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Time Out Chicago, CD/Concert Preview >>
Festival in the Desert
Old Town School of Folk Music
There’s something about Mali. If there is ever a Beatles or Rolling Stones of world music, we’re betting they will hail from the west African nation. And if that group turned out to be Tinariwen, we wouldn’t be surprised.
The band’s latest effort, Aman Iman: Water Is Life (World Circuit), is its rockingest—fully true to the members’ Tuareg roots, yet flashing with a dynamic, bluesy pulse that instantly appeals to Western ears. These songs of protest and community spring from the oppressed culture of the Saharan nomads, a resilient desert tribe whose guitarists absorbed American rock music while stuck in Algerian military camps. The band’s latest song cycle, produced by Robert Plant guitarist Justin Adams, repays the respect and juices the power line that charges those swirling guitar figures and choral chants.
Tinariwen shares the bill with another star from its homeland: Mamadou Diabate. As his surname suggests, this young master of the kora—a 21-string harp with a millennium of tradition behind it—comes from a family of reigning griots. Diabate has done a lot to introduce the West to the kora, collaborating with jazz musicians (Roswell Rudd, Randy Weston) and encyclopedic string players (Taj Mahal). His gift is such that the kora’s inherently beatific airs easily adapt to a variety of musical situations. If the concert concludes with a jam session, it would only be the latest welcome harmonic convergence to grace Diabate’s career.
— Steve Dollar 11/15/07 >> go there
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