Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Baaba Maal - Sunugal (1995)

Baaba Maal's first internationally available album, Wango, broke over me like a wave. The torrid percussion and incredible singing took my breath away. Since then I have seen him perform several times, and I have sadly watched his albums become ever more separated from the essence that I witnessed.

Here is a splendid Dakar cassette that captures that essence. The cast includes the regulars of Maal's acoustic performances. Kaouding Cissokho is brilliant on kora, Mansour Seck is steady on guitar as always, and on a few cuts, especially the opening "Ndaga," the percussion is a great tama and sabar interplay. But above and beyond all is Maal's unique voice.

I digitized this tape in the nick of time. The next time I played it, it self-destructed.

3 comments:

Thom said...

Love this! Sweet music to play as the sun goes down. Thanks so much for posting...
Looking forward to learning much more from your posts - the blog's looking good!

Rhythm Connection said...

Thanks, Thom, for such a nice note. It's encouraging to know this music brightens your day. Oh, you are very welcome.

Anonymous said...

Very nice album; my favourite of his (though Ndilane is very good, too). I'm lucky my K7 hasn't self-destructed yet, but they do sometimes, so it's good to have a backup.

Al