PRICE:
$15.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
Musical Archives of West Africa - The 70s in Bouake (Collection by Bernard Mondet)
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
MEGAIMP 117CD MEGAIMP 117CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
2/28/2020

An important inter-cultural and commercial crossroads in the center of the Ivory Coast, the town of Bouake prospered during the 20th century around one of the richest and most colorful markets of West Africa. Working in this town in the mid-1970s, the biologist Bernard Mondet was fascinated by the Ivorian, Ghanaian, Malian, Guinean, or Voltaic musical traditions he encountered there. Armed with his Nagra tape recorder and a pair of microphones, he collected a vast number of sound documents in which Senufo and Bobo balafons, lute harps kora of the Manding, Peul, and Mossi flutes, and Birifor musical bows are mingled skillfully. The recordings will appeal to fans of the traditional repertoires of African griots and their main instruments: the kora and the balafon. The set offers a glimpse of musical life in the 1970s in Bouake, the second most populated city in Ivory Coast; it serves as a collection of traditional music recorded with Peul, Bobo, Mandingue, and Birifor musicians from various regions of Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali. Original sound archives on magnetic tapes, digitized and restored in 2019; Includes 12 black-and-white and color photographs, taken at the same time as the sound recordings. The very first CD to be released in the "Archives" series on the new MEG-AIMP label, which continues the collection founded in 1984 by Laurent Aubert and directed by Madeleine Leclair since 2012. Digipack, notes, and booklet in French and English.