Another notable Duke Ellington Jazz Festival show this week is from Malian master stringed lute (ngoni) player Cheick Hamala Diabate performing at Bossa on Sunday night.

Cheick Hamala Diabate is recognized as one of the world's masters of the ngoni, a Malian traditional instrument and a West African historian in the Griot tradition. A steward of the 800-year-old tradition of the Griot, the storytellers of West Africa, Cheick Hamala shares the oral history, music and song of his culture as it was passed on to him from birth by parent to child. At an early age, Cheick Hamala easily mastered the ngoni, a stringed lute and ancestor to the banjo. He learned to play the guitar from his uncle and now plays banjo and several other instruments.