Semi-obscure Instruments, Part I: The Kora
It was a long time ago, my MOG friends. For several months I had been seeing a fetching young woman who would eventually ruin her life by agreeing to become Mrs. Ivylander. At the time she worked in the marketing department of a huge French hotel company with properties all over the world. She was also getting paid a fraction of her worth. Her boss, well aware of the imbalance between her value and her take-home, offered to fix matters by sending her off on a weeklong "business" trip anywhere in the world that the company had a hotel. She would do a minimum of actual work and have the rest of the time to play. And best of all (for one of us, anyway), the boyfriend was allowed to tag along.(A side note: We had never traveled anywhere together, not even to a little country inn in the next state for a weekend of naughty mornings, long breakfasts and walks in the country. We have never done anything the way normal couples do.)I didn't want to influence her choice, so kept my trap shut throughout her deliberations. However, I will admit to tingling with pleasure when she announced her decision: We would be spending a week in Dakar, the capital of Senegal.Back then, pretty much the only way to get there from the States was a once-a-week non-stop from Kennedy on the now-defunct (or so I believe) Air Afrique. It left New York on Saturday nights and returned from Dakar at some ridiculous hour on Friday night or Saturday morning.After a lot of logistical hullabaloo - I remember having to get visas from some undead young man, no doubt the son of a prominent businessman back home, at the embassy, and then there was the distinctly unpleasant gamma globulin shot in the fundament - we were at last on our way. The flight was uneventful, but when we got to Dakar we quickly discovered that on Sundays, the city is a ghost town. To keep tourists allayed, our hotel (the Teranga, at that time and maybe even now the classiest joint in town) had a lunch by the pool with "folkloric dancers." We hung for that, it being kinda part of the girlfriend's job, even though it was just as hokey as you would expect. Afterward, we downed a couple of delicious Flag beers and headed back to the room. I checked out the TV. There was one station on, showing four musicians doing what looked suspiciously like "jamming." It sounded like John Lee Hooker's grandparents - these guys rocked like anything. But the song went on and on and on, and there was one camera, and the players were either excruciatingly bored or just too cool for this world, so after 15 minutes or so my initial euphoria had abated. A quick nap before dinnertime, then.Because pretty much the only restaurants in town that were open on Sunday nights were attached to the Western hotels, we decided to do the easy - and, for the future Mrs. Ivylander, reimbursible - thing and eat downstairs. Once seated, we were handed menus featuring a full array of shopworn French fare: duck a l'orange, blanquette de veau. Then we saw the little notice in the upper right-hand corner that said, in English, "Ask about our Senegalese specials." We did. Our choices, as outlined by the waiter, were two: fish and rice or chicken and rice. I took the first, she the second.Having ordered, we looked around and noticed, to our discomfort, that only three tables in the entire dining room were occupied. That discomfort increased when we saw a young man headed directly for our table. He was straddling between his legs something that looked a little bit like a denudedsmall tree attached to a hollowed-out gourd at the bottom. There were strings, too many to count, projecting from a single top branch to the gourd-shaped thing. This instrument turned out to be a kora, and it made what I still consider to be one of the most glorious sounds God has ever breathed into a man-made object. Like a harp but with a rawness and a sense of mathematics built into the instrument that Bach would have treasured. Even the table-to-table roaming restaurant guy played bewitching patterns as he grinned broadly and serenaded the young lovers. The music took my breath away in an almost literal way - I wasn't aware of respiration while I was listening, just that sound.He left just as the entrees arrived. Both were incredible. As we learned later, the fish was the Senegalese national dish, thieboudienne, and the chicken was an amazing peanut-sauce-based stew called mafe. When I flashed a credit card at the end of one of the greatest meals of my life, the waiter looked uncomfortable. In halting English, he explained that he needed cash for the Senegalese specials - two women came to the hotel every day to cook for the help, and diners were served anything that was left over. We gladly forked over the bills.It should go without saying that for the rest of the week, we ate a ton of thieboudienne and mafe all over Dakar, and caught the kora player whenever we could. Its sound still brings me back to one of the most magical weeks of my life. Technically, the kora player here is from the Gambia, that nearly infinitesimal blob of earth that lies in Senegal's south-center. And he is backed by a totally scorching band. But to me, this song is all about the kora - that, and a groove you could drive a herd of rhinos through (not that you see a lot of them in West Africa). I lift a Flag in your honor, MOGgers....
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Comments (27)
Hi Ivylander, just found this site and your post, thx to googling...
I know this one is a (very) old post, but liked your discovery...
If you (still) like the Kora, I'd like to introduce you to Djeli Moussa Diawara (also known as Jali Musa Jawara in some Western countries), who briefly appeared in Spike's comment.
Unfortunately, I can't listen to his track...
To make a long story short, I'm Djeli's new manager and I've been working on his "past" to build a musical memory of his works.
The track Spike posted, comes from a '85 LP, recorded in Abidjan with Johnny Copeland. Unfortunately, nor Djeli nor me have been able to listen to this track, even if, a few days ago, I was able to buy a used LP I cannot listen to yet... Right after the recording, Copeland's staff flew back to USA, and Djeli just kept this track in his memory and never listened to the released version...
Djeli (from Guinea and now living in France) plays a 32-stringed traditional or electric Kora, where usually they only have 21 strings. He's well known as the founder of Kora Jazz Trio, a group where Jazz and Mandingo music are mixed... Djeli played music with many other reknown artists (Carlos Santana, Ali Farka Toure...)
We've been working hard on his 8th album, that should be released before the end of 2009. If you'd like to listen to various tracks (including some from his 1st album from 1983), please visit Djeli's blog : www.djelimoussadiawara.com
Sincerely
DJM
So glad you saw my post and responded. At one point I had what I think was Djeli Moussa Diawara's first album on vinyl, an English pressing, I think. Seems like it was 20 years ago. Anyway, it was lost in a move (along with some other records I cherished) and I still recall it fondly. It's great to hear he's still making music and questing. I will definitely spend some time at his blog. I hope you decide to become a regular visitor - and, better yet, a contributor - to MOG.