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Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 10:46 AM
Subject: [unioNews] Recommended: "Melodic links between Mali and
Mississippi"


> _________________________________________________________________________
> [log in to unmask] has recommended this article from
> The Christian Science Monitor's electronic edition.
>
> Click here to read this story online:
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0312/p13s02-almp.html
> <H3>Melodic links between Mali and Mississippi</H3>
> Byline:  Christopher Blagg Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
> Date: 03/12/2004
>
> Located in the West African country of Mali, Timbuktu is more than a
> sandier version of the mythical Atlantis. After years of Saharan
> obscurity, the once powerful trading metropolis turned wind-swept
> ancient ruin is making a cultural comeback. And its triumphant return
> comes with a soundtrack.
>
> Western musicians have become fascinated with Mali ever since Ry Cooder
> recorded "Talking Timbuktu" with Ali Farka Toure, a Malian farmer, in
> 1994. Since then, Living Color's Vernon Reid has worked with vocalist
> Salif Keita, while Damon Albarn, frontman for the British rock outfit
> Blur, recently collaborated with Malian musicians on a critically
> acclaimed CD entitled "Mali Music." Last year, former Led Zeppelin
> singer Robert Plant played at Mali's Festival in the Desert, an annual
> gathering of Sub-Saharan musicians, where he reveled at the opportunity
> to jam with Farka Toure around a campfire.
>
> The most intriguing musical collaborations are coming from the US,
> where African-American blues artists are finding strikingly common
> ground with their West African peers. Blues musician Taj Mahal, for
> one, has been exploring the common roots between the two traditions
> since he was a child.
>
> "As a kid, I always felt connected to Africa, it was something I was
> very proud of," says Mahal. "I was always looking for evidence of these
> common musical roots, but I was too young to know that what I was doing
> was called ethnomusicology."
>
> When first introduced to the music of prewar blues artists like the
> Rev. Gary Davis, Mississippi John Hurt, and John Lee Hooker, Mahal had
> a sense that there was something deeper, older in the music.
>
> "They had a sound that indicated it had come from further back," says
> Mahal. "Their music suggested that it was something that has been
> passed along."
>
> The connection between Mali and the African-American musical tradition
> has been recently highlighted in the first installment of filmmaker
> Martin Scorsese's PBS documentary series "The Blues."
>
> It is quite obvious that several African musical traditions have had a
> major impact on Western music styles. Jazz, blues, rock and roll,
> salsa, funk, and hip-hop would not have existed without Africa's
> influence and genetic pollination. What's intriguing about the Mali
> connection is that it is so direct and palpable.
>
> In Scorsese's film "Feel Like Going Home," US musician Corey Harris
> explores possible ancestral links that survived despite hundreds of
> years of isolation thanks to the slave trade, playing with Malian
> luminaries Ali Farka Toure and Habib Koite. Upon completion of the
> film, Harris recorded "Mississsippi to Mali," in which it's sometimes
> difficult to tell the Mississippi tunes from the Malian traditionals.
>
> Of the musical similarities, Harris remains purposefully vague. "I
> didn't want to hit anybody over the head with it. It was a natural
> enough fit, so the music just spoke for itself," says Harris.
>
> For hundreds of years, the music of Mali has been left in the hands of
> the griots, a social caste of professional musicians whose
> responsibility is not only entertainment, but also recording the oral
> history of the people through song. Blues artists like Mississippi John
> Hurt and Elizabeth Cotten could be considered transplanted griots,
> recording the daily goings on of their communities through songs like
> "Spike Driver's Blues" and "Shake Sugaree."
>
> "The soul of the old [American] blues is the same soul [as] the Bambara
> people," says Malian singer and guitarist Koite, referencing one of the
> largest ethnic groups in Mali. Koite comes from a long line of griots
> and has played with US musicians such as Bonnie Raitt.
>
> In pure musical terms, the two styles share some common characteristics.
>
> "The use of the pentatonic scale isshared, as well as the use of the
> flat 7th note, or the blue note," says Harris. The fact that
> traditional Malian music is played primarily with stringed instruments
> such as the kora (a harplike instrument) and the ngoni (a small
> lutelike instrument, possibly the precursor to banjo) makes the bond
> with the guitar-dominated American blues all the more understandable.
>
> More important, there is also a certain attitude in common. Sometime in
> the late 1970s, Taj Mahal was browsing through the world music section
> of a record store when he came upon the cover art of an early Ali Farka
> Toure record.
>
> "He had a certain body posture and a way he held himself that reminded
> me exactly of the old bluesmen," says Mahal.
>
> While Ali Farka Toure has been dubbed the "African John Lee Hooker,"
> Harris is troubled by the media's attempt to quickly annoint Toure the
> African king of the blues. "Ali would never call himself a bluesman.
> He's aware of the blues, but his own tradition is so strong in itself.
> It's an oversimplification of what he is doing."
>
> The most relevant proof of the shared roots, however comes when
> American and Malian artists perform together. In an impromptu radio
> performance in New York City, Mahal found himself jamming with Malian
> kora master Toumani Diabate. Mahal remembers starting in on the blues
> traditional "Take This Hammer." Diabate joined in almost immediately,
> playing an impeccable counterpart to Mahal's guitar.
>
> When Corey Harris played with Farka Toure and others in Mali, he
> marveled at their ease with the blues progressions.
>
> "They had to show me some of the backing parts to their Malian songs,
> but on the blues tunes we played, I didn't have to show them one thing."
>
> The Malians have noticed the shift as well. Notes Koite, "African
> musicians know a lot about American music. But now it's the other way
> around. They are beginning to know a lot about us. Now we share. I
> think it can only be good."
>
>
> (c) Copyright 2004 The Christian Science Monitor.  All rights reserved.
>
>
>
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