Toumani Diabate: The Mandé Variations

Simon Broughton reviews Toumani Diabaté's The Mandé Variations.

The West African kora is a felicitous combination of calabash gourd, cowskin and fishing line. In the hands of the Malian virtuoso Toumani Diabaté, it not only looks cool, but sounds sensational. And the title of Diabaté's new solo album, The Mandé Variations, suggests music to sit beside The Goldberg Variations or anything else in the canon of western music.

Listen to the lengthy opening track, "Si naani", and you hear an instrument that is indeed the equal of a piano, with a bass, middle-parts and a dreamy melody on the top. The 21 nylon strings are arranged in two vertical rows and are played with just the forefinger and thumb of each hand. The lines of music weave and intertwine in a continuous flow that grows and develops organically. It is helped on The Mandé Variations by a gloriously clear sound that would delight Alfred Brendel or Vladimir Ashkenazy.

The music of Toumani Diabaté is both captivating and puzzling, with an unmistakably courtly feel to it. Indeed, one of the first kora recitals in the UK, involving both Toumani and his father, Sidiki Diabaté, who came to perform at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in 1987, was part of a BBC concert series called Music of the Royal Courts. The court in question was that of the Mandé empire, which flourished in West Africa between the 13th and 15th centuries.

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Toumani Diabate: The Mandé Variations

Robin Denselow reviews Toumani Diabaté's The Mandé Variations.

The world's best-known exponent of the kora, Toumani Diabaté has spent his life demonstrating the extraordinary versatility of that west African harp. He has used the instrument to accompany all manner of artists - from the bluesman Taj Mahal to Mali's greatest guitarist, the late Ali Farka Touré - and has shown how virtuoso playing on the amplified kora can transform a rousing dance band like his own Symmetric Orchestra. Now, after a bafflingly long 21-year delay, comes only his second solo kora recording, a purely instrumental follow-up to the exquisite Kaira. It was recorded in just two hours, he claims, with no overdubs, and it is remarkable.

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Interview with Toumani Diabate

David Hutcheon interviews Toumani Diabate.

You don't get false modesty with Toumani Diabate. When he welcomes me into his Seville suite the Malian kora player casually refers to his forthcoming album, The Mande Variations, as his “new masterpiece”. The awkward thing is that in an age of spin and hyperbole, it is difficult to disagree with him. Recorded in two hours, it consists of eight one-take, no-overdub instrumentals of such dazzling virtuosity that Europe's world-music critics have been summoned en masse to Andalusia to watch him perform. There is a scrum as we clamour to get a seat near the stage in the tapestry room of the old royal palace, the Alcazar. We all want to see how he does it.

“Any time I play a kora what results could be a CD,” he says before the concert. “That's why I invited you here to see this show. I cannot explain what is happening when I play. It's like I'm fighting something. But you don't need to be African to understand the message. Just sit down and listen carefully. It will touch you.” The kora is West Africa's harp. A lute made by sticking a thick pole through the side of a large gourd covered in a cow skin and then attaching 21 strings (traditionally fishing line) in two rows to both the pole and a bridge on the gourd. “But there is more to the kora,” Diabate adds. “You have to understand that it is unique, you have to know the significance of each part and the way it is built, then you have to learn the techniques, the spirit of the kora, what the music is talking about.” Such as?

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Velha Guarda da Portela

They've just released a new album "Tudo Azul", featuring Marisa Monte, Paulinho da Viola, Cristina Buarque and Moreno Veloso.

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