Ali Farka Toure: twin testaments to a great African musician

Little did we know when witnessing Ali Farka Toure’s great London concert in 2005 (review below) that he would soon be dead (obit below).

I’ve just caught up with his last two releases, In The Heart Of The Moon (with Touamani Diabete, as in the Barbican gig), and Savane. As expected, they’re both magnificent testaments to a very fine musician. Highly recommended.



Ali Farka Toure, leading African musician, RIP

Ali Farka Toure, who died of cancer today, will be long remembered as a great ambassador for African music. His death comes at a time of growing international recognition: a couple of weeks ago he won a Grammy for last year’s duet with Toumani Diabate, In The Heart Of The Moon. An earlier Grammy winner, 1994’s Talking Timbuktu, recorded with Ry Cooder, is the guitarist’s best-known album.

Toure made a rare London appearance last summer. Here’s how Music for Grown-Ups reviewed it:



Ali Farka Toure: still a major player

In his first London gig for over six years, Ali Farka Toure reminded a sold-out Barbican Hall last night that, despite his virtual retirement to rural Mali, he’s still a major player in roots music.

The rapturously received gig – the standing ovation seemed like the only appropriate response – was split into two halves. The opening set, with the support of a virtuoso five piece band, explored the popular end of the Toure spectrum. The two deep blues tunes from his strongest album, Talking Timbuktu, contrasted with earlier, less familiar, less accessible, but equally compelling work.

Throughout, Toure’s keening vocals and exquisite guitar vamps were complemented by some engaging duets with the ngoni player (Malian guitar-type, stringed instrument), and anchored in delicate beats from the magnificently polyrhythmic calabash and congos.

For most of the second half, Toure played the back-up role, setting the groove for some complex improv runs by “La prophete de la kora”, Toumani Diabate, before the band returned. The encore saw Toure switching to a tiny bowed instrument. He excelled on that, too.

World-class musicians at the top of their game. And the mesmerising show underlined some of the central tenets of the Music for Grown-Ups manifesto:

* music is music, wherever and whenever it comes from – Diabate’s kora could easily have been mistaken for a harpsichord playing Bach or Mozart; and Toure’s guitar picking could be used as a master class by any aspiring blue-eyed blues-rock axeman

* music, alone of the arts, has the power to explore the subtle richness of the human experience; capable of going well beyond mere entertainment, it can evoke the whole range of human emotions.

The evening’s sole jarring note was the main man’s insistence on addressing the crowd - many times, and at some length - in French. A small scattering of French speakers – presumably expats or Toure hardcore fans who’d trained in on Eurostar from Paris and Brussels - giggled and clapped on cue, but 95% of the audience listened blankly, slightly embarrassed. Someone needs to have a quiet word – contrary to appearances in West Africa, Whitey/M Leblanc doesn’t normally understand French, especially the accented non-Metropolitan variety. Addressing a London audience in Malian French is a waste of time; it threatened to spoil the flow of a masterful gig.

The divine duets performed by Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate are available on a highly praised new album, just released this week – In The Heart Of The Moon. Very highly recommended.



Ali Farka Toure, great musician, RIP.




Gerry Smith