Contributed By: Sybru
Created On: Sunday, 14 October 2007
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 Ali Farka & Toumani
Touré’s career has spanned over 40 years—his first international concert in 1987, regular album releases since the late ’80s and a Grammy in 1994—and now in his 60s he is still touring extensively.
Although he is famous for what has been called his “Malian Blues” style, that’s a label Touré has always fought against. “Here in Mali we don’t have the ‘blues.’ It doesn’t exist. No Malian would be able to say to you, ‘That’s blues music.’ If he says that he’s lying. If you say ‘blues’ he’ll go and find you a doctor… and that’s the truth.”
He continues, “When people say, ‘You are the blues man,’ it annoys me because I know that what I do is traditional to this culture and it’s, above all, the roots of this culture.”
Using instruments, rhythms and tone that can only be from this part of the continent, Touré insists he is playing the oldest form of music. “What I know is from traditional guitarists, traditional violinists, bamboo flutes. These are sounds that are two or three thousand years old. Our empire is what has given me the strength to express myself and to create.”
As for Touré’s newest collaborator, Toumani Diabaté has been drawn to unusual collaborations throughout his career. Since his debut at 21 with the 1987 album Kaira, his discography includes two albums with the Spanish group Ketama and another with the blues musician Taj Mahal.
Like Touré, Toumani also draws inspiration from Mali’s musical heritage: “You know there are a lot of mixtures of types of music everywhere today. The Africans are mixing their music with the Europeans, the Americans, the Asians. But often it’s important to go back to your roots to discover things that are more interesting, more concrete, and clean and simple, which represent truth.”
The tracks featured on In The Heart Of The Moon are not what either musician usually plays and are drawn directly from Mali’s musical past. One of the album’s tracks, “Debe,” is a 1950s version of a piece from the griot repertoire of the 17th century. Another, “Kaira,” was popularized by Toumani’s father Sidiki Diabaté, also a kora player, in the 1940s and ’50s.
The album looks to Jamana kura (New Era): Mali in the ’50s and ’60s, post-colonialization but pre-independence: a time of radical re-thinking on attitudes toward social conventions and tradition. Musicians were at the heart of this movement, composing new songs, and opting for the guitar—because it was neutral and not tied to any ethnic group or ritual—to create a new plucking style of playing.
Recorded in a mobile studio in Bamako, the album took only three consecutive afternoons to make, without editing or second takes. Producer Nick Gold explains, “Each of them would suggest or remind the other of a song by playing the first few notes of the melody and that was basically it. If one of them wanted to take a solo, he’d nod to the other.”
Diabaté adds about their unorthodox way of working during the recording: “I said to Ali, ‘We ought to rehearse.’ He said, ‘No, Toumani, we’ll try to work together in a natural way, there won’t be any problem.’”
The playing is intricate and seamless and based not only on great musicianship, but also a deep trust between the two. At the beginning of the recording session, Touré tells Diabaté, “Musically, you go where you want when you want and come back when you want to come back. I’ll stay fixed. I won’t go anywhere.’”
Not only were they rediscovering the music as they recorded, but they were also finding new ways of using their instruments. Diabaté explains, “It was also a revelation for me to play Ali’s music. It requires harmonies on the kora that I’d never done before.”
The breadth of Touré’s own musical talent and knowledge was inspired, as Diabaté explains: “All of us were so surprised to see Ali have a connection with this kind of music. He flicked one of his lion’s claws that no one knew about and produced these ancient pieces.”
The respect each feels for the other can literally be heard in the music. In one track, Touré praises Diabaté as the true heir to the Mandé musical tradition he inhabits. He believes Toumani “holds the key to Malian music and 10 million Malian artists live in his shadow. He is a phenomenon of African culture. The kora is born with Toumani.”
In turn, Diabaté penned the track “Monsieur le Maire de Niafunké,” dedicated to Touré and his patriotism.”
Recording the album was a unique experience for all involved. Diabaté says, “It will stay with me forever. That was the essence of this music, this complementary nature.”
Adds Touré, “There is no competition between us, no hate, no jealousy. You cannot be jealous of God and of what He gives.”
Even the production team was struck. Gold says, “Sometimes I had the thrilling sense of eavesdropping on a moment of very special and intimate communication. I wish I could have afternoons like that every day of my life.”
All of them agree that this is a groundbreaking album. More than that, it was, for Ali Farka Touré, “a very important meeting in the realm at the heart of the moon.”{mos_ri}
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