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Thrilling Voice of Senegal
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The Toronto Star, Thrilling Voice of Senegal >>
Even his name suggests melody and rhythm.
Baaba Maal possesses one of the most thrilling voices in African music, capable of rising to an intense, transcendent wail that expands the limits of human expression.
"When I was young, we didn't have a PA system or any other technical thing," he once said in a Toronto interview, "and anytime you play in front of 200 or 300 people you have to make everyone hear you.
"So I would go into the desert and train, not to scream but to sing louder, and the voice built itself little by little. Eventually, I passed a certain level, what we call daande heli in Fula (his native language), or 'voice exploding.'"
Maal is from Podor, in northern Senegal, near the westernmost bulge of Africa. On Tuesday, he performs with guitarist Mansour Seck and five other acoustic players from Maal's band Daadne Lenol (Voice of the Race) at the Phoenix Concert Theatre.
It is an unusually intimate venue for Maal. On his last visit, in 1999, he headlined the travelling Africa Fete show at Roy Thomson Hall, and his current 34-date North American tour includes such stops as the Houston International Festival and the popular Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette, La.
"Small clubs sometimes can be much nicer in this style of music," Maal said by cellphone last week from a highway in California.
"I love it when people are really close to us. It's like a party and nobody is tense. It's just natural. It's also an opportunity for me to play guitar again the way I want to play it."
That he will be playing guitar is good news for fans of the 1984 album Djam Leelii, featuring vocal and guitar duets by Maal and Seck - the blind hereditary musician, or griot, who has been Maal's friend since boyhood.
When the disc was released in Britain in 1989, Djam Leelii began Maal's rise to international stardom. He followed with Lam Toro in 1993, then Firin' In Fouta, a daring, exhilarating mix of African percussion and electronic break beats that drew a Grammy nomination in 1994.
The push for a North American breakthrough led to Nomad Soul in 1988, another hybrid but a disappointing one. No fewer than seven different producers got involved.
Maal has since returned to his roots. In 1999, he released Live At The Royal Festival Hall, and participated in such critically acclaimed collaborations as In Search Of The Lost Riddim by Ernest Ranglin, and Kora Revolution by Kaouding Cissoko, the longtime kora player in Maal's band.
The current tour centres on Maal's most recent release, Missing You (2001), but without the kora player.
"We lost Kaouding (Cissoko)," Maal said on the cellphone. "He was diabetic and caught TB but he didn't know it. About a year ago, he died."
The cellphone cut out several times, making a proper interview impossible. Reconnected one last brief time, Maal started to address how he - as a devout Muslim - feels about touring the United States (plus Toronto and Montreal) one year after the start of the Iraq war.
"Whether you are Muslim or not, I think everyone would not wish to see wars on earth," he said in his philosophical and sometimes ambiguous way. "I don't want to see even terrorism anywhere on the planet."Who: Baaba Maal and Daadne Lenol
When: Tuesday @ 9 p.m.
Where: Phoenix Concert Theatre, 410 Sherbourne St.
Tickets: $25 @ 416-973-4000
04/08/04
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