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 New York City (New York), USA - World
Circuit/Nonesuch will release Ali
Farka Toure's final album,
Savane, on July 25. Ali
Farka Toure was
commonly referred to as "the Bluesman of Africa," but he disliked the moniker,
since it often implied that American blues artists influenced him. Some believe, Toure's music made clear that the roots of blues and soul music lay in
the age-old Malian melodies and rhythms he channeled.
Toure
recorded
Savane during his protracted battle with bone cancer, a period of
intense creativity and artistic commitment. The album-whose title translates to
"savannah"-reaffirms his connection with the traditional Songhai and Fulani
music of northern Mali perhaps more than any of his previous recordings.
In his
trademark fashion, he has transposed to guitar the scratchy rifting of the jeurkel, a one-string lute on which he learned to play music. He is joined by
small band of n'goni (African lute) players, including two of his country's best:
Basekou Kouyate and Mama Sissoko, who adapt their Mande (southern Malian)
playing to these northern styles. Among the rhythms on
Savane are those of the
Jimbala spirit cult of the Niger River, through which Toure received his
initiation into music years ago.
Less than a month before he died, Toure won his
second GRAMMY for his intimate collaboration with the Malian kora player
Toumani Diabate,
In the Heart of the Moon. That album was an offshoot of
Savane, for
which Nick Gold and his World Circuit team-including longtime engineer Jerry
Boys (Buena Vista Social Club)-constructed a mobile studio in Bamako, Mali's
Hotel Mande, overlooking the Niger River. Work on
Savane was completed in a
London studio.
The third and final album from the Hotel Mande Sessions is the
debut recording of Diabate's pan-African Symmetric Orchestra,
Boulevard de l'Independance, which World Circuit/Nonesuch will also release July 25.
Savane
and
In the Heart of the Moon culminate a long relationship between
Ali
Farka Toure and Nick Gold/World Circuit that includes such internationally acclaimed
recordings as
The Source (1991);
Talking Timbuktu (1996), Toure's GRAMMY-winning
collaboration with
Ry
Cooder; and
Niafunke(1999), among other releases. 'After
Niafunke, Toure had retired from music to devote himself to what he considered
his primary vocation: cultivating the land in the Malian town after which that
recording was named. He was elected mayor of Niafunke just before the Hotel
Mande Sessions began in January 2004.
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