Unscheduled Interruption

Hi!  We're back after an unscheduled interruption due to malaria.  This was my first experience with that most ubiquitous of African maladies and, as advertised, it was unpleasant.  Thankfully, my host mother is a doctor, so she was able to recommend her favorite anti-malarial, write a quick prescription, and send someone off to the pharmacy in short order.  Three days later, I was feeling much better and ready to face Mali's increasingly-hot hot season once more.  In fact, I'm going to leave off talking about the weather in future posts (it's both miserable, and sadly predictable); feel free to assume that it will continue unbelievably hot here until at least the end of May.

On the other hand, I had a fascinating Saturday visiting one of the living legends of Malian music, Djelimory "N'fa" Diabaté.  N'fa is the last living member of what I think of as Mali's "Big Four" kora players of the last generation.  Owners of the exquisite, highly-recommended kora CD "Mali: Cordes Anciennes" will be familiar with this group, which includes Batrou Sékou Kouyaté, Sidiki Diabaté, Djelimady Sissoko, and the aforementioned N'fa.  I've spent a lot of time listening to this CD since I arrived in Mali with my kora teacher, Toumani Kouyaté, and it's still breathtaking 40-some years after it was recorded.  I've managed to track down additional recordings from two of the four, Batrou Sékou and Sidiki, but Djelimady' and N'fa's recordings have been a little harder to find.  I plan on making a run on ORTM (L'Office de Radiodiffusion et Télédiffusion de Mali) later this week, and I now know that N'fa made at least ten, and maybe a dozen, solo kora recordings, which should be in their archives.  Paying for copies of recordings at ORTM is a long-established, if legally dubious, practice.  Unfortunately, it's also the only way to get certain recordings, which I've been unable to find in America, on the internet, or on Mali's legal and black CD/tape markets.  Stay tuned for more exciting dusty archives updates!

Anyway, it's been my pleasure to explore "Cordes Anciennes" with my kora teacher, who has demonstrated quite conclusively (to me, at least) the ways in which these pioneering four kora players, arguably the first "great" Malian kora-ists, influenced the following generations.  Certainly their children have carried on the tradition: Sidiki Diabaté's son, Toumani, is the best-known kora player in the world (and to my mind the finest), and Djelimady's son, Ballaké, is among Mali's top kora players.  The sons, Toumani and Ballaké, even recorded a tribute album to their fathers called "Nouvelles Chordes Anciennes" ("New Ancient Strings," after their fathers' "Ancient Strings") which is also highly recommended.  Both Toumani and Ballaké have introduced the kora into the World Music scene with cross-overs with international musicians (Taj Mahal, Béla Fleck, and the flamenco band Ketama for Toumani, and the French cellist Vincent Segal for Ballaké), in addition to their own well-received work.

Meanwhile, N'fa's son, Mamadou "Djelikejan" Diabaté, has lived in the U.S. for over a decade now, and won a Grammy award for his kora playing in 2010.  Mamadou is one of the best kora players in the U.S., and tours regularly; I've seen him perform several times with my old n'goni master, Cheick Hamala Diabaté, at the late, great Prism Coffee House.  Another son of N'fa, Djibril, was also a professional kora player and close friend to my kora master, Toumani Kouyaté, but sadly passed away last year.

Batrou Sékou Kouyaté did not leave any professional kora-playing offspring, but his eldest son, Balla, is a well-known kora maker and artist of vibrant, colorful kora paintings and village scenes.  He also built my first kora, which was shipped back to America in a custom-made wooden case strongly reminiscent of a child's coffin.   Oddly enough, I later learned that another of my traditional music teachers, the late Mike Seeger, also used to carry around his instruments in a wooden coffin-case...

Uh, that's a little off-topic, but I can definitely recommend Balla as a maker of high-quality koras.  He also still lives in the compound in the Hippodrome neighborhood where Batrou Sékou once lived, which is pretty cool to visit as a kora nerd...  Coincidentally, Batrou Sékou's youngest son, Drra, is also studying kora and often visits my teacher, Toumani, for lessons.  Bamako's a small town...

However, the influence of the "Big Four" past kora masters hasn't been limited simply to their offspring.  They helped shape the Malian kora repertoire with their versions of classic Malian songs like "Kulanjan," "Mamadou Bitiki," "Ala l'a Ke," and "Kaira," all of which remain standards.  Even more importantly, their individual playing styles were, and remain, sources of inspiration for all kora players.  Of particular interest are the blistering, perfectly placed "roulement"-style improvised solos of Sidiki Diabaté and the pioneering work of Batrou Sékou Kouyaté in playing solos and an accompaniment pattern at the same time.  Sidiki wasn't the first to feature quick, downward scalar runs in his playing, but both his skill and the frequency with which he used them elevated them to a new level.  Likewise, Batrou Sékou wasn't the first to play a solo over an accompaniment pattern on the kora, but his skill in doing so laid the groundwork for future generations of kora players (notably, his are the only solo kora tracks on "Cordes Anciennes;" the others are duets).  The perfected versions of both of these techniques can be heard in the playing of Mali's best kora players, notably Toumani Diabaté, Ballaké Sissoko, and my own master, Toumani Kouyaté.

On a personal note, it has been one of the great pleasures of my time here in Mali to dissect and analyze the playing of Mali's greatest kora-folaw (Bm. "kora-players") and understand, for example, the enormous effort that went into the making of the complete package with which the world was presented in Toumani Diabaté's seminal CD, "Kaira."  The savage, youthful-yet-restrained beauty of "Kaira," to my mind the greatest solo kora album ever, was the product of years of practice combined with the brilliant synthesis of many kora techniques, all filtered through the mind of a remarkable, driven, musician.  For years, I approached each the five tracks on "Kaira" as finished, indivisible, unanalyzable.  Now, after five months' worth of intensive kora study, I can at least understand how "Grand Toumani" (Toumani-ba) constructed his style, even if I can't imitate it.  Kora music, evidently, isn't magic, just lots and lots of work and practice!

So, to wrap up this week's blog post, a few anecdotes from the last remaining "Old Master" of the Malian Kora, N'fa Diabaté.  Batrou Sékou Kouyaté, the eldest of the Big Four, apparently learned kora from a Gambian named "Alou" (last name unknown), providing more evidence for what I had long suspected, that the kora is relatively new to Mali (more on the history of the Malian kora in a later post).  Second, the first Malian National Orchestras of the 1960's (The Orchestre National "A," "B," "C," and the Ensemble Instrumentale), while prestigious, really didn't pay very well.  Lastly, "all kora players are hugely egotistical" in N'fa's opinion.

And on that note, see you next week!