Foday Musa Suso & the Divas of Mali: Greasing the Wheels

The so-called "griots" of West Africa sing and recite histories and praise narratives, and they play some of the most lulling and sophisticated music on the African continent. From their ancient beginnings as councilors of kings to their present status as popular entertainers, the griots have changed with the times and so remained indispensable to their societies. That spirit of adaptability comes across brilliantly in Jali Kunda (literally "house of the griots"), a 96-page color book and accompanying CD from Ellipsis Arts.

Jali Kunda's creator, Foday Musa Suso, descends from centuries of distinguished Manding griots in Gambia. Suso specializes in the kora, a 21-string harp lute, and before he moved to Chicago in 1976, he mastered 111 traditional songs, some of them lasting for hours. For Jali Kunda, Suso returned to his homeland to record singers, drummers, violinists, and masters of the kora and balafon (wooden xylophone). He wisely keeps the tracks short, offering deep flavors and village ambiance without taxing the attention span of the foreign listener. Timeless, shimmering melodies, jostling rhythms, and bellowing, proud incantations mark the best of the 12 field tracks. Suso also includes Western collaborations -- two trancy duets with Philip Glass, a blast of griot funk featuring bassist/producer Bill Laswell, and a wonderful musical dialogue between himself and saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. These departures may seem out of context, but they provide welcome variety, and they highlight the peculiar ways in which griotism has seeped into American music.

Essays in the Jali Kunda book further illuminate these connections. Suso's lengthy "Memoir" makes up the core, combining history, folklore, ethnography, musicology, and personal anecdotes. If it tends to overstate the centrality of his particular family in griot history, no one should be surprised: griots always present history with a promotional twist. Still, Suso's words offer context not only for the music but for the book's stunning color photographs of musical life in Gambia. Another writer here, rock-and-roll historian Robert Palmer, argues griot music as blues roots. Although it's fascinating, Palmer's argument overlooks the point that blues is the quintessential music of the dispossessed, whereas griots praise the powerful and grease the wheels of society from the inside. Poet and activist Amiri Baraka's playfully expansive essay evokes all sorts of associations between griots and African-American lore. Baraka is romantic, a little zany at times, but certainly provocative.

Jali Kunda's subtitle, "Griots of West Africa & Beyond," oversells the package. For one thing, Mali, the birthplace of griotism and arguably the richest source of griot music today, is conspicuously absent in these recordings. And the essays fail to point out that the most renowned griot singers are women. Fortunately, another new compilation called Divas of Mali (Shanachie) has appeared just in time to fill these gaps with an elegant selection of modern pop music, most of it squarely in the griot tradition. On Divas, we hear how Western pop formulas have gone back to Africa to be reinterpreted by griots and other traditional female vocalists. Both exotic and familiar, these complementary releases document a rich, ongoing dialogue between Africa and the West.

-- Banning Eyre