Guiné Cabral

Super Mama Djombo's tribute to Amílcar Cabral




Viva the heroes of our land

oh dunia

*

Samba Touré-Fondo

Samba Touré grew up in Dabi, a small village in northern Mali,
his father passed away just before his birth, leaving his mother to raise him alongside his brother,
Ibrahima ‘Bouri’ Séré. Although they could not afford formal education,
the brothers were surrounded by music and his mother was one of the first women
to sing with the young Ali Farka Touré at the Biennale Festival in Mali.

inspired by the Congolese guitar groups,began singing and playing guitar in a band called Farafina Lolo
(Africa Star), with his brother Bouri on the drums and Baba Simagah on the bass guitar,in the mid-1990s, Samba briefly joined another group, Super Lolo.
It was Ali Farka who encouraged Samba to look to his roots and establish
his own identity rather than following passing music fads and Samba Touré formed Fondo.
Fondo includes Zoumana Tereta, a master of the sokou,
Oumar Barou Diallo on bass guitar, Hamma Sankaré on calabash and Bouri on the drums.
The youngest member of the band, Djimé Sissoko, is the little brother of Baba Sissoko,
and can be heard on the ngoni and tamani .
Together, they have played at numerous African festivals, with the bassist Baba Simagah
and the conga player Oumar Touré (who was a longtime player with Ali Farka Touré) joining the line-up.
Fondo was produced by Ali Farka. in 2004.

home
ina new rip

Ensemble Tartit ,Touaregs Kel Antessar~Amazagh

Music, song and poetry occupy an extremely large and fundamental place in Tuareg society.
In all the chaos that this century and its struggles have caused, they have remained a constant
mark of Tuareg identity. The Tuareg confederations have as a whole certain musical practices
in common, as well as the rules that guide them and the themes of the poems that are sung. 
Their music is characterised by the importance given to the voices and by a reduced number of instruments. Their social structure has traditionally had a great influence on their music; only women of the noble or the vassal tribes were once permitted to play the imzad . the small one-stringed fiddle that is the symbol of`Tuareg society, but now any female musician can teach the instrument to any woman who so desires.

 The imzad  is made from half a calabash or from a wooden bowl that is covered with goatskin and to which is also attached a neck that supports one string of horsehair. The imzad players were greatly renowned and could play many melodies, these evoking past events or the high deeds of a hero whose name they bore by the richness of their variations; they could also accompany a man’s singing and. on occasion, also displayed therapeutic powers by curing melancholy and apathy. Good players of the imzad are today becoming ever rarer and its repertoire is inexorably becoming smaller. Lala, the imzad player of the Tartit group is very often happy simply to accompany the other musicians and the songs, keeping herself out of the limelight.

The other instrument that is played exclusively by women is the tindé  made from a small wooden mortar that the women use to grind grains and which been covered with goatskin. The Kel Antessar have two types of tindé , a small (takabart) and a large (aghelaba), whose higher and lower sounds complement each other. Even although it had only until recently been the case that women from the servant tribes were the only ones authorized to play the tindé, now all women may play it. performing popular songs, making up new words to classic melodies to evoke the memory of a hero, encouraging the men, boasting of the women`s merits, or even giving themselves over to bewitching songs that imitate the rhythm of a camel's walk. The percussive sounds of the tindé and the soloist’s song are generally accompanied by a female chorus and by hand clapping on the off-beat.

The imzad and the tindé are both instruments that are well adapted to the nomad life.
 Both are made from everyday objects, a gourd and a mortar respectively, and they can once again be
used for their normal functions after their use as musical instruments. The Tuareg  do not,
however, have a monopoly on such instruments; the Haoussa and the Djerma have one-stringed fiddles that resemble the imzad and many of the African peoples use percussion instruments related to the tindé. 
The Tuaregs have therefore been either a constant influence on or have been  constantly influenced by the peoples that lived around them.
The traces of these intercultural borrowings are particularly visible with the Kel Antessar.
They were amongst the first Tuaregs to use the tehardant, the three-stringed lute that resemble

instruments used by the Songhais, the Peuls and the Moors. A permanent instrument, the tehardant consists of  a canoe-shaped wooden resonance chamber covered with goatskin. A neck supports three strings that were once horsehair but are now synthetic. The tehardunt is, together with their  flute, the only Tuareg instrument that is played by men. Amongst the Kel Antessan the tehardant is played by professional musicians, although this circumstance does not occur in the other confederations.
 Amano ag  Issa belongs to the aggou caste (plural: aggouten), one that corresponds to the griots of the settled peoples. The aggouten belong to the most extended part of the inhadan, the smith‘s or artisan’s caste. The majority of poets and raconteurs traditionally meet at the homes of the above; they are exempt from observing certain rules of behavior and they can skillfully handle criticism and provocation.
 They are sometimes distrusted and  often  feared, notably because of the power that as smiths they have over fire. The Tuaregs of other areas have also adopted not only the music and texts of the tehardunt but also the songs:of  the aggouten. satirical and critical of` the powers that be; it is now therefore possible to hear
 tehardant music also in Gao and in Niamey.





Certain pieces played by the Tartit group mingle the sound of the tehardant and the  tindé with  the voice of 
a male or female soloist, with Amano’s commentaries and with a female chorus.
Such pieces are played on festive occasions such as marriages, children’s ceremonies, various
tributes, and also in honour of a woman who has just divorced. The men and women dance seated cross legged opposite each other, moving and twisting their arms and their hands, playing with glances and being free with their smiles. The music provided by the tehardant and the imzad that now supports the tales describing historical incidents will later also be performed in circumstances that will inspire more gravity and calm during assemblies or talks.


The Tartit group presented Tuareg music from Mali for the first time in Europe during the
festival Wir da Femmes in Liege, Belgium in December 1995. The music that they presented at that time was, however, only a part of the rich repertoire of the Kel Antessar and of the Tuaregs in general.
 This patrimony in perpetual change, as the introduction to the tehardant has shown, is today menaced in part.
The Tuaregs are living through one of the most tragic periods of their history, with droughts,
wars, exodus and exile, settlement, refugee camps and shanty towns, "Will they ever be able to
find their own path again without either losing their reason or the rhythm of their rightness“,
asked the French ethnomusicologist Bernard Lorta-Jacob....
from the notes

I have expressed my admiration for the magical ensemble of Tartit in the past,
I will do it  one more time.
let's listen to them  in their first and best recording so far (just imho)

many thanks to ibn chaaba
photos of Tartit by awel haouati



Amazagh


* * *
!superb early-Tartit!

Nanfoule

3  versions of the sublime Nanfoule/Nanfulen *

the oldest I'm aware of , that of   Mahawa Kouyaté and  Soundioulou Cissoko

the Balla/Balladins 1969 version , bside of  SYL 508 - Tara been the a side

and the most recent  of  Mory Djely Kouyaté & Jean Philippe Rykiel

another version there

& more versions  in worldservice

*na n foule -come, release me. a song dating back to ww2 when the French imposed draconian rations on their colonies and prohibited trade with the British colonies such as Sierra Leone. it  is attributed to a griot merchant that was caught in a contraband traffic and was tortured by the colonial customs officers...

the original must have sounded like this

Moussa Abdoulaye et Diadié Abdoulaye Cissé

the always amazing brothers Moussa Abdoulaye and Diadié Abdoulaye Cissé
originally from  Guidimakja region, Mauritania

in a generous taste from their "space" geseru (=soninké griot)  sound
here with  Mah Damba and Jean-Philippe Rykiel

M'bawdi Guidimax


thanks ngoni 


.*

Memórias Artur Nunes

 its only sad that there is so little information on the net about such giants as Artur Nunes .
all I could gather in bits and pieces:

Artur Nunes  was born in Barrio Cuba, Sambizanga in 1950 to an Angolan mother and a North American father
More than a legend in his time,Artur Nunes was the angelic voice and one of the most influential composers in the  pre-independence days of  revolutionary Angola.
His songs drew inspiration from kombas,the  funeral rites where women sang laments… His unique style for “songs of the soul” earned him the nickname, “the Spiritualist.” From 1972-76, he recorded a dozen singles, plus two songs on the 33rpm collection Rebita 75.
He perished in Sambizanga in the aftermath of  the May 27th, 1977 unfortunate protests .


Artur Nunes material is fully presented in this  collection from Colecção Poeira no Quintal,a project launched by Rádio Nacional de Angola,
all the 26 songs he recorded from the late 60's through the 70's with these backing bands:



01-Os Merengues-Imperialismo
02-Jovens do Prenda-Anangola Yá Dila
03-Jovens do Prenda-Uá Eu Muangola
04-Jovens do Prenda-Kalumba Kami
05-Jovens do Prenda-Kizua Ki Nguifua
06-Jovens do Prenda-Mana
07-Jovens do Prenda-Tia
08-África Rítimos-Ku Zambizanga
09-África Rítimos-Minha Rola
10-África Rítimos-Hó Kitadi
11-África Rítimos-Ngongo Tolo Mona
12-Jovens do Prenda-Mena
13-Jovens do Prenda-Nguma

new link
*****

01-Jovens do Prenda-Ngola Tua Itambula
02-Os Kiezos-Ho yó Monandengue
03-Os Kiezos-Chico
04-Os Kiezos-Dituze
05-Os Kiezos-Jota
06-Jovens do Prenda-Laura
07-África Rítimos-Não Sei Porquê
08-Os Merengues-Kubanza Kua Anangola
09-Jovens do Prenda-Zinha
10-Jovens do Prenda-Ku Muxito Kwala Anangola
11-Jovens do Prenda-Mukila
12-Jovens do Prenda-Belina
13-Jovens do Prenda-Njila Yá Kuako

new link 2
*****

if you have more biographical details to contribute please welcome

Ewe drumming from Ghana

Music is a communal event in Ewe culture. Of the utmost importance is a musicians ability to relate to the other musicians he/she is playing with. No matter if you are a professional, or merely tapping out a rhythm on a glass bottle with friends. How much you understand about the concept of interdependence is what makes the music great and fulfilling in the eyes of the Ewe.
There is also a relationship between the musician and the listener. As the music is played it is important for the listener to keep their own time with the music. A listener must "feel" a pulse in the music even when it is not explicitly played by the instruments. With the understanding that the listener is mediating their own rhythm, the musicians are free to embellish, compliment, challenge, confuse, and amaze a listener. It's a relationship that's purely musical, but stems from how people in the community relate to each other. The societal structure is mirrored through the musical culture.

An important aspect of playing drums and dancing is style.  The music must always be moving forward, but must also be steady and have strength in repetition. In order to keep the music interesting, players are encouraged to give their own improvisations within the playing structure. It can be compared to devotional that is interjected into a Baptist service by a member of the church.  The music is organized to be open to the rhythmic interpretation a drummer, a listener, or a dancer wishes to contribute.  John Miller Chernoff quotes in his work African Rhythm and African Sensibility; "In one sense the deepest unities may be achieved when people relate through a better awareness of their differences".
Improvisation is about gaining knowledge and using that knowledge tactfully.
source

the soup which is sweet draws the chairs in closer

correct!