Ismaïla Toure, one of the founders of Toure Kunda, died on Monday February 27, 2023. We offer our condolences to his family, loved ones and to his audience. Then we receive the French flautist Jî Drû for the release of his album Ghosts.
We received the Elephants of African Music in 2018, for the release of the album Lambi Golo.
Here is what Frank Tenaille, journalist and specialist in world music, wrote:
” The Toure Kunda are back. Not that they never left but after forty years of international career, they needed to regain their strength. And in this case, what better than to recharge your batteries in the crucible of this Casamance where the incredible saga of the elephant family is rooted (Touré Kunda in Soninké).
Because the new generations ignore it, it is from this region in the south of Senegal, between savannah and mangroves, that one day one of the brothers left for France, faithful to his ancestor peddler-shoemaker who had left the Mali for Casamance in search of crocodile skins necessary for his trade. For Ismaël who comes to try his luck in Paris in 1975 and who will participate in the West African Cosmos, a combo that experiments with the hybridization of rock and afro sounds, it will therefore be the classic path of the immigrant between random jobs, cold and loneliness, associative networks, thematic watermark of several later songs. Then in 1977, it was Sixu, then involved in an NGO which trained farmers in new agricultural practices, who joined him. A duo that will become known in homes under the name of “Frères griots” before becoming a live group with seasoned musicians.
It’s because a new audience aspires to discover this African continent full of sonic promises. The allies of the adventure, in tune with a new planetary consciousness, being those of an alternative press (Liberation, Actuel…), of a pioneering label (Celluloïd), of anti-globalization places like Le Dunois or La Chapelle des Lombards or great initiatives like Africa Fête launched by the precious Mamadou Konte. Thus, Amadou, the eldest brother joining the duo, the Toure Kunda become the ambassadors of a wave of African music which will see the assertion of Salif Keita, Mory Kante and other Youssou N’Dour and of course older ones like Manu Dibango, Francis Bebey or Pierre Akendengue. From then on, the Toure Kunda will play the pioneers.
Precursors of the World Music phenomenon, they will be the first to occupy the immense Hippodrome de Pantin. The first to organize a mega tour in Africa (see the Paris-Ziguinchor album). The first to spice up their music with technology (cf. the Natalia album with legendary producer Bill Laswell). The first Africans to make an impact in Japan. We will also see them stripping the jackets of African heads of state, during the Francophonie summit in Vittel in 1983, occupying Carnegie Hall with Santana or meeting Mandela… Like so many disavowals to these skeptics who, at the start of their careers, did not see them being able to perform beyond a community audience.
When these sons of Ziguinchor, fed with James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Brassens or Creedence Clearwater have always wanted to travel to meet other siblings, with the land of their country under their soles and sabars at hand. Hence this need, for these forty years on stage, to return to this matrix that fed their imaginations and provided them with their dreamlike fuel.
A Casamance which, like many regions of the world, has been brutalized in its immemorial teranga (hospitality) by a globalization that is not always positive in its effects (see for example the looting of forests or fishing waters by multinationals). Also the songs of this new album, long refined and recorded in a “studio in the village” way to keep the juice of life, evoke the loss of values of generations in disarray. These collective values that the Toure Kunda have always made their own and symbolized by the djambaadong, “dance of the leaves” pulsing the initiatory journey of young people entering adult life. Values that they evoke through trades such as those of peasants, fishermen, blacksmiths or by the memory of this ex-leper who toured the concessions to feed himself and dispensed messages of love, peace and fraternity.
Conversely, the brothers denouncing the commodification of the làmb (the famous Senegalese struggle, yesterday a school of humility and exemplarity), which has become a “monkey struggle” (Lambi Golo, title of the album), a struggle which is not not unlike that of politicians. As we can see, there is nothing nostalgic in this repertoire as the Toure Kunda are always sensitive to the changes and challenges of the present. With this album, surrounded by brilliant musical accomplices (Paco Sery, Romain Ghezal, Alune Wade,…) and famous friends (Manu Dibango, Nelson Palacio, Cheik Tidiane Seck, Lokua Kanza…), the Toure Kunda decline in their own way the word “humanity”. Since, faithful to the idea that “the universal is the local minus the walls”, they who grew up in the Santhiaba district between Soninkés, Diolas, Mandingos, Portuguese Creoles, Peulhs or Wolofs, believe that a region of the world cannot be only a metaphor for the human diaspora. Also we will taste their musical thiéboudienne, energetic and tender, a mixture of m’balax, Casamance rhythms, funk, pop-rock, pop, reggaeizing spices, like an invitation to dance, to dream and to hope.. »
Pieces performed by Ture Kunda in the Grand studio (2018)
– Lambi Golo Live RFI see the clip
-Emma salsa (with Carlos Santana) from the album Lambi Golo
– Sene Bayo Live RFI.
Line Up: Ismaila Toure & Tidiane Touresong; Laye Kaneguitar; Nicolas Leroypercussion; Kirsley Shambattery and Mansour Semegabass.
► scrapbook Lambi Golo (Soulbeats Records 2018).
– Disappearance of Ismaïla Toure, to read on RFI.
– Biography of Toure Kunda, to read on RFI Musique.
Then we receive Ji Dru, Sandra Nkake And Pierre-Francois Blanchardfor the release of the album Ghosts.
Ji Dru, character flautist, frenzied bandleader for Tribe From The Ashes, Push up! and Jî Mob, producer and arranger, inspired sideman, today signs a second album under his name, refined, expressive and dreamlike: GHOSTS.
” The music is invisible, the flute is never more than a little resounding breath. I asked myself the question of our relationship to what we don’t see and more particularly to Les Fantômes, in a logic that would be that of a musical dream. In recent years, everything has collapsed: our intellectual and societal landmarks, our spaces for sharing and meeting are totally upset and have even sometimes disappeared, our landmarks are moved or erased, the Ghosts then remind the living, or rather the alive are reminiscent of Ghosts. We can thus establish many parallels with music and more broadly with creation, which uses invisible references to guide the listener, to tell stories (sounds, scales, textures, structure, nuances…). All that, of course, if you believe in Ghosts… because Ghosts are like the sound of the flute, it doesn’t exist, or else it just serves to poetically inhabit this world. »
Ghosts, of Ji Dru shines by its outfit, its polished and meticulous production as well as by the quality of its casting, it is a major record, a jazz manifesto irrigated by the blues, classical music and repetitive, tribal or electronic music. The hypnotic Rhodes of Pierre-François Blanchard, the captivating textures and voices of Sandra Nkaké, the inventive rhythms of Mathieu Penot, the poetic appearance of Mike Ladd, and the beautiful arrangements of strings accompany the volutes of flutes and the singing of Jî Drû . Each piece is the essence of a moment and the whole creates a timeless climate where acoustics and wood rub shoulders with electric sounds. Jî Drû creates a dreamlike world, made up of little ghost stories, he digs a furrow somewhere between Portico Quartet, Cinematic Orchestra and Mélanie de Biasio, that of a modern and refined jazz that weaves stories that make us vibrate. An essential and captivating disc, full of poetry and revolt, a great musical, mystical, dreamlike, tribal and organic journey, for a quartet that we have not finished talking about.
Titles performed at the big studio
– A Bonfire Live RFI see the clip
– Bonded By Fire Feat. Mike Ladd, from the album Ghosts
– A sign of the devil Live RFI see the clip.
Line Up: Ji Druflutes, Sandra Nkakevoice, Pierre Francois Blanchardpiano
Her : Fabien Mugneret, Jeremy Besset And Mathias Taylor
► scrapbook Ghosts (Blue Label 2023)
Concert: Bal Blomet April 20, 2023.