Bassekou Kouyaté At Regional Cultural Centre

Bassekou Kouyaté
Earagail Arts Festival
Regional Cultural Centre
Letterkenny, Ireland
July 27, 2024

Few West African musicians have done as much as Bassekou Kouyaté to take the ngoni, an ancient West African string instrument, to the wider world. Born in Garana in 1966, Kouyaté first wowed international audiences in the late '80s in Toumani Diabate's band. But it was Ngoni Ba, the innovative band Kouyaté formed in 2005, that really launched his star. Since then, Kouyaté has performed at folk, jazz and blues festivals the world over, delighting audiences at Glastonbury and The Proms alike with his infectious spirit and dazzling virtuosity.

Kouyaté acknowledges that he has tailored his music for Western audiences, delving into rock and electric blues idioms to better connect with people unable to understand the lyrics to his songs, sung in Bambara. It is no stretch to say that Kouyaté has done for the ngoni what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar.

This was Kouyaté's second appearance at the Earagail Arts Festival, having played at the same venue in 2009. It was a family affair, with Kouyaté joined by his wife and long-time musical partner, the renowned singer Amy Sacko (known to many AAJ readers for her collaborations with Leni Stern), his eldest son, ngoni bassist Madou Kouyaté and Franck Mantegari on drums. Music reached the audience's ears before the band had entered the stage, with gently lilting, harp-like ngoni notes emanating from the wings—an augury of a special evening ahead.

The head-bobbing rhythms of "Kanougnon," from Miri (Outhere Records, 2019) opened the set, with Sacko and Bassekou Kouyaté serving early notice of their star quality. Sacko's voice was seductive in the low register, potent in soaring flight, while Kouyaté delivered an intricate solo of beautifully understated lyricism that hinted at greater passions to come. And they were not long in coming. On "Jama Ko," the title track to Ngoni Ba's 2013 album, over an irresistible chugging bass groove and a steady back beat, Kouyaté hit the wah wah pedal to bring a psychedelic twist to the desert blues. No less thrilling was a belting sustained note from Sacko that stirred the crowd.

For Kouyaté this is African blues. Old blues, "before Jesus Christ," he explained. Kouyaté related how his ancestors played the ngoni for African kings and queens in the 17th century. And the music has traveled, he went on to say, the ngoni morphing (with the arrival of African slaves to America) into the banjo and then the guitar. As though to illustrate the point, his blistering wah wah-infused solo on "Ngoni Fola" spoke to Muddy Waters, Jimi Hendrix and Bela Fleck—blues drenched, psychedelic and folksy at one and the same time.

Father and son rested their bones on chairs for "Poye 2," a slow-burning, slide-laced blues, with a gravel-voiced Bassekou amusing himself as much as the audience with his best Taj Mahal impersonation. The crowd singalong served to warm the blood for the dancing, encouraged from the stage, for the rhythmically coursing "Segou Jajir"—a vibrant fiesta steered by Sacko's impassioned vocals.

The musicians bowed out with "Wele Cuba," an Afro-Cuban flavored swinger that grew into an extended jam, punctuated by Sacko's soulful flights, a sinewy solo from the ngoni master and a gender-specific, audience call-and-response that the women won hands down.

Somebody behind the scenes at Earagail Arts Festival clearly loves Malian music, this concert coming after a memorable performance by Boubacar Traore two weeks prior. More power to them. Let us hope it is not another fifteen years before Bassekou Kouyaté returns to this stage with his uplifting and contagious ngoni magic.

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