béla Fleck.)

It's a killer disc!

Video from one of her tours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCOU9vteCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYX-BqpWBY0&feature=fvw - not to be too pedantic about it, but whoever subtitled the video "mbalax" is wrong. The Mag. Goldberg can explain that far better than I ever could.

I saw her live with a group of musicians from Mali shortly after this CD was released. It was a very powerful concert. I had not heard any music like it.

[papsrus]

Wait a second ... Timbuktu? I thought it was Katmandu!

I'm going to have to rethink this whole thing again ...

.

[seeline]

Heard this? Bridgewater went to Mali and recorded with Malian musicians.

The album hasn't gotten nearly the acclaim that it ought to.

Here's a track from the album - with vocalist Ami Sacko and her husband Bassekou Kouyate and his group, Ngoni ba. (The last are currently touring with Béla Fleck.)

It's a killer disc!

Video from one of her tours: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCOU9vteCA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYX-BqpWBY0&feature=fvw - not to be too pedantic about it, but whoever subtitled the video "mbalax" is wrong. The Mag. Goldberg can explain that far better than I ever could.

I saw her live with a group of musicians from Mali shortly after this CD was released. It was a very powerful concert. I had not heard any music like it.

Lucky man! I so wish I'd been able to catch one of their gigs (meaning the whole band, not just Dee Dee!)

Interestingly enough, I found out about this project on an African music board.

Ptah, you would probably love Bela Fleck's "Throw Down Your Heart" album and film. he's touring right now, with some of the musicians who collaborated with Bridgewater; most notably Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni ba. I missed their only area gig last week, due to high tkt prices and my shrinking pockets.

Edited March 9, 2010 by seeline

[seeline]

Here's a vid. from one of her French gigs (mentioned above, somewhere). The other vocalist is Ami Sacko. (She's married to ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate.)

The song is "Demissenw/Children Go Round." Not sure who wrote "Demissenw," but it's either Ami or Bassekou, and was (I think) already part of Ngoni ba's book prior to their collaboration with Dee Dee b.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUCOU9vteCA

Edited March 9, 2010 by seeline

[seeline]

Wait a second ... Timbuktu? I thought it was Katmandu!

I'm going to have to rethink this whole thing again ...

I think that was Cat Stevens, maybe?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I know I've contributed, but this thread is all wrong. We shouldn't be looking at this stuff as the origins or the blues, or jazz or gospel or anything other than itself. To me, it really makes no sense to do other than enjoy this music for itself, as an expression of contemporary West African societies' present cultural/aesthetic thrust. Of course, one can't help pick up similarities, but they're not the real point. All this stuff like "Blues goes to Mali on a no 7 bus" is just there to flog records to white people.

MG

[JSngry]

You mean to tell me the Christian Science Monitor is not a repository of accurate state-of-the-art musicological reporting?

I'm shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED!

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

You mean to tell me the Christian Science Monitor is not a repository of accurate state-of-the-art musicological reporting?

I'm shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED!

Oh, don't be shocked, Jim. It is indeed a repository of accurate state-of-the-art musicological reporting - for most of western society (The part that has the money)

MG

[seeline]

I know I've contributed, but this thread is all wrong. We shouldn't be looking at this stuff as the origins or the blues, or jazz or gospel or anything other than itself. To me, it really makes no sense to do other than enjoy this music for itself, as an expression of contemporary West African societies' present cultural/aesthetic thrust. Of course, one can't help pick up similarities, but they're not the real point. All this stuff like "Blues goes to Mali on a no 7 bus" is just there to flog records to white people.

Yep! I love "Blues goes to Mali on a no 7 bus."

Oh, don't be shocked, Jim. It is indeed a repository of accurate state-of-the-art musicological reporting - for most of western society (The part that has the money)

a "yes" from my personal Amen corner!

I do think that pieces like the one in the CSM make it that much harder for African musicians to really gain an audience in the West that appreciates them and their work for what they are (as opposed to what they aren't).

But the interesting thing is, a lot of W. Africans who have nothing to do with record promotion and sales are now using the phrase "desert blues" to describe certain kinds of music from northern Mali, also Niger.

I love it, because they're literally taking a PR person's "brainwave" marketing idea and using the words in ways the Western PR people never suspected possible.

A kind of cultural re-appropriation if ever there was one, in a highly positive sense!

Edited to add: great interview with Malian historian/music fan Cherif Keita - he's one of the people using "desert blues" in a different way, here: http://afropop.org/multi/interview/ID/171/Cherif%20Keita%20on%20the%20history%20and%20music%20of%20Mali

He even talks about Ali Farka Toure being a person of mixed heritage (including Tuareg), and of his music as being a fusion of diverse styles from the north of Mali.

to my mind, that's far more on point than some of AFT's wilder pronouncements, as in:

"John Lee Hooker plays tunes whose roots he does not understand. He understands the spirit, but it is never Western. Never. It comes from Africa and particularly from Mali. He talks about things coming from alcohol, but it's not that. It's the land; nature, animals. The music comes from history. How did it get here? [the US] It was stolen from Africans. And Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, I can teach him things, but he cannot teach me. For ten years I can teach him African tunes without repeating a note."

This comes from an interview Banning Eyre did with Ali Farka Toure when was on tour in the US, back in 1991. The bolding of the final sentence is mine; all other emphases are Eyre's.

I think that final sentence is just unbelievably dismissive of American music and musicians. (not that the rest of the quote isn't, but that sentence takes the cake and then some!!!)

Edited March 10, 2010 by seeline