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This is the recording debut of French bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel‘s Paris-based World Jazz group Waraba (“The Lion” in the Bamana language). They perform traditional Manding tunes as well as their own compositions and re-compositions but approach them in a jazz way, with the focus on improvisation.
Avenel’s Malian and Gambian bandmates performed with Yakhouba Sissokho (kora), Lansiné Kouyaté (balafon, a marimba), Moriba Koita (ngoni, a lute), and Michel Edelin (flutes). The band has traditional music in their bones and an openness to experiments. French flutist Michel Edelin provides a second jazz voice on many tracks. Avenel’s beautiful bass sound and rhythmic vitality spur the band on, the overall vibe is sweet, intense, and joyful, and the delicious blend of timbres is perfectly caught by this Stereo and 5 Channel Surround Sound Pure DSD recording.
Avenel explained the group’s origins:
“My interest in African music, its rhythmic richness, its sonorities, developed with my study of the sanza [thumb piano] and then the kora (and its repertoire). The idea of blending the double bass with these instruments is an old dream which was sketched out on my solo record Eclaircie (1985). Meeting Yakhouba I owe to Phillipe Conrath, who invited us to perform at the Africolor Festival in 1997. This was a fruitful encounter, and we decided to continue. Yakhouba became my kora teacher, my friend and musical partner. Through him I met Moriba and Lansiné. The basic trio: Yakhouba, Lansiné and me. Sometimes Moriba replaces Lansiné; joined by Michel Edelin (2000).
“[This music] is a meeting of individuals, a sharing of knowledge and passions, a desire to open things up and a respect for tradition. (Structured) improvisation is our playing field. The essential thing in this music is play, where the pleasure of playing is collective. The music is created around themes (introduced by one or the other of us) and improvisations on the harmonic structures (very simple) and rhythmic structures. The different ways of playing (traditional or a more modern approach) are expressed in a collective exchange from which soloists emerge.”
Album highlights include the rhythmic excitement of Avenel’s solo composition “Pi-Pande” where he overdubs bass and kora, and then lightly adds in a second bass for color and harmony; the shifting interplay and lovely textures of n’gonis, flutes and bass on Koïta’s stately tune “Batou Kagni”; the Caribbean insouciance and subtle orchestration of “Jarabi”; the ensemble groove with its figure/ground interchange of solos and riffs in “Kaïra”; and the sophisticated syncopations and accents that balance the touching simplicity of the classic “Tubaka.”
Waraba
Jean-Jacques Avenel – Double Bass & Kora
Yakhouba Sissokho – Kora
Lansiné Kouyaté – Balafon
Moriba Koïta – N’goni
Michel Edelin – Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Flute
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