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Review: Desert Blues 2
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(The) Bear, Review: Desert Blues 2 >>
Reves D' Oasis
Like the preceding two-disc compilation, Desert Blues 2 contains a wealth of material directly and indirectly linked to the North American blues genre. Starting with a shimmering Moroccan desert trance groove from Majid Bekkas, it soon becomes apparent just how wide the African roots of blues are and sometimes how the blues have filtered back into the Motherland. Ali Farka Toure may be the best-known example of this and while he is not included on this volume there are plenty of familiar voices such as Rokia Traore, Boubacar Traore, Lobi Traore, Mansour Seck, Habib Koite and Nahawa Doumbia, whose presence illustrates the links to the cultures of Mali and Senegal carried across the ocean via the slave trade.
But there are many surprises as well: the gruff, Blind Willie Johnson-style vocals and honking sax from Momo Wandel, the Bedouin breeze of Abaji Gibran's flute and bottleneck guitar opus, Netsanet Mellesse's Ethiopian wail. The rai flavors of Cheb Mami and Kadda Cherif may not be literally interpretable as blues per se, but the essence of blues expression is there in abundance. Even the Sufi dialogue of Egypt's Soliman Gamil could easily dovetail in a pinch with the spacious one-chord riffs of Bukka White or Robert Pete Williams.
Don't look to this compilation for a series of 12-bar blues by African musicians but think instead of the wealth of information that has transplanted itself across the Atlantic and given birth to one of the world's most influential styles of music. If you listen to gospel or even contemporary r&b you will still be able to hear vocal stylings that have roots in both the indigenous and transplanted Muslim cultures of Africa. And so the music wheel keeps turning. 06/01/03
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