Post-Colonial African Groove of the Week #8 – Maliyo
Posted on | October 23, 2009 | No Comments
Today we return to Mali for a tune from the inimitable Rail Band, one of the finest and most notable of the government-sponsored Post-Colonial West African bands, featuring long-time band member Djelimady Tounkara on guitar. The Rail Band (the full name of which is the Super Rail Band of the Buffet Hotel at the Gare [Train Station], Bamako) has gone through many incarnations in its long and ongoing history. Its name comes from the location of its regular gig, the Buffet Hotel at the Bamako Train Station. Many fantastic musicians have gotten their start playing with the Rail Band, among them Salif Keita, who first came to the attention of Malian audiences as the lead singer in this band, before he left for the rival Ambassadeurs Internationaux, when he was replaced by Mory Kante as lead singer in the Rail Band. Both Keita and Kante have since gone on to international stardom, with big pop hits in Europe and Africa, and interestingly, both of them have recently returned to more traditional acoustic settings as well.
Anyhow, in addition to these great singers, the Rail Band has featured, for the majority of its history, the great guitar master Djelimady Tounkara, who along with Manfila Kante (who I mentioned and featured in the second Post-Colonial Groove post here), as been one of the main creators of the Mandinka guitar sound, translating many traditional lines, ornaments, and stylistic elements onto the instrument. He began playing ngoni, a five-stringed guitar-esque Mandinka instrument, and later moved to guitar. He has since straddled the line between traditional music and modern electric dance bands, being equally at home in both settings. His time and his unique super-fast picking articulation are very distinctive and help him to stand out as one of West Africa’s finest guitarists.
This track finds him in fine form with the Rail Band, his fills behind the vocals are superb, and his solo, as was Manfila Kante’s on Djata, is organized in a very traditional manner, with alternation between kumbengo (repeating patterns) and birimitingo (fast, usually descending solo lines). I am also partial to the weird bass-drum hits in this song, and the fine “organ” synth patch, which is pretty classic in my opinion.
Click to listen:
Enjoy the weekend!
[photo credit: Banning Eyre]
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