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 has features of the lute and harp.
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.
Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.
A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician.
Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions. He has lived in France since 1987.
Michael Kevin Daugherty is a multiple Grammy Award-winning American composer, pianist, and teacher. He is influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism. Daugherty's notable works include his Superman comic book-inspired Metropolis Symphony for Orchestra (1988–93), Dead Elvis for Solo Bassoon and Chamber Ensemble (1993), Jackie O (1997), Niagara Falls for Symphonic Band (1997), UFO for Solo Percussion and Orchestra (1999) and for Symphonic Band (2000), Bells for Stokowski from Philadelphia Stories for Orchestra (2001) and for Symphonic Band (2002), Fire and Blood for Solo Violin and Orchestra (2003) inspired by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Time Machine for Three Conductors and Orchestra (2003), Ghost Ranch for Orchestra (2005), Deus ex Machina for Piano and Orchestra (2007), Labyrinth of Love for Soprano and Chamber Winds (2012), American Gothic for Orchestra (2013), and Tales of Hemingway for Cello and Orchestra (2015). Daugherty has been described by The Times (London) as "a master icon maker" with a "maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear."
Orchestra Baobab is a Senegalese band established in 1970 as the house band of the Baobab Club in Dakar. Many of the band's original members had previously played with Star Band de Dakar in the 1960s. Directed by timbalero and vocalist Balla Sidibé, the group featured saxophonists Issa Cissoko and Thierno Koité, two singers, two guitarists and a rhythm section with drums, congas and bass guitar. Since their formation, the band has predominantly played a mix of son cubano, Wolof music, and to a lesser extent Mande musical traditions. Following the deaths of Cissoko in 2019 and Sidibé in 2020, Thierno Koité has become the leader of the band.
Scott Healy is an American pianist, keyboardist and composer best known as the keyboardist for Conan O'Brien. He was the keyboard player for the Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band on Conan on TBS. His association with O'Brien dates back to the original Late Night with Conan O'Brien show in 1993, and the subsequent The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. He was nominated for a Grammy for 'Best Instrumental Composition' for 'Koko On The Boulevard'
Douglas J. Cuomo is an American composer of contemporary classical music and music for television.
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.
Jimmy Owens is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and educator. He has played with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Hank Crawford, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Herbie Mann, among many others. Since 1969, he has led his own group, Jimmy Owens Plus.
Tony Vacca is an American percussionist specializing in jazz and an early innovator in world music. He incorporates percussion instruments from a world of traditions that includes African, Caribbean, Asian and Middle-Eastern influences, to which he adds some of his spoken word and rhythm poetry. Tony has been active in the Jazz and World Music stage since the early 1970s.
Issa Cissokho was a Senegalese musician of Malian griot roots, a composer, and saxophone player for Orchestra Baobab.
Ablaye Cissoko is a Senegalese musician, singer and composer, who plays the kora.
Charles Davis was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Davis played alto, tenor and baritone saxophone, and performed extensively with Archie Shepp and Sun Ra.
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.
Ted Daniel is an American jazz trumpeter and composer.
The Rough Guide To Acoustic Africa is a world music compilation album originally released in 2013 featuring acoustic music spanning Sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the World Music Network Rough Guides series, the album contains two discs: an overview of the genre on Disc One, and a "bonus" Disc Two highlighting griot Noumoucounda Cissoko. Disc One features artists hailing from Niger, Madagascar, the DRC, South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Cameroon, Mali, South Sudan, Sudan, Senegal, and Guinea. All but three tracks are guitar-based. The extensive liner notes were written by Daniel Rosenberg, and Phil Stanton, co-founder of the World Music Network, produced the album.
Josh Deutsch is an American jazz musician and composer. Primarily known as a trumpet player, he is a founding member of the Queens Jazz Overground, leads the band Pannonia and the Josh Deutsch Quintet, and performs regularly in a duo with guitarist Nico Soffiato. Deutsch is also an educator, who has taught privately and at various institutions including the Queens College CPSM and the University of Oregon, as well as mentoring at the Young Composers and Improvisors Workshop. He has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia during his career.
Michael Jefry Stevens is an American jazz pianist. Stevens currently resides in Black Mountain, North Carolina.
