Sekouba Bambino - The griot's craft

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Posted this yesterday, but it's gorn, so, here we go again.

Got an e-main from Sterns to say they'd just issued this

Sekouba Bambino - The griot's craft - Sterns

Well, not exactly new. It's this album

Sekouba Bambino - Diatiguyw - Syllart

All Sterns have done is rejig the running order, given it a new sleeve and a title that don't quite fit.

But it's a fine album; all accoustic, so no drum machines to get on other people's nerves. But some of the musicians were recorded in Paris, others in Bamako, so it's not like 'live' stuff.

Sterns have this on offer for 8 quid for the first 2 weeks on release, then it goes up to possibly 9 (which is what Amazon UK are selling it for from next week). Or you can get the original from Amazon UK for 8.63 (which is only pence (plus postage) more than I paid for it in Paris in August. No doubt Sterns and Amazon in the US will have similar offers on these two discs. Downloads are available, too, on the Sterns release but not, apparently, the Syllart version.

What would Sterns do without Syllart?

MG

[mjzee]

Saw this on eMusic yesterday; glad to know it's good.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Saw this on eMusic yesterday; glad to know it's good.

£3.78 is a jolly good price, even for a mediocre album, which this ain't.

MG

[Bright Moments]

how is this one?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

how is this one?

I like it, but I do like drum machines in this kind of music. He does an interesting version of 'It's a man's man's man's world'.

But I prefer his more recent albums and his earliest. Will put a little thing together after lunch.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Here's the lowdown on Sekouba Bambino Diabate, generally, but not invariably, known as Sekouba Bambino.

Here's a discography which I'm afraid Lydia andI haven't updated for a few years.

http://www.geocities.ws/lydia_gaertner/Diskographien/Sekouba_Bambino.html

After a few years singing with Bembeya Jazz National (recordings made for Esperance, (not listed in the discography because we didn't have more than a couple of those albums) some available on vol 2 of BJN's 'Belle epoque' (Syllart), he began making albums under his own name in 1991. The first was 'Kessaly' recorded for Super Selection. The next, in 1992, was 'Le destin', also a Super Selection K7.

'Le destin' has been reissued on CD by POpular African Music, and including a few tracks from 'Kessaly'. Both K7s are pretty short and Gunther Gretz could have issued both - it would have made a CD of just over an hour. But he didn't, so the only way to get any of Sekouba's earliest albums is on the PAM CD. It's damn good, though I've not bought it, because I have both K7s.

On my first trip to Africa, in early '93, the girl behind the till in the restaurant of the motel I stayed in was playing 'Le destin' one evening while I was having dinner. I liked it so much I asked her what it was. She showed me and, after I'd eaten, I asked her for a loan of the sleeve, so I could get a copy myself in the market around the corner, without making a mistake. No there was no mistake.

In the mid 90s, Sekouba made a football (proper football, that is) K7s for Super Selection:

Syli National is the Guinean national football team.

He started recording for Syllart at this time and 3 K7s were issued: 'Bonya', 'Kassa' and the wonderful 'Diommaya'. Syllart also issued a CD - 'Kassa' which also came out on Sterns, and which is a compilation of some material from the 3 K7s. I haven't got this CD, as I have all the K7s. 'Diommaya' is all accoustic and is the best, but only 1 track was included in the CD.

Another football K7 came out in 2002, again on Super Selection: 'Soutiens au Syli National'. MUCHO drum machines!!! I love it!

That's also when 'Sinikan' came out, on Syllart, on both K7 and CD.

In 2004, a grand compilation - 'Ambiance ballon' was issued on CD by Syllart and also on Sekou2004. This is a compilation of some cuts from the earlier Super Selection football K7s, plus a couple of new tracks.

It was accompanied by his 15th anniversary album on Syllart. I've seen quite a few of these tracks on Youtube, so you can do a search for them, if you want to hear them.

Yet another football album came out in 2006 - 'CAN history' - on SUper Selection and was issued on CD by Syllart. If you love Sekouba's football records, this is the best! (CAN is the African Nations Cup.)

It's undated, but I suspect the next, 'Ma Guinee' probably came out a couple of years ago. This one is on his own label, SBD Productions, issued on CD by Tandjigoura World SOng. I only came across it in August. A very nice album.

This year has seen the issue of two Sekouba albums. 'Innovation', supposedly his 20th anniversary record (though the years don't add up). It features loads of guests doing duets with Sekouba. Some of them are very good and I'll try to follow up on these people.

And 'Diatiguyw', alias 'The griot's craft'. As far as his accoustic albums are concerned, I think this one is nearly as good as 'Diommaya'

MG

[Bright Moments]

Wow - i will have to check him out!!!

[iain scott]

All Sterns have done is rejig the running order, given it a new sleeve and a title that don't quite fit.

What would Sterns do without Syllart?

I'm glad you're liking the album but, I confess, a couple of things you wrote in your original post have tweaked my tail.

Everybody's entitled to their own opinions including "What would Sterns do without Syllart?" although how you're qualified to say that I have no idea but, just to be clear, Sterns have done a damn sight more to this album than "rejig the running order, given it a new sleeve and a title that don't quite fit."

The last comment is, again, your own opinion and that's fair enough but if you compare the audio of the 'The Griot's Craft' and 'Diatiguyw' you'll realise that 'Diatiguyw' was mastered from MP3s whereas 'The Griot's Craft' comes from uncompressed and full bandwith audio files. To me that's a fairly big difference and deserves some credit.

There's also the track "Kaba Mousso': on 'Diatiguyw' it comes in at 03:57, on 'The Griot's Craft" it's 05:30. Sterns have restored to its full length. Not exactly earth-shattering, for sure, but added together surely it indicates a company that is trying to treat this music with some respect?

Sorry if I come across as a bit grumpy and, yes, I do some work for Sterns, but this post comes fairly high up if you do a search on <Sekouba Bambino> and I'd just like the record to be straight ... are at least a little straighter than the tone of what you're suggesting.

Iain Scott

Edited November 9, 2012 by iain scott

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

All Sterns have done is rejig the running order, given it a new sleeve and a title that don't quite fit.

What would Sterns do without Syllart?

I'm glad you're liking the album but, I confess, a couple of things you wrote in your original post have tweaked my tail.

Everybody's entitled to their own opinions including "What would Sterns do without Syllart?" although how you're qualified to say that I have no idea but, just to be clear, Sterns have done a damn sight more to this album than "rejig the running order, given it a new sleeve and a title that don't quite fit."

The last comment is, again, your own opinion and that's fair enough but if you compare the audio of the 'The Griot's Craft' and 'Diatiguyw' you'll realise that 'Diatiguyw' was mastered from MP3s whereas 'The Griot's Craft' comes from uncompressed and full bandwith audio files. To me that's a fairly big difference and deserves some credit.

There's also the track "Kaba Mousso': on 'Diatiguyw' it comes in at 03:57, on 'The Griot's Craft" it's 05:30. Sterns have restored to its full length. Not exactly earth-shattering, for sure, but added together surely it indicates a company that is trying to treat this music with some respect?

Sorry if I come across as a bit grumpy and, yes, I do some work for Sterns, but this post comes fairly high up if you do a search on <Sekouba Bambino> and I'd just like the record to be straight ... are at least a little straighter than the tone of what you're suggesting.

Iain Scott

Thank you Iain. Always glad to be corrected by someone who knows his stuff. Please look in again; we can use some more people with an interest in this music.

MG

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

if you compare the audio of the 'The Griot's Craft' and 'Diatiguyw' you'll realise that 'Diatiguyw' was mastered from MP3s whereas 'The Griot's Craft' comes from uncompressed and full bandwith audio files.

I dare say that, if I download 'The griot's craft' and compare it with my rip of 'Diatiguyw', I'll not notice the difference, will I?

Perhaps I should just download 'Kaba mousso'?

MG

[iain scott]

if you compare the audio of the 'The Griot's Craft' and 'Diatiguyw' you'll realise that 'Diatiguyw' was mastered from MP3s whereas 'The Griot's Craft' comes from uncompressed and full bandwith audio files.

I dare say that, if I download 'The griot's craft' and compare it with my rip of 'Diatiguyw', I'll not notice the difference, will I?

Perhaps I should just download 'Kaba mousso'?

MG

While it's certainly true that a download will, in itself be compressed, there is a difference a between download that's been created from a file that was already compressed, and one that wasn't. It's not dramatic but it is there and over a longer listening session should become apparent. Personally I can only describe it as 'my ears feeling tired': on 'Diatiguyw' the do, on 'The Griot's Craft' they don't.

At the risk of muddying the waters even more, below is a 'spectrum analysis' of the first track from each album. The top is from the 'Diatiguyw' CD, the bottom from 'The Griot's Craft' CD.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Thank you Iain. Your graphs mean almost nothing to me, I'm afraid. But I can see a difference at the 20-25 Khz region, where the tail-off is stepped on the Syllart version and smoothly declines on the Sterns version. I guess this is the high treble area of the sound. I also guess that this is a graph of one particular moment of the song, since time is not a component of the graph. Is it this that causes your ears to be tired?

I must say that, over decades of listening to poor recordings, I've never found my ears getting tired (and Syllart is the most played label this year so far in my collection, so I listen to this stuff A LOT). I can certainly tell the difference between a deep groove mono LP and pretty well anything else, but it's not enough to make me seek out such LPs, and certainly not to make me pay big money for them. I doubt whether any of the African customers of Syllart and other Guinean labels feel any differently to me.

Of course, I understand perfectly that Sterns aren't trying to sell records to Africans. So your view that Sterns is 'a company that is trying to treat this music with some respect' only has relevance to its target audience, which, as far as I'm concerned, is not the audience that counts.

Everybody's entitled to their own opinions including "What would Sterns do without Syllart?" although how you're qualified to say that I have no idea.

I've been buying Sterns albums since the company started, about 30 years ago. I've never seen any Sterns records licensed from any of the important companies involved in the Guinean music scene except Syliphone and Syllart and one album licensed from Bolibana. If you can point to albums Sterns have licensed from:

AMC/TAT Audio Visual;

Super Selection;

CDS/Gris Gris;

Sonia Store; or

D D United

I'll be most interested in acquiring them (unless I've already got 'em on K7 ) But I bet they haven't.

Similar considerations apply to the music scenes of Mali and Senegal. If you know anything about the US R&B scene of the 40s and 50s, you'll recognise that these music scenes parallel that one most interestingly. What Sterns do is equivalent to deciding that Chess and Modern were the only firms that mattered in the R&B scene. Treating the music with some respect means more than picking up a few items and releasing them to an unsuspecting world that doesn't get the connection but doesn't want tired ears.

MG

[iain scott]

The graph represents the whole song and, as I understand it, is a pictorial representation of the relative volumes and at what frequencies they occur. I'm neither sound engineer nor scientist but, as you, I read it as a drop off at the top end. I also hear it. It's like a 'lack of space' at the top.

Do I think our audio is absolutely crucial to a listener's enjoyment? It might surprise you, but no, I don't. The music's either there or it isn't, and in this case it clearly is. Do I think it's worth paying a huge premium for this difference? Again, no. But as you've pointed out yourself, we're not asking for a huge premium and, at least for a limited period of time, our CD is actually cheaper. As regards the downloads and in the US, the point becomes moot as if the various parties respect their agreements, then 'Diatigyw' should not be available in North America.

But just so there is no confusion: do I think our audio is better? Yes, absolutely, and over the years, experience has taught me that people regardless of origin, can and do tell the difference. Moreover if all things are equal and when given the choice, those same people will go for the better option. In that light I'm really not sure I follow your thinking as regards 'respect' and 'target audience'.

As regards the other domestic labels that are or have operated in the West Africa territories you note, then yes, Sterns has not licensed from all available sources. We can't. It's simply not possible for a whole host of reasons, many of which I'm sure you can imagine. But is that a deliberate policy of deciding the ones we do deal with are the 'only firms that matter' and pushing them as such? No. That's way over the top and, if you look at our releases in total, verifiably not the case.

But bringing it back to your original punchline "What would Sterns do without Syllart?". I guess what pushed my buttons was your conceit, however I could also see that it was based in some truth. The relationship between Sterns and Syllart goes back a long way and while it's not always been smooth running, I think it's fair to say that Sterns has been Syllart's most consistent and loyal partner outside of Africa. So yes, indeed, where would we be without Ibrahima Sylla?

But the question can be asked both ways: where would Sylla be without Sterns? Not all of Syllart's releases were entirely and exclusively generated by Sylla, and even for those that were and we then released outside Africa, did that not give him the extra impetus, cash or otherwise, to keep his boat afloat? These things are complex and subtle and cannot be distilled to one or two offhand phrases.

This is particularly poignant given Sylla's current state of health. It's now in the Senegalese press and so you might already be aware but Sylla underwent a serious operation not too long ago. His energy is undiminished and he's still more than kicking, but he does require regular periods of convalescence. Maybe you weren't aware but now, in this context if not others, I hope you can see how your rhetorical question might seem to me an inappropriate and unnecessary jibe.

iain

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The graph represents the whole song and, as I understand it, is a pictorial representation of the relative volumes and at what frequencies they occur. I'm neither sound engineer nor scientist but, as you, I read it as a drop off at the top end. I also hear it. It's like a 'lack of space' at the top.

Do I think our audio is absolutely crucial to a listener's enjoyment? It might surprise you, but no, I don't. The music's either there or it isn't, and in this case it clearly is. Do I think it's worth paying a huge premium for this difference? Again, no. But as you've pointed out yourself, we're not asking for a huge premium and, at least for a limited period of time, our CD is actually cheaper. As regards the downloads and in the US, the point becomes moot as if the various parties respect their agreements, then 'Diatigyw' should not be available in North America.

But just so there is no confusion: do I think our audio is better? Yes, absolutely, and over the years, experience has taught me that people regardless of origin, can and do tell the difference. Moreover if all things are equal and when given the choice, those same people will go for the better option. In that light I'm really not sure I follow your thinking as regards 'respect' and 'target audience'.

As regards the other domestic labels that are or have operated in the West Africa territories you note, then yes, Sterns has not licensed from all available sources. We can't. It's simply not possible for a whole host of reasons, many of which I'm sure you can imagine. But is that a deliberate policy of deciding the ones we do deal with are the 'only firms that matter' and pushing them as such? No. That's way over the top and, if you look at our releases in total, verifiably not the case.

But bringing it back to your original punchline "What would Sterns do without Syllart?". I guess what pushed my buttons was your conceit, however I could also see that it was based in some truth. The relationship between Sterns and Syllart goes back a long way and while it's not always been smooth running, I think it's fair to say that Sterns has been Syllart's most consistent and loyal partner outside of Africa. So yes, indeed, where would we be without Ibrahima Sylla?

But the question can be asked both ways: where would Sylla be without Sterns? Not all of Syllart's releases were entirely and exclusively generated by Sylla, and even for those that were and we then released outside Africa, did that not give him the extra impetus, cash or otherwise, to keep his boat afloat? These things are complex and subtle and cannot be distilled to one or two offhand phrases.

This is particularly poignant given Sylla's current state of health. It's now in the Senegalese press and so you might already be aware but Sylla underwent a serious operation not too long ago. His energy is undiminished and he's still more than kicking, but he does require regular periods of convalescence. Maybe you weren't aware but now, in this context if not others, I hope you can see how your rhetorical question might seem to me an inappropriate and unnecessary jibe.

iain

Thanks for that, Iain. I'm very sorry to hear about M Sylla's health. He IS one of the great producers of music, period.

MG

[Stefan Wood]

I love the Sterns' label, excellent titles throughout.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I love the Sterns' label, excellent titles throughout.

Sure. They do what they do very well.

MG