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CD Review
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The Edge, CD Review >>
What kind of music comes from the joint efforts of a Canadian banjo virtuoso and a griot singer and master kora player (a 21 string African harp)? Great, stimulating, and inventive music, that’s what kind. Jayme Stone and Mansa Sissoko have taken their own crafts and turned them into an entirely new craft, similar to what Susheela Raman did by combining Eastern and Western music in her Salt Rain album (and her later works, too) in 2001. Africa to Appalachia is a combination of banjo music, (which actually came from Africa, according to the album’s liner notes, a little known fact that really changes how we may look at the instrument) and Malian songs.
"June Apple" is a very upbeat banjo-centric tune with rhythmic fiddle playing by Casey Driessen that takes you right out to the mountains and makes you want to dance. "Tunya," a song about love, isn’t as down-tempo as the lyrics might have you believe. "Love is an illness that medicine can’t cure. Only your lover can. Love exists now and will continue forever." Words like "illness" and "can’t cure" might lead one to expect a certain melancholy in the music, but the rhythms are anything but, and the way some of the instruments are used actually evoke a kind of humor, which many of us know that love cannot exist without.
Don’t fear that you’ll be lost if you’re not up to date on this kind of music. The CD comes with a booklet that gives us a concise and informative paragraph on each song. Still, it’s unlikely that listeners will be lost even without the explanations because the music speaks for itself in melodies, rhythms, and the feeling behind the performance of each musician involved. Stone himself had this to say about making the music with Sissoko: "With little common language between us, we turned to music for communication."
If you’re looking for a CD that is very different and extraordinarily refreshing, Africa to Appalachia is an excellent introduction to some African music that we Westerners don’t get to hear everyday. I highly recommend you take advantage of this excellent opportunity.
by Alana Grelyak 09/24/08 >> go there
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