Shaun de Waal
CD OFTHEWEEK
On his latest release, blues master Taj Mahal follows in the footsteps of his compadre Ry Cooder, with whom he founded The Rising Sons in the Sixties. In 1993, Cooder made Talking Timbuktu with Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, weaving blues motifs into a set of Toure’s songs, and coming up with a lovely, laid-back set that demonstrated the links and echoes between their respective musics.
With Kulanjan (Hannibal), Mahal goes further. The album is co-credited to Malian kora player Toumane Diabate, but he is merely the best-known of a host of brilliant musicians from the same piece of West Africa, including singer Kassemady Diabate and players of such instruments as the xylophone-like balafaon and the kamalengoni or hunter’s harp. Mahal was particularly interested in stringed instruments such as the kora and the ngoni because they are plucked in a way similar to the blues style he learned from old masters such as Blind Jesse Fuller.
The resultant sonic synthesis is all the more striking because Mahal, Diabate and the others approach it from different directions. Mahal may start out with a blues number, which the others then decorate until it becomes something else entirely: Queen Bee, for example, begins to take on a decidedly oriental lilt with Ramatou Diabate’s impromptu vocals. Or Mahal may take a traditional Malian song such as the title track and give it his own, compelling reading. Other songs, Mississippi-Mali Blues for instance, are improvised from scratch. Fanta is a delightful praise-song for Toumani Diabate’s wife that juxtaposes the balafon and piano (played by Mahal) in a blues with more than a little New Orleans gumbo in it.
Whether Kulanjan demonstrates the African roots of the blues (and thereby the bulk of Western popular music), or just that great musicians can always find a way to mingle their talents and their heritages, it makes wonderful listening. Among its most appealing achievements is that it is so thrilling and yet so peaceful at the same time.