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The Fresh Face of African Music
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Carnegie Hall website, The Fresh Face of African Music >>
Richard Gehr
On Julia Sarr
Although Julia Sarr has accompanied Youssou N’Dour, who repays the favor with a stirring guest appearance on the title track of Sarr and guitarist Patrice Larose’s album Set Luna, don’t expect the golden-throated singer to fall neatly into the unceasingly agitated mbalax box. Unlike the renowned mbalax diva Kine Lam or teenaged up-and-comer Cisse Diamba Kanoute, Sarr mostly eschews the grit and nervous energy hardcore mbalax in favor of a more transparent international style of singing, gliding smoothly between flamenco flourishes, jazz-like improvisations, and downright funky Wolof phrasings—sometimes in parallel with Larose but often not.
Set Luna’s spacious originality is the perfect vehicle for Sarr, whose voice first turned my ears in Jean-Claude Petit’s score for Lumumba—her beautiful solos in the film are echoed on Set Luna in the a cappella “Yolumba,” co-written with Lokua Kanza. Spanish and French sounds replace Cuba’s musical underpinnings in her new West African art. A simmering album of subtle textures and futuristic connotations, Set Luna contains equal parts duende, that ineffable spirit at the heart of flamenco, and a distinct Dakar-rooted sound with an extremely promising future. 10/24/05 >> go there
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