December 27, 2008

Pioneers of Malian music (5)

After these intense days of Christmas, you may feel the need for some exercise. And what better exercise is there than dancing on the Bambara rhythms of the Super Djata Band?

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, the origins of this band were with the Ballet National du Mali. And although the direction of the videos of the Angoulême festival I posted earlier leaves a lot to be desired, they should give you some idea of the brilliant dancing technique of Daouda 'Flani' Sangaré, Alou Fané and Zani Diabaté.

This is one of the most danceable albums by this great band. It features tracks just made for dancing, like "Maliniwoula", "Zani Diabaté", "Konadou" (tracks which the band played in all of their European tours), plus -my favourites- "Sinaya" and "Signana". I am not quite sure who the other singers -besides Alou Fané- are in the first of these two; if I remember correctly one of them is called Sidi Touré. He is probably also singing in the latter, besides Flani and Alou.
Zani's guitar is clearly leading the dancers, turning and swirling, directing the breaks...

The sax is somewhat lost in the mix, but I for one am not unhappy about that.

I only have the cassette version of the album which was released -as the lp I posted earlier- on the Disco Rama label in Côte D'Ivoire. It's possible the cassette doesn't contain the complete album. The track "Yacouba", the last track of side A, is only three and a half minutes long, about half the size as the same track on MAD 004 on the Musique Mondiale label*.

As a bonus, here is a short video of a concert at the back of the Carrefours des Jeunes. I am not sure where Flani was during this recording, but I suspect he was on tour with Alou. According to the video the track is called "Balla", but I have my doubts about this title.

* which I'll post later

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very short but very beautiful, thank you!
I've seen it four times, followed.

Anonymous said...

wonderful!!!!

Anonymous said...

great malian music

Anonymous said...

I can't get enough of the Super Djata...kick ass...

Anonymous said...

I can't get enough of the Super Djata...kick ass...

Anonymous said...

Realy pleased with this precious present that have turn these raw and cool days, in my Black-Christmas dance non-stop.

Waiting for the next post LP or Cassette, all are good music.

All the best.

calumbinho said...

Hey, I don't know if you noticed Afro Soul Descarga's rip of this same album at http://afrosouldescarga.blogspot.com/2011/03/super-djata-band-vol-2-feu-vert-1981-82.html. For some reason, his rip is slower than yours. You have any idea why, or which would be the correct speed? I love them both, but I'm curious - I'm asking him too, see what he thinks. Thanks!

zim said...

the LP version was posted here:

http://afrosouldescarga.blogspot.com/2011/03/super-djata-band-vol-2-feu-vert-1981-82.html

apparently the vinyl didn't contain yacouba, maybe just the tape duplicators added half a bonus track?