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Soundings
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Lahontan Valley News, Soundings >>
Habib Koite is a bit of a superstar in African music and you'll get a chance to see why next Saturday night when he performs at the Barkley Theatre.
He is a multi-instrumentalist who has crafted a compelling fusion of the musical styles of his native Mali with western instrumentation and techniques such as the electric guitar. This is showcased on his most recent release Baro (Contre Jour/Putamayo World Music).
The CD is an excellent combination of haunting melodies and virtuoso guitar playing. Some intriguing accompanying sounds also emanate from the balafon, a west African wooden-keyed xylophone, which is featured on several cuts.With the tight and convincing support of his band, Bamada, Koite swings from the Cuban influenced grooves of "Batoumanbe" to ethereal and entrancing numbers such as "Sinamaw." The amplified acoustic approach to presenting the songs is very effective. While the music is based on traditional Malian material, Koite's guitar style evokes a variety of sonic references from blues to flamenco.
What makes the album so successful is that you can, literally, hear how Koite has one foot in the past and the other in the future. He's been praised in hundreds of magazines and newspapers from Le Monde to Rolling Stone, and next Saturday he'll be here in Fallon. Tickets are $17 for Arts Council members, $20 for non-members and are available at Jeff's Copy Express, Postage Plus or by calling CAC at 423-1440.
Another superb example of fusion and genre blending is Chants, Hymns and Dances (ECM New Series) by Anja Lechner and Vassilis Tsabropoulos. The ECM label-based in Europe-has, for more than 30 years, issued a variety of musics that forge classical, jazz, contemporary music into hybrids that take music in new directions. The artists that record for ECM range from the acapella, polyphony and vocal ensemble, The Hilliard Singers to bandeonist extraordinaire, Dino Saluzzi, and jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. Lechner and Tsabropoulos and very much in that same league, and the cello and piano duo have crafted an album that is subtle, yet spirited, and staggeringly beautiful.
The CD places compositions by the mystic and teacher G.I. Gurdjieff
around a new work, in much the same mood and mode, by Tsabropoulos. Gurdjieff was a self-styled philosopher whose Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man was based-in the early decades of the twentieth century-in Avon, outside Fontainebleau, France. There, he constructed a study center that was modeled on a Mevlevi dervish lodge in Istanbul. This blend of east and west in reflected in both his philosophical teachings and musical compositions. The musical compositions shape a series of movements that were intended to alter or heighten consciousness. And this process was an improvisational one.
The music evokes Byzantium at a time when it was the crossroads of east and west, a meeting and blending of cultures and styles that was not wholly Occidental, not wholly Oriental.
Keith Jarrett released a recording of piano versions of Gurdjieff's compositions in 1985 and since then there have been quite a few
recordings that have tried to get at the heart of Gurdjieff's music; but none has succeeded quite so well as this one. Neither Lechner nor
Tsabropoulos are enrolled in any kind of occult music fan club and, the harmonious development of man is not high on their list of priorities.
But music is. Lechner-who's played with Dino Saluzzi among others-and pianist Tsabropoulos manage to make a timeless polychromatic mosaic, music that is both classical and folk, Eastern and Western, both improvised and notated. Gurdjieff-in trying to describe his efforts-once said, "I have a very good leather to sell to those who wish to make shoes." And Lechner and Tsabropoulos have made and exquisite pair.
-Kirk Robertson 02/19/05 >> go there
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