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CD
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DT 2502CD
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Seengwa is a tribute to the already almost forgotten musical traditions of the Sambla people of the region of the same name in Burkina Faso. The Sambla belong to the very rare peoples worldwide who have developed a language with the xylophone (the Sambla call it Balafon). It represents the tonal language of the Sambla translated into music and serves as a "substitute language". Musicians who do not understand this language cannot master this instrument. Mamadou Diabate connects it with the "here and now" through collaborations with top-class musicians from Europe and his homeland. The renowned Austrian jazz saxophonist Wolfgang Puschnig is just one of the six musicians who complete Mamadou Diabate's six-piece "Percussion Mania". In the piece "Duniya Banaba" the Balafon language is translated into French for the first time by poetry slammer Malika La Slamazone from Burkina Faso. Seengwa takes listeners on a rhythm journey -- from tradition to modernity. Mamadou Diabate and Yacouba Konate provide the keynote for this with their two balafons as lead instruments and lead into African spheres through djembe and calabash, enriched with wonderful melodies and polyphonic singing of two vocalists, strings, piano and kora as well as electric and bass guitars. Mamadou Diabate's extraordinary creativity is a never-ending stream of musical creativity that keeps the special cultural and musical traditions of his homeland alive.
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CD
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WORLD 468082
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"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."
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