Balimaya Project: When The Dust Settles

Formed in 2019 by London-based drummer and percussionist Yahael Camara-Onono, the sixteen-piece Balimaya Project blends traditional West African Mandé music with modal jazz and other sounds out of modern Black London. The ensemble's closest comparator, albeit at some remove, is the veteran Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab who, in the 1980s, were hugely popular at home and abroad. But Baobab's repertoire, although it included Mandé folk music, was based chiefly on the Wolof tradition.

There is more that unites Mandé and Wolof musics than divides them, however, above all the two traditions' sophisticated use of drums and percussion. Most of the tracks on When The Dust Settles, the band's second album, include drum and percussion breaks, and one track, "Gold Kan," is a showcase for Onono's eloquence as a soloist. "There's Nothing Left For Us Here" (check the YouTube below) is more typical, keeping drums and percussion central but weaving them into the overall arrangements.

Jazz plays a relatively small role in the band's overall sound, but there are winning solos from flautist Xhosa Cole on "A Prayer For Our Parents," tenor saxophonist Jaz Lee on "There's Nothing Left For Us Here," and trumpeter Elias Jordan Atkinson and trombonist Nathaniel Cross (elder brother of Sons of Kemet tubaist Theon Cross) on "Seasons Of Baraka." Jali Bakary Konteh's jazz-adjacent kora playing is spotlighted on and off throughout the album.

Anyone with a taste for fellow jazz-meets-West-Africa bands Kokoroko and Cassie Kinoshi's SEED Ensemble, with both of whom Balimaya has shared personnel, should find much to enjoy.

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