Album : Kaira Artist : Toumani Diabaté Release date : 1988 Number of discs : 1 Genre : World Total size : 92,7 MB (mp3), 191 MB (FLAC) Total time : 00:40:29
Tracks :
1. Alla l'Aa Ke
2. Jarabi
3. Kaira
4. Konkoba
5. Tubaka
@ 320 Kbit/s mp3 & FLAC
Amazon.com
This is a groundbreaking work establishing the 21-string kora as a solo instrument of great subtlety and range. Toumani Diabate is a virtuoso player and he delves into the classical West African kora repertoire with his masterful technique. The result is music that is both absolutely contemporary and totally timeless. The songs include the title track "Kaira," which means peace, and "Jarabi," which translates as passion. Peace and passion are key words pointing to why this album is so successful. Quietly, with dignity and grace, Toumani Diabate brings great beauty into the world, producing wellsprings of flowing music that transport the listener to a place of intense calmness and tranquillity. Kaira is a classic African recording that transcends genre to stand humbly among the best music ever produced.
--Jeff Grubb
Album : Djelika Artist : Toumani Diabaté Release date : 1995 Number of discs : 1 Genre : World Total size : 118 MB (mp3), 268 MB (FLAC) Total time : 00:51 :48
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Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate, a collaborator in the Songhai and Kulanjan projects as well as the New Ancient Strings album, might just be the best player in the world on his 21-string, harplike instrument. Here, accompanied by Keletigui Diabate on balafon (a kind of xylophone) and Basekou Kouyate on ngoni, he tackles original and traditional material in beautiful fashion. Notes fall in rippling cascades from his fingers, whether on the dainty court song "Marielle" or the title track. The speed and dexterity of his playing, and of his ideas, is staggering, and his complete command of the instrument and its possibilities makes this album a joy. The trio arrangements give plenty of time to all players, although center stage is undoubtedly Toumani. While blissfully African, this is a record that transcends geography and ascends to the sublime. --Chris Nickson
Toumani Diabate & Ballake Sissoko - New Ancient Strings
Toumani Diabate & Ballake Sissoko
New Ancient Strings
Album : New Ancient Strings Artist : Toumani Diabate & Ballake Sissoko Release date : 1999 Number of discs : 1 Genre : World Total size : 73,4 MB (mp3), 262 MB (FLAC) Total time : 00:53:23
Tracks :
1. Bi Lambam
2. Salaman
3. Kita Kaira
4. Bafoulabe
5. Cheiknah Demba
6. Kora Bali
7. Kadiatou
8. Yamfa
@ 192 Kbit/s mp3 & FLAC
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Back in the early '70s, a recording by kora masters Sidiki Diabate and Djelimadi Sissoko called Cordes Anciennes first brought this rich acoustic music of Mali to the world. More than 20 years later, their sons, the now world-famous Toumani Diabate and the junior Ballake Sissoko, have come together to pay tribute to their fathers with 1999's New Ancient Strings. While many of the songs come from the original repertoire, the music is all modern Mali. Toumani Diabate has toured the world as a soloist, as a member of fusion groups like Songhai (with flamenco fusionist Ketama), and he has incorporated subtle changes into his music that makes it a living affirmation of the strength of the ancient harp of Africa. Together Diabate and Sissoko explore their fathers' roots while traveling their own new routes. This is the first all-acoustic kora recording Diabate has done since his stunning Kaira, released more than 10 years prior to New Ancient Strings, and it shows a mature and forward-looking artist that would make the elder Diabate proud. --Louis Gibson
Album : Kulanjan Artist : Taj Mahal & Toumani Diabate Release date : 1999 Number of discs : 1 Label : Hannibal Genre : World Total size : 135 MB (mp3), 333 MB (APE & CUE) Total time : 00:59:00
Tracks :
1. Queen Bee
2. Tunkaranke
3. Ol' Georgia Buck
4. Kulanjan
5. Fanta
6. Guede Man Na
7. Catfish Blues
8. K'an Ben
9. Take This Hammer
10. Atlanta Kaira
11. Mississippi-Mali Blues
12. Sahara
@ 320 Kbit/s mp3 + APE & CUE
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Perennial blues road warrior Taj Mahal and Malian kora (harp-lute) ambassador Toumani Diabate join forces, blend textures, and intermingle idioms on this cleanly produced 12-song set, recorded in 1998 in Athens. Their common ground is best tilled on "Atlanta Kaira" and the title track, where the plucky filigrees and glittering tone of the kora sound right at home with Taj's darker, barking National Reso-Phonic steel. "Ol' Georgie Buck" and their canny cover of Muddy Waters's "Catfish Blues" are the album's blues banners, which find Diabate's kora delightfully incongruous, while the walking African ballad "Tunkaranke" leans most heavily toward the motherland. Fleshed out with fine vocals by Taj, Kasse Mady Diabate, and Malian chanteuse Ramata Diakate ("Queen Bee"), and other African instruments, the sound is defiantly acoustic, intimate, and surprisingly true. --James Rotondi
Album : Songhai Artist : Toumani Diabaté Release date : 1988 Number of discs : 1 Genre : World Total size : 52,2 MB Total time : 00:33:57
Tracks :
1. Jarabi
2. Mani Mani Kuru
3. Caramelo
4. A Toumani
5. Vente Pa' Madrid
6. Africa
7. A Mi Tia Marina
8. Ne Ne Koitaa
@ VBR mp3
Amazon.com
A chance meeting at a London house party led to this melodious collaboration between Mali kora virtuoso Diabate and the young, flamenco-based Spanish group Ketama. While Diabate's dazzling runs often give the impression of several instruments being played at once, Ketama is a group with the focus of a single mind. Together, their music drifts up and down the African continent, ranging from the relatively relaxed, repetitious groove-oriented music of West Africa to the occasionally blistering, speed-clapping, and Islam-tinged sound of Iberia. British double bassist Danny Thompson is a model of understated support throughout. Mali vocalists join the group on the anthemic "Mani Mani Kuru" and the quiet "Africa," while Ketama becomes downright sentimental for "A Mia Tia Maria."
--Richard Gehr
Artist: Toumani Diabaté CD title: The Mandé Variations Release date: 2008 Number of Discs: 1 Genre: Ethnic Time: 00:58:09 Total size: 290 MB (FLAC & CUE) info:full booklet scan included
Quote:
"The Mandé Variations is the highly anticipated solo album from Africa’s most brilliant instrumentalist and king of the kora, Toumani Diabaté. A moodier, more reflective and mature sound than we have heard from him previously, it features interpretations of classic themes alongside groundbreaking improvised pieces."
Album Description :
"The sort of musician you only encounter once or twice in a lifetime." Lucy Duran, BBC Radio 3
'The Mandé Variations' is the highly anticipated solo album from Africa's most brilliant instrumentalist and king of the kora, Toumani Diabaté. A particularly beautiful and melodically accessible instrumental album which will appeal to a very broad spectrum of music buyers, whether they favour jazz, classical, folk, ambient, or even chill out. In fact, anyone who enjoys discovering new music!
A moodier, more reflective and mature sound than we have heard previously from Toumani before, featuring interpretations of classic themes alongside groundbreaking improvised pieces. The album is a departure from Toumani's recent collaborative work and the chance to fully appreciate his incredible musical ability and creativity in his own right.
As always with World Circuit recordings, great attention to detail has been paid to recording, production, packaging and presentation to ensure it is of the highest quality.
About the Artist:
Toumani is amongst the most important musicians in Africa today and an eminent ambassador for the continent as a whole. Popular throughout the world, his music is both classical and contemporary in one.
The kora is a 21 stringed African harp unique to West Africa. As the world's premier kora player, Toumani can take much of the credit for the growing interest in this traditional instrument. In addition to his previous acclaimed albums, Toumani has reached a more modern audience through his recent work with the brilliantly funky Symmetric Orchestra and his collaborations with well known artists such as Damon Albarn, Ali Farka Touré, Salif Keita, Taj Mahal, and most recently Bjork. Toumani performed on her last album and then proved very popular with the crowd when they appeared together at Glastonbury last year.
Toumani Diabaté has been nominated along with his Symmetric Orchestra in the Africa category of BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music 2008. The winners will be announced in April. His recording with the late Ali Farka Touré, 'In the Heart of the Moon' won a Grammy in 2005."
Album : Malicool Artist : Toumani Diabaté & Roswell Rudd Release date : 2002 Number of discs : 1 Genre : World Total size : 104 MB (mp3), 295 MB (FLAC) Total time : 01:00:52
Tracks :
1. Bamako (Roswell Rudd) 6:29
2. Rosmani (Toumani Diabate) 6:05
3. Jackie-ing (Thelonius Monk) 5:43
4. All Through the Night (Traditional/arr. Roswell Rudd) 2:21
5. Hank (Toumani Diabate) 5:56
6. Johanna (Toumani Diabate) 7:51
7. For Toumani (Roswell Rudd) 11:32
8. Malicool (Roswell Rudd) 3:47
9. Sena et Mariam (George Gershwin) 7:02
10. Malijam (Ludwig von Beethoven/arr. Roswell Rudd) 4:02
@ VBR mp3 & FLAC
Rudd visited Mali and jammed with Diabate and his musicians a year before returning to make this record, so there's enough thoughtfulness and chemistry at work here to make this far more than the novelty it might have been had the players just met and recorded right away, as often happens in these "encounter" records. We get the feeling that these musicians are comfortable together, comfortable enough to take chances. That easy quality ultimately makes the record, so that when the musicians cut loose on a jam, mixing up traditional Manding riffs with Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," a bugle call rendered with trombone bluster, and the old swing jazz standard, "Get Happy," you just have to surrender to the musicians' free-spirited delight.
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate - In the Heart of the Moon
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabaté
In the Heart of the Moon
Album : In the Heart of the Moon Artist : Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabaté Release date : 2005 Number of discs : 1 Genre : World Total size : 100 MB (mp3), 293 MB (FLAC & CUE) Total time : 00:54:33
Tracks :
1. Debe
2. Kala
3. Mamadou Boutiquier
4. Monsieur le Maire de Naifunke
5. Kaira
6. Simbo
7. Ai Ga Bani
8. Soumbou Ya Ya
9. Naweye Toro
10. Kadi Kadi
11. Gomni
12. Hawa Dolo
@ 256 Kbit/s mp3 + FLAC & CUE
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Ali Farka Toure fans expecting to hear another fiery electric blues effort from the African John Lee Hooker are in for a big surprise. Toure's first album after a six- year hiatus is mostly an acoustic duo with kora master Toumani Diabate that draws upon Malian and Guinean folk style from the 1950s and '60s called Jamana Kura, which grew out of the Mande griot music tradition. Both musicians were children at the time this music was popularized and a yearning sentimentality flavors many of the songs, particularly "Hawa Dolo," one of three Toure tunes rerecorded here in that older style. Other surprises abound as well: there are only two vocal tracks from the deep-voice Toure, and much of the soloing is actually handled by the flittering Diabate. Minus a few overdubs by guests like Ry Cooder, the music here were first takes from a jam session in which the two musicians would improvising over the basic structures. Nonetheless, this loose approach matched with the stunning beauty of the playing makes it a treasure worth holding on to. --Tad Hendrickson
[Discografia] Toumani Diabate
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