Ali Farka Tour? - Savane
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CD Details
Artist: Ali Farka Tour?Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-07-25
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
- Erdi
- Yer Bounda Fara
- Beto
- Savane
- Soya
- Penda Yoro
- Machengoidi
- Ledi Coumbe
- Hanana Soko
- Gambari
- Banga
- Njarou
Music reviews of Savane
Music Review: Ali Farka Toure's Last Release
Rating: 5 Stars
Recorded live at the Hotel Mande in Bamako, this CD is the last release of the late, great Ali Farka Toure, and it serves as a fitting farewell to the 'King of the desert blues singers.' Ali Farka Toure's deft, soulful guitar-playing and eagerness to collaborate with other artists led to recognition throughout both West Africa and the rest of the world, and rightly so if I do say so myself. If you are a fan of Ali Farka Toure, or Malian music in general, then you no doubt know exactly what I am talking about. If not, then this is as good a place as any to start familiarizing yourself with his works.
Perhaps its fitting that this last release is a masterpiece. Singing in Peul (Fulani), Sonrai (Songhai) and Zarma (or Djerma, another Songhai language), Ali Farka Toure skillfully blends Sahel tradition with broader foreign influences, all while accompanied by ngoni, calabash and other percussion. Toure is joined on this album not only by a number of non-African blues artists, but also his own protege Afel Bocoum. The songs are all captivating and powerful, from the soulful title track 'Savane,' to 'Machengoidi,' to the delightful 'Penda Yora.' As I mentioned, there are a couple more traditional songs on here, like the spirit dances 'Banga' and 'Beto,' as well as the circumcision song 'Hanana'. The final song, 'N'jarou,' is a dedication to the Fulani hero Boubou Ardo Gallo, a contemporary and rival of Cheikhou Amadou. The liner notes provide background and translation for those not familiar with West African languages.
But the music really speaks for itself. As I said before, this is actually part of a series of recordings made at the Hotel Mande; the other two CDs are 'In the Heart of the Moon,' a collaboration between Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate, and Diabate's 'Boulevard de l'Independance,' featuring musicians from across the Sahel region of West Africa. Both are available from Amazon and well worth checking out in their own right, though going into very different traditions. And 'Savane' itself remains a fitting goodbye from the late master of Africa's desert blues...
Description of Savane
Toure recorded Savane in the Malian capital of Bamako, as part of a three-disc project dubbed the Hotel Mande Sessions, after the studio in which the albums were cut. Savane is the last, perhaps most eloquent, installment. In concept and execution, the sessions recall teh magical combination of spontaneity and virtuosity that marked the debut releases from the Buena Vista Social Club. Toure offers reverberating, incantatory vocals to accompany his lean, hypnotically repetitive guitar lines.Savane, the great African guitarist and bluesman Ali Farka Tour?'s final solo studio album, was recorded in his native Mali toward the end of his life, when the artist knew his days were numbered. He spent his last years in his home village of Niafunk?, concentrating on farming and family matters, jamming with local musicians of an evening. This impassioned, roots-drenched, mostly acoustic valedictory finds the Maestro's stalking rhythms and high-noon-at-the-crossroads, dusty desert-to-delta vocals in no less than life-summing form. "Soya" (track 5) seems to stand still in a million directions, while "Hanana Soko" (track 9) features a searing njarka fiddle spinning delirious circles around its throaty accompanying percussion. Pee Wee Ellis (sax) and Little George Sueref (harmonica) each manage to make strong impressions while adhering to the groove at hand. Afel Boucoum, a talented younger musician who has been mentioned as Tour?'s most likely successor (as if such a thing were possible!), graces "Njarou," the last tune. The other players are also at the top of their game, as fluttering ngoni (a West African spike lute) riffs weave in and out and airy female vocals float like a breeze off the river Niger. There are reports that Tour? senior sat in on his son's upcoming album and scads of archival material will undoubtedly materialize. But his unsentimental, voluptuously masculine, spirit-guided magic is captured at its best, for all time, in this magnificent farewell. --Christina Roden
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