In-store: Jah Youssouf and Abdoulaye Koné

Jah Youssouf and Abdoulaye Koné

Musideum. Thursday, August 27, 2009.

I don't recall when I'd put myself on the Musideum's e-mail list. In fact, when a message arrived in my inbox, I had to tilt my head and think for a second who they were and why they were sending me stuff. Turned out to be an invite to an evening of acoustic Malian music featuring Jah Youssouf and Abdoulaye Koné, and looking it up, this sounded like exactly the sort of thing I'd dig. Headed down to Richmond Street after work and found the perfectly lovely Musideum, vendors of exotic instruments of all kinds in a restored warehouse space that felt more like an art gallery than a store. A small crowd of fifteen-twenty people gathered as the musicians tuned up. As I was snatching a chair close to the action and settled in I felt a bit shabby and out of place amongst an older, professional-looking crowd, but what can you do?

Hosting the evening was Lewis Melville — musician, producer, and a true hero of Canadian independent music — who had met Jah and Abdoulaye in Mali, has recorded with them and worked to bring them to play in Canada. He introduced the artists and acted as translator.

More than just sitting and playing a few songs, it was a chance to hear the musicians talk about their music and background and to really get a feel for their personalities. Both spoke in French, and I usually managed to get a general impression, which would be filled in by Melville's summaries. Jah Youssouf, Malian star, is a player in the Wassoulou tradition, and was more of a talker, a naturally forthcoming storyteller while Koné, a young griot, was a bit more reserved, with a sly smile and a soft but magnetic manner of expression.¹ Both musicians were playing the ngoni, a stringed instrument often thought of as a forerunner to the modern banjo. Koné played a traditional griot version of the instrument, and used drones and circular rhythms to accentuate his dazzling flurries of notes. Youssouf played a larger kamale ngoni, a ten-stringed version that looked not unlike a kora and was capable of dazzling, harp-like runs.² When called for, Koné even improvised some percussion, using keys on the side of a metal water bottle to add some rhythm while Youssouf was playing. We got to hear each of them playing in their own distinct styles as well as together, utterly cooking with complementing cascades of notes. It boggles the mind a bit to consider the complicated music that can be wrung from a construction of gourd, cowhide and fishing line.

The pair played some traditional songs along with their own compositions — one even recounted their impressions of playing in Canada ("beaucoup de cowboys", declared the chorus). There were no few musicians in the crowd, evidenced by the fact that when the floor was opened for questions, the first one was about the tuning of the ngonis, and the answer (pentatonic scales, I believe, if I got the gist of it right) caused general murmuring and nodding. The musicians — Youssouf especially — gave the impression that they would keep playing for as long as there were people sitting and listening, and the performance ended up lasting over an hour-and-a-half, certainly much more than I was expecting.

Certainly an excellent night, and kudos to the Musideum people for sharing their space so graciously. I note that Youssouf and Koné have a local gig coming up at the Music Gallery, Saturday September 19th with the Woodchoppers Association, the long-running improvisational music collective that includes Lewis Melville. Probably worth checking out.

Listen to a couple songs from this performance here.

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¹ Koné also told a fine story about his grandfather, a blind griot of great renown, whose music was so powerful that on putting his ngoni down on the table, it would continue to play itself!

² Youssouf was playing not only his own ngoni, constructed out of a calabash, but also a Canadian-made version, designed with stage performance in mind.