Edito

Aly Keïta & Friends

featuring  Dobet Gnahoré, Boris Tchango, Pierre Vaiana and Clive Govinden.

The lands where this music, termed ‘world’, evolves are lands where thousands of encounters and exchanges between musicians flourish. Some of these experiments are spontaneous and self-evident; others feel like put-up-jobs, a quest for exoticism. Aly Keïta does not fall into the category of easy-listening world music for multi-coloured festivals. On the contrary, he follows a natural momentum, one that has already propelled him for a long time to play alongside musicians such as Dhruba Ghosh, Omar Sosa, Paolo Fresu, Trilok Gurtu, Joe Zawinul and many others. And here again, he knows that his balaphon will be able to hold its own in a project where one encounters a multifaceted Africa and a jazz that is conscious and respectful of its roots. The music sets off in a medley of voluptuous pleasure and urgency that is unique to the musicians, whose chief concern is to replace all the chattering with a communication grounded in pleasure.

First, let’s examine the sound of this balaphon. Aly Keïta sometimes makes lace, in the style Mozart played on a glass harmonica, and sometimes takes us into the bush to discover initiation rhythms. Above this, floating with a certain melodic tenderness is the saxophone of Pierre Vaiana, extremely comfortable on this journey. And when the rhythm section comes in, the sensual bass of Manou Gallo superbly wraps around the polyrhythmic drums of Boris Tchango. Then comes the cherry on the cake, the intense voice and feline suppleness of Dobet Gnahoré. This is the voice of all Africa, which joins Togo, Ivory Coast, Mali and Belgium, uniting everything each musician carries from his own physical and musical journey: know-how, a sense of listening, and a clear idea of what living and vibrant popular music is.

International pop music, conceptual world music, traditional music in motion, fusion, ethno-jazz, or afro-pop…? It is undoubtedly much simpler than these prefabricated labels when, like in this instance, a handful of musicians gather to play and sing about what their very different lives have in common: a view on the world, a glimmer of hope, a sense of engagement, a common denunciation of abuses, blatant injustices, images of human cowardice… When Dobet Gnahoré pushes his voice, in a language of his choice, to howl with dignity about what troubles him, what motivates him as much as what renders him emotional; believe me, all the musicians strain themselves to serve this voice, this world song, which is often accompanied by a dance that undeniably betrays inner strife.

When listening to this group, one can imagine the scene of a convoy passing without wagons; each is a driving force, each pushes and pulls this project with the same force and the same motivation. It is impossible to detect one star obliterating the others; each plays, nobody takes the place of the other. And each plays for the same idea, the same goal, in fact the simplest of all: to share an enormous desire for music and to make it shareable with as many publics as possible. This is what happens when one is capable of disregarding one’s personal career for the benefit of projects where music and ego do not make good bedfellows.

Apparently these five musicians and singers have made this choice, a choice that carries weight and one that the public will feel.

Etienne Bours