The faeries are at it again. They've sprinkled dust on Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour. They've breathed new life into Orchestra Baobab and Bembeya Jazz. We're dancing, we're happy, we're back to our roots. And all this retro-magic is brought to you by guys over 40. Their music has garnered accolades from listeners and critics alike--even another Grammy nod for Salif. This Fab Four has a virtual padlock on the World Music charts and "Best of" lists. Public radio is playing the music, and restaurants are using it to "create mood."

Sure, you want more. But sifting through e-store discographies or the misspelled plastic tabs at your local megastore has been linked to lower self-esteem and migraines. The criss-crossings, peregrinations and revivificatons of the bands are likely to leave you "Star"ry-eyed and "Super"confused.

Here's Part 1 of a primer on the West African Rails and Stars, the Orchestras, Ambassadeurs and Super Motels. And remember, it's not you: Everyone is pretty much everyone else's cousin--or separated by no more than ½ a degree.

Bands of Gold
By 1960, Mali had finally shrugged off French rule. Its cities, thanks to the phonograph and radio, were already shaking to world pop, big-band swing and Afro-Cuban charanga. The nation's leader, Modibo Keita, taking his cue from Guinea's Sekou Toure, set up a network of state-subsidized bands and dance ensembles that would celebrate the end of colonial repression, promote national pride and preserve Manding culture. But there was a caveat: They couldn't only play the popular stuff; they had to incorporate the indigenous sounds of the Manding praise-singers, the kora and the balafon into their music. What ensued was a profusion of fusion--a graft of griot and Johnny Pacheco, of Segou and Cuban son. The most popular of these nascent dance bands was Bamako's Pioneer Jazz of Missira, which featured Djelimady Tounkara, a guitar wizard who could spin those traditional sounds into guitar gold.

Jeli House Rock
In Guinea, Sekou Toure's effort to be rid of all things French produced an uncanny roster of A-list talent. Orchestras included Balla et ses Balladins, the all-women Les Amazones de Guinee, Lanaya Jazz, Keletigui et ses Tambourins, Horoya Band and Super Boiro. The bands cranked out a melange of Manding agit-prop infused with Cuban rhythms and popular Congolese rumba. It was a union blessed by Toure and his political pal Fidel Castro.

Bembeya Jazz National was the most famous band to emerge from the movement. Formed in 1961, the band made its Manding roots swing with Guinean melodies and chord progressions and Afro-Cuban jazz flavor. Bembeya boasted Latin brass, percussion and a guitar section led by the innovative Sekou Diabate (aka "Diamond Fingers" and/or "Bembeya"). The mellifluous-voiced Aboubacar Demba Camara did the singing and was later joined by Salifou Kaba in '63. Sure there was much competition and pressure to gain and keep a following in Guinea during this golden decade of dance bands and, as Bembeya's Salifou Kaba has said, "Every week we tried to create new songs to attract clientele. We had to create--that's how it was."

Bembeya won top honors at Toure's national festivals, and the right to be called "National Orchestra" in 1966. In the early '70s, replete with dancing girls and Hawaiian slide guitar, the orchestra was at the pinnacle of its career. The death of Camara in 1973 precipitated a downward spiral for Bembeya and sent the country into mourning. Bembeya regrouped, later adding new lead singer, Sekouba Diabate. Handpicked by Toure, this 16-year-old from an illustrious griot clan was dubbed "Bambino" because of his young age and to avoid confusion with guitarist Diamond Fingers.

The addition of Bambino's majestic voice recharged the band--until he left to go solo--but Bembeya could not weather the nation's political chaos or its crumbling economy. With Toure's death in 1984--and the end of financial patronage--Bembeya drifted into relative obscurity. But by then, the dance bands were no longer in vogue, and West Africa had a new sound.

It is undeniable that under Sekou Toure's aegis, cultural creativity flourished in Guinea. The realization of his vision of a cultural emancipation and renaissance, his standing up to the French, and even offering a home to an exiled Miriam Makeba were remarkable achievements. But for the record, it must be said that Toure also topped Amnesty International's charts in the '70s for human rights violations. Politically, his socialist policies led the nation into poverty.

Across the border, Mali's economy also went bust. In a bloodless coup in '68, military man Moussa Traore threw Modibo Keita in jail and seized power. Traore implemented his own version of cultural authenticity, creating district competitions among orchestras, but with many more diktats and little feel. Pure folklore and tradition were in; Cuba and Bo Diddley were out. As Djelimady Tounkara tells Banning Eyre in a recent interview, "They broke everything [Keita] had made. The national dance troupe, national band, national theater. Broken, broken, broken."

Amadou Ba's Super Biton de Segou (he also founded Mali's pioneer dance band, Afro-Jazz de Segou), playing their return-to-the-roots Bamana funk, won Traore's state competitions two years in a row. However, winning over the populace would prove harder. Super Djata, led by Zani Diabate, and Kene Star, the band of future male Wassoulou/Bamana star, Abdoulaye Diabate, were other notable competitors.

As a quick panacea for the bereft artistic community, The Ministry of Information and the Malian Railway Company decided to sponsor a band that would play alongside the Bamako train station, at the Buffet Hotel de la Gare. This would not only give the predominantly Western travelers a taste of Manding tradition, but also inspire national pride among the public. Sax and trumpet virtuoso, Tidiane Kone, was enlisted for the task, and in 1969, he created the Rail Band du Buffet Hotel de la Gare (Rail Band). Kone recruited a reluctant Salif Keita, who was then about 21 years old and singing for his supper in the streets and bars of Bamako. Kone also signed guitarist Djelimady Tounkara to the 16-member orchestra, and the band got busy refining its roots repertoire.

In 1971, Bamako gave birth to another band, Les Ambassadeurs du Motel (Les Ambassadeurs), the resident band of a small hotel that had a bustling nightclub scene. Les Ambassadeurs comprised 12 musicians and was not beholden to Traore. So, while the Rail Band was honing versions of Manding requisites such as "Sunjata" and "Lamban" on government-issued instruments, across town, the nongovernment-sposored Les Ambassadeurs was pumping out American pop, foxtrots, rumbas and Senegalese airs.

Noblesse Oblige?
The advent of Guineans and cousins Mory Kante and Kante Manfila to Bamako brought another dimension to Rail culture. Manfila took the guitar helm for Les Ambassadeurs, and Mory, originally a bala player, rode shotgun beside Salif for the Rail Band. Well, that didn't last too long. The men were both golden-voiced singers adroit at belting out powerful praise songs. Your hunch about "the Mansa's" ego was right. Some say it was a rivalry that dated back some 700 years to the epic of Sunjata Keita, the founder of the Manding empire, who was also Salif's great-great something or other. The parallels you find may depend on which interpretation of the oral tale you subscribe to. But the all-purpose version goes like this:

While in exile, Sunjata's empire is invaded by the Suso King, Sumagoro Kante. Sumagoro was a griot by birth, a balafonist and blacksmith--the caste renowned for sorcery and magical powers. Sunjata's beloved griot, Balla Fasseke, was sent on a sort of secret mission to Sumagoro's compound. The griot sneaks into the king's chambers, espies his huge balafon, or "djo," and fascinated, starts to play. The king, enraged at first, is charmed by the griot's on-the-spot praise song. Sumagoro gives Fasseke the balafon, and decides to keep him as his own griot--and prisoner. That was the "casus belli"--a war that Sunjata eventually wins. Peace is restored, and the 12 kingdoms ally.

And Balla Fasseke, progenitor of the Kouyate clan, becomes keeper of the balafon, the emblematic instrument of his griot caste. Salif and Mory, scion of the great griot, obviously had their own spin on the encomium and their relative's prowess--not exactly a palliative for the mounting tension.
Today, Salif denies any bad blood between the two, but in 1972, after returning from a brief trip and finding Mory at the mike, he defected to rival Les Ambassadeurs. In addition to Salif, the band boasted a dazzling array of talent that included Manfila, another Guinean guitarist, Ousmane Kouyate, veteran bala player, Keletigui Diabate and keyboardist Cheikh Tidiane Seck, who had also played with the Rail Band. The red-hot rivalry between these two bands electrified much of West Africa through the '70s. Like a blacksmith reshaping the contours of ancestral rhythms and chants, these bands incorporated popular Cuban styles such as chachacha and mambo, as well as American soul and blues, into Manding music.

The Ambassadeurs musicians, many of whom continued to record with Salif after the group disbanded, broadened their sound, riding an electric wave of world pop, Afro-Cuban rhythms--and even some French sounds--to stardom. Flutist and sax player, Boncana Maiga, came back from an eight-year sojourn Cuba. His band, Las Maravillas de Mali got its wrist slapped for sounding a little too Cuban, so it reanimated into National Badema in '76, with an aim to add a Maninka muse to its charanga sound. The group head-hunted Kasse Mady Diabate, a classic tenor with an ethereal voice who hailed from the Mali jeli town of Kela. Kasse Mady had been off making beautiful noise in Guinea with yet another of Sekou Toure's national bands, Super Mande.

Meanwhile, back at the train station…Djelimady Tounkara and Mory Kante were growing tired of their everyday gig at the nightclub--and seeing little return for their toil. Not getting the raise they asked for, in '79, the two stars left for Abidjan (Cote d'Ivoire)--fast becoming the music scene mecca. There they formed a new band called The Rail Band International. But Salif and the Ambassadeurs had made the pilgrimage a year earlier to record Mandjou. The album featured the group's signature praise song that Salif dedicated to Guinea's Sekou Toure after the leader awarded him a gold medal for his service to Africa.

In the mid-'80s, Mory Kante left the Rail Band to go solo--eventually recording a remix of his ode to the blacksmith, "Yeke Yeke" in Paris in 1987. The song was a huge hit, rising higher on French charts than any prior Afropop recording. Back in Bamako, Kante was replaced in the Rail Band by Kasse Mady's smooth-singing brother, Lafia Diabate, and again the band was renamed--adding the ubiquitous "Super" to its name. Super Rail Band recorded the stellar album, Foliba, which was later re-dubbed New Dimensions in Rail Culture.

Regard sur le Present
These days, the Super Rail Band continues to eek out a living in Bamako, but the once-hot Super Djata has disbanded, and National Badema is seen rarely. Lafia Diabate calls his current band Super Mande, the group with whom brother Kasse Mady gained fame. The Ambassadeurs renamed themselves Ambassadeurs Internationaux, with a few of the members taking a trip to the U.S. to record Prinprin. The band held on through the mid-'80s, but in '82, a spat between Manfila and Salif sent Salif packing for Paris and leaving the band for good. There Salif made Soro, a masterpiece of electro-Manding fusion, with state-of-the-art technology masterminded by Jean-Phillipe Rykiel, Senegalese impresario Ibrahima Sylla and arranger Francois Breart.

Soro heralded West African music to the world; Salif's tour was sold out through Europe. After Soro, Ambassadeurs musicians Tidiane Cheikh and Ousmane Kouyate tired their hand at solo careers with varying degrees of success. Manfila recorded Tradition, an acoustic gem that featured Mory Kante on kora. Kasse Mady didn't quite make the Parisian splash he merited, but he went on to record notable albums such as Fode and the acoustic Kela Tradition, Songhai 2 with kora genius Toumani Diabate and others; and to make appearances with Sekouba Bambino Diabate and Africando. Kasse Mady also rode the success of Taj Mahal's 1999 release, Kulanjan, and the resurgent roots movement, to make Kassi Kasse in 2002. Diamond Fingers made several recordings, including many with his wife, the singer Djanka Diabate.

And Bembeya, which had been quiet for 14 years, reunited in 2000 for the 100th anniversary of the demise of West African military hero Samory Toure--subject of the band's famous song "Regard Sur le Passe" in the '70s. In 2002, veteran band members such as drummer Conde Mory Mangala, chef d'orchestre Mohammed Kaba, saxophonist Dory Clement, still-sweet tenor Salifou Kaba and lead-guitar maestro Diamond Fingers went into the studio after playing a festival in France, reworked their classics and exploded with Bembeya later that year.

Sekouba Bambino has become Guinea's most popular singer. His music is still steeped in traditional Maninka folklore, but it's with a semi-acoustic blend of Latin rhythms, rock and soul. Under the stewardship of Ibrahima Sylla and Boncana Maiga, he recorded Kassa --listen for that Soro sound-- Le Destin and most recently, Sinikan, which features Ousmane Kouyate and Francois Breant, the arranger on Soro.

Mory Kante shot to world fame and acid-house stardom with his remix of "Yeke Yeke." His eclectic, electric kora can be heard on hit albums 10 Cola Nuts, Touma and Akwaba Beach. Salif Keita, ever the innovator and modernist, recorded Folon: The Past, a Grammy-nominated collaboration with Joe Zawinul; Amen; a retrospective called The Mansa of Mali; the high-tech Papa; film soundtrack L'enfant Lion; and Mouffou, a mostly acoustic album featuring Kante Manfila on guitar. Papa and Mouffou, incidentally also got Grammy nominations, but so far, no prize for Salif.

Djelimady rails on, having toured the U.S. in 2001 with the band's singers Damory Kouyate and Samba Sissoko. He formed Bajourou with guitarist Bouba Sacko and ex-[Super]Rail singer Lafia Diabate. He mentored Banning Eyre on guitar and became the subject of his book and CD, In Griot Time. Djelimady recently toured the U.S. with an acoustic group in fall 2002, promoting his latest release, Sigui.
Boncana Maiga went on to produce and arrange with Ibrahima Sylla. Artists he has worked with include Sekouba Bambino, Cameroon's Manu Dibango, Cote d'Ivoire's Aicha Kone and Mali's Nahawa Doumbia; he also co-founded Afro-salsa band Africando and produced Kasse Mady's Fode.

Watch for Part II of Lisa Denenmark's report in the weeks to come.





Contributed by: Lisa Denenmark