Browse by Artist: DIABATE, MAMADOU

Artist:	DIABATE, MAMADOU
Title:	Behmanka
Label:	WORLD VILLAGE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	WORLD 468039

2005 release. "Anyone who hears the performances on this CD will understand right away that Mamadou Diabaté is a master of his instrument, the 21-string Mande harp of West Africa, the kora. As the name indicates, the Diabatés are griots -- or jeliw -- performers with an ancestral duty to preserve memory of the past through music, song and oratory. As a boy, Mamadou used to accompany his blind grandfather, Seydou Diabaté, as he visited various jatigui (nobles) around Kita and played for them on his ngoni. Seydou was especially fond of playing the song 'Alfa Yaya Jalloh,' composed for the great Fulani king in the Fouta Djalon, in present day Senegal and Guinea. Within the words to that song were lines sung in a very old form of the Mandinka language called Behmanka. Mamadou says, 'Behmanka means people who do good things for society, people who worked hard in their lives so that people were proud of them. This is a word the Mandinka people like to use a lot.' In choosing Behmanka as the name for his solo album, Mamadou honors his personal and artistic ancestry, as a jeli must. But make no mistake: Mamadou is a forward-looking, innovative player, and the versions of traditional songs here are absolutely unique to him. Mamadou has his stylistic preferences. He favors the silaba tuning, essentially a major tuning, as opposed to some of the modal tunings also used by kora players. He also plays in the key of D major, highly unusual for kora players today, who almost always perform in F-major and its related modes. Above all, Mamadou infuses these performances with his unparalleled technique, and with all the ideas and influences he's absorbed in his adventurous, musically rich life."

Artist:	DIABATE, MAMADOU
Title:	Douga Mansa
Label:	WORLD VILLAGE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	WORLD 468082

"With the release of Douga Mansa ('The King's Vulture'), his third album for World Village, Mamadou Diabate further consolidates his already awe-inspiring reputation as a kora virtuoso. In Diabate's hands, the kora proves capable of infinite variation, encompassing delicately articulated structures, swirling eddies of glissandi, pounding, vertical rhythms and roaring cataracts of arpeggio. On 'Toutou Diarra,' the opening track, an astounding range of simultaneous yet syncopated melodies and rhythms join and separate. It seems impossible that such complex clarity could possibly be the work of a solo musician -- with no overdubbing whatsoever -- but so it is. The title tune, with its serene, wave-like themes, refers to patience and life and death recurring in cycles, each leading into and becoming the other. These and other glorious tracks engage the imagination and ravish the senses. Every note is informed by the sure touch and blazing invention of a world-class master."

Artist:	DIABATE, MAMADOU
Title:	Courage
Label:	WORLD VILLAGE (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	WORLD 468108

"On his fifth album, Courage, Mamadou Diabate carves out a new direction. A departure from the traditional melodies on his previous album, these contemporary pieces highlight his versatility as a composer and affirm his place as one of the finest kora players living in the world today. He is accompanied here by a five piece band recorded in Bamako, Mali. His previous solo effort, Douga Mansa, took home a 2009 Grammy Award in the category of Best Traditional World Music."

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