`Getting competitive' Le Triangle du Balafon

Sikasso is a typical West African junction town. A crossroads in the Sahel where ancient mini buses with benedictions in peeling paint or names like `Obama', rattle to a halt, small windows spilling open in a tangle of elbows and heads, roofs piled high with a cargo of mopeds, bleating goats and baskets brimming with ripe mangoes or dried fish.  For these stoic passengers, Sikasso is a brief rest on a long journey as they transit between Mali, Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire. For another group of itinerant travellers though Sikasso is the destination to which they are heading. 

 

Once a year musicians from across West Africa arrive in the busy town on the border between Mali and Burkina Faso.  The occasion is Le Triangle du Balafon, a fraternal but fiercely competitive celebration of the West African xylophone.  For months, groups from Mali, Burkina Faso and as far as Guinea Conakry have been rehearsing and choreographing. Many have composed a new piece to debut at the festival, and are united in their hope of returning home with the small bronze statue awarded to best group. 

 

Last year, first prize was won by the group of Mamadou Diabaté.  In this video we can enjoy the virtuosity that ensured the little bronze statue was packed carefully into one of those Sikasso mini buses, and came home to Burkina Faso.        

            

 

Made in Burkina Faso

The Guardian recently published a nice photo story from Burkina Faso on the production of Bògòlanfini also known as `mud cloth'.

 

Photograph: David Crookes

 

"In griot time" A book review

Banning Eyre is an American guitarist, writer and broadcaster, and a regular contributor to Afropop Worldwide http://www.afropop.org/wp/ . A lifelong student of African guitar styles, his curiosity for the unique playing styles found across the continent has taken him to West and Southern Africa, and he has generously shared the many lessons he has learnt in shady compounds in his book African guitar atlas.

In 1995 he packed his guitar, and shipped a Roland keyboard amp (the preferred amplifier of many African guitarists) to the Malian capital Bamako . The amplifier was both a gift and down payment for an intensive musical apprenticeship with the great Malian guitarist Djelimady Tounkara, with whom Banning was to live and study for seven months, a story told with humility, insight and honesty in his book In griot time.

Evoking a Bamako of late afternoon wedding parties where bright cotton clothes are softened by the deep ochre soil, In Griot Time follows the passage of the dry season as it progresses alongside Banning's understanding of Manding guitar towards the arrival of the first Bamako rains. 

Asserting that "to learn African music, you must immerse yourself in the social world that produced it, a world that encompasses ideas, beliefs, rituals and values", Banning's holistic approach unfolds in an engaging narrative that introduces us to the extended family of his host and mentor Djelimady Tounkara, as well as an all star cast of Malian musicians including Oumou Sangaré and Sali Sidibe.

The system of patronage that exists in West Africa and from which many griot earn an income is  frankly examined, and we learn the true story of the project that became Buena Vista Social Club,  originally conceived by World Circuit's Nick Gold as a collaboration Djelimady and Cuban musicians, later realised as AfroCubism.

Whether describing Djelimady's graceful and deft guitar playing; "a stately cycle of notes, bristling with a tough certainty", or a female praise singer "the jelimuso's first note scored the air like a steamship horn announcing entry to port", the story is told with an excitement and reverence for the music and musical culture that will resonate with anyone who has delved into this tradition and experienced the epiphanies, frustration, and joy of learning music in West Africa.

"In Griot time" by Banning Eyre - ISBN 1566397596

 

Le Festenal del serral

Translating as `The festival of the hill', Le festenal del serral was a celebration of Occitan music and culture organised by a friend in the south of France to which Folignouma were invited to play.

Set in an olive grove with a chorus of cicadas, polyphonic Occitan choirs, a ceilidh, barbershop trio, and us! it was all great fun and very eclectic.

 

We performed in a large tepee on Sunday, debuting new repertoire specially arranged for this performance, transposed from balafon to the more portable accordion and guitar

 

Aqueles - Occitan Barbershop Trio 

 

After our set we enjoyed a brilliant performance of a cappella harmony in Occitan.

 

Balani show `village ambiance in the city'

Balani show is a musical phenomenon with it's roots in the Malian capital Bamako sometime around 1999/2000.  Unable to afford admission to a `boîte' or nightclub, young people began searching for an outlet to amuse themselves in the evenings.

Borrowing from the village tradition of gathering under a full moon to dance to musicians (in Burkina, balafon players or bala fola are called to play for weddings, funerals and even a lunar eclipse as Moussa told me recently), the urban youth of Bamako began organising their own street parties.

In the late afternoon, walls of battered speakers would be dragged out to form a road block in a Bamako neighbourhood, chairs hired, and set out in a wide circle on the ochre soil still holding the heat of the day's sun.  DJ's would play cassettes of balafon music such as Neba Solo, or perhaps MC or `ambiancer' the crowd a little.

As the fashion caught on, aspiring producers with access to a laptop and a sampler began performing live remixes, and then to create their own original `electro' balafon music.  The format of the parties also began to evolve, with emcees warming up the crowd and organising games such as musical chairs for the younger children who'd come out to see what was going on.  Then as night fell, teenagers would arrive in their dance crews to `battle' each other, and perform carefully choreographed routines and acrobatics.

Since then the Balani show has grown and grown, and on many a Bamako evening a party can be happened upon.  Many parents approve of the parties as they usually happen right in front of peoples house fronts, allowing elders to keep an eye on their children!

Others have argued the opposite though, citing examples of fights breaking out between fiercely competitive dance crews, and of `indecent' dancing. 

There is also the small matter of the balafon player being replaced by a sampler, and the loss of earning a few CFA!

In all cases, the balani show illustrates the D.I.Y aesthetic and talent in West Africa for re imagining and recycling.

One Friday afternoon in Bobo Dioulasso...

Much of my time in Bobo Dioulasso and the early part of my apprenticeship has been spent at Baragnouma, a workshop established by Fabrice Berre employing artisan musical instrument makers from griot famalies.  http://baragnouma.com/en/

The workshop produces balafons, koras, djembes and more, and as you approach the compound shaded by a huge mango tree, you are greeted with the rhythmic sounds of sawing and sanding and an atmosphere of industriousness and friendship.

 

One Friday afternoon when work was finished for the day, I witnessed an incredible impromptu jam between Adama Diabaté and Ousmane Traoré who is the featured accompanist on our album Kamélé Yeleen.

Ousmane (on the left) plays the solo part first, and then Adama before picking up the tempo for an amazing echaufement.

 

 

 

Album launch added to University archive

Our performance at The Centre of African Studies has been added to Cambridge University's online collection of audio and video!   

http://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1505320

The full acoustic set is best listened to on headphones.