Ablaye Cissoko | |
|---|---|
 Ablaye Cissoko at the 2012 Seminci | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 1970 Kolda, Senegal |
| Genres | World, world fusion |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, singer, composer |
| Instrument | Kora |
| Years active | 1982–present [1] |
| Labels | ObliqSound, Motéma Music |
| Website | ablaye-cissoko |
Ablaye Cissoko is a Senegalese musician, singer and composer, who plays the kora.
As a solo musician, he has played live shows in several countries, including Portugal, France, Belgium, Senegal, Mali, Canada, Germany, Norway and Russia. He has collaborated extensively with trumpeter Volker Goetze and they have released three albums as a duo: Sira in 2008, Amanké Dionti in 2012 and Djaliya in 2014. Sira entered the top 10 world music radio chart on CMJ in January 2009. [2]
Another collaboration with the Constantinople ensemble playing traditional Persian music resulted in the albums Jardins migrateurs (2012) and Traversées (2019).[ citation needed ]
A 2011 feature-length documentary, Griot, directed by Volker Goetze, follows Cissoko, who is determined to preserve his thousand-year-old kora tradition. In the documentary Cissoko has a dream to have a thriving cultural centre where children can come to learn the traditions of their forefathers. [3]
Solo
with Volker Goetze
with Cyrille Brotto
with Majid Bekkas
with Simon Goubert
The kora is a stringed instrument used extensively in West Africa. A kora typically has 21 strings, which are played by plucking with the fingers. It combines features of the lute and harp.
The balafon is a gourd-resonated xylophone, a type of struck idiophone. It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé, Bwaba Bobo, Senoufo and Gur peoples of West Africa, particularly the Guinean branch of the Mandinka ethnic group, but is now found across West Africa from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali. Its common name, balafon, is likely a European coinage combining its Mandinka name ߓߟߊ bala with the word ߝߐ߲ fôn 'to speak' or the Greek root phono.
Senegal's music is best known abroad due to the popularity of mbalax, a development of conservative music from different ethnic groups and sabar drumming popularized internationally by Youssou N'Dour.
A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician.
The Rail Band is a Malian band formed in 1970; it was later known as Super Rail Band, Bamako Rail Band or, most comprehensively and formally, Super Rail Band of the Buffet Hotel de la Gare, Bamako.
Toumani Diabaté was a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he was involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styles of music. In 2006, the London-based newspaper The Independent named him one of the fifty best African artists. In its obituary, The Times described him as "a bold and innovative musical visionary".
Foday Musa Suso is a Gambian musician and composer. He is a member of the Mandinka ethnic group, and is a griot. Griots are the oral historians and musicians of the Mandingo people who live in several west African nations. Griots are a living library for the community providing history, entertainment, and wisdom while playing and singing their songs. It is an extensive verbal and musical heritage that can only be passed down within a griot family.
Tunde Jegede is a composer and multi-instrumentalist in contemporary classical, African and pop music, who is of Nigerian descent and born in England and as a child travelled to Africa to learn the art of the kora. He is a producer-songwriter and has worked across several genres both as a performer and producer. He is a master kora player, and specializes in the West African classical music tradition which dates from the period of Sundiata. His sister is Sona Jobarteh, who is the first female kora virtuoso to come from a griot family. His father is Nigerian artist Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede.
Various awards have been presented in recent years to musical artists for their contributions to the genre of world music. This article provides a partial list of these awards and their recipients.
Sona Jobarteh is a Gambian multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer. She is from one of the five principal kora-playing griot families of West Africa, and is the first female professional kora player to come from a griot family. She is the cousin of the celebrated kora player Toumani Diabaté, and is the sister of the diaspora kora player Tunde Jegede.
Seckou Keita is a kora player and drummer from Senegal. He is one of the few champions of the lesser-known kora repertoire from Casamance in southern Senegal.
Mamadou Diabaté is a Malian musician known for his work with the kora. He began playing quite early in his life, became known as a musician in the area of Mali in which he lived, and has since moved to the United States, recording several albums.
ObliqSound is a record label in New York City.
Volker Goetze is a German-born New York based composer, trumpeter and filmmaker. He toured West Africa, Europe and Asia. He is featured on numerous recordings, and recorded with international artists such as Nana Vasconcelos, Lenny Pickett and others. He has also performed with Steve Lacy, Brian Lynch, Peter Kowald, and Craig Handy.
Djeli Moussa Diawara, born 1962 in Kankan, Guinea, is a Kora player (Korafola), composer and singer.
Mamadou Sidiki Diabaté is a prominent Mandé kora player and jeli from Bamako, Mali. He is the 71st generation of kora players in his family and a son to Sidiki Diabaté.
Motéma Music is a jazz and world music record label in the United States. It was founded in 2003 in San Francisco Bay Area by label president and recording artist Jana Herzen. The label has received Grammy recognition more than 25 times for albums in jazz, Latin jazz, reggae, and R&B. Motema's roster includes Gregory Porter, Joey Alexander, Deva Mahal, Pedrito Martinez, Randy Weston, Geri Allen, David Murray, Monty Alexander, and Charnett Moffett, Donny McCaslin, Mark Guiliana, and Terri Lyne Carrington and many other respected artists in jazz, world and soul music.
Majid Bekkas, also known as Abdelmajid Bekkas, is a Moroccan musician on guembri, oud, guitar and vocals, who is internationally known for his contributions to World music and Ethno jazz with North African roots.
New Ancient Strings is a studio album by the Malian musicians Toumani Diabaté and Ballaké Sissoko, released on 22 June 1999 by the British label Hannibal Records. The album comprises eight instrumental duets composed by Diabaté for kora, a stringed instrument of West African music. Diabaté and Sissoko are esteemed as the best and the second-best kora players of their generation, respectively. Their duets were recorded in a single live take within a marble hallway of Bamako's conference centre on the night of 22 September 1997, coinciding with Mali's Independence Day.
Griots are West African poets, who carry stories in the oral tradition accompanied by music.
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