Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

While driving home from this year?s [tag]Berkeley World Music Festival[/tag], I kept replaying in my mind the music I had heard earlier by [tag]Markus James[/tag]. I was not familiar with his music prior to that afternoon, which probably made its impact on me all the stronger. His music is based in both the blues structure and the deep groove that is the core of African music in particular. I recognized both of these aspects. What surprised me was the way James, his two Malian bandmates from the Wassanrai, and Stephen Kent on didjeridu were able to create something sounding fresh and ancient at the same time.

I wanted to write something about this music. Having listened to Kent?s radio program on KPFA, I sent him an e-mail when I got home. I asked him whether the station had recorded James?s set and whether I could get a copy of it for reference per this article. I did not mention anything about my hopes of being able to listen to this music over and over ? to obsess over every note, every rhythmic change, every surprise that unfolds with repeated listening.

I did not get a copy of the set; instead, Kent forwarded my message directly to James, who subsequently agreed to answer a few questions for this newspaper (see accompanying article) and recommended his CD Timbuktoubab as a way for me to get acquainted with his music.

The sound of [tag]Timbuktoubab [/tag]creates a musical world of equal parts arid desert and Mississippi Delta. One can almost smell the air from both regions while listening to each song. One can picture the African sand intermingling with the rich and fertile soil of the American state. It is a music where the individual parts ? calabash, kamele n?goni, njarka violin, slide guitar, vocals ? are well-defined, a music where the way the sum of the parts affects the listener is not so well-defined. It is music for the mystery, the unanswerable, in all of us.

It is [tag]blues music[/tag] in a sense, a music that is beyond the codification and cliches of the blues world. It is a music that has always been in the desert, circling back upon itself and beginning again, some parts new and some parts repeated.

It is blues music that replaces the familiar harmonica counterpoint ? consider Muddy Waters? voice and Little Walter?s harp ? with the haunting violin sound of Hassi Sare, whose one-stringed instrument is as expressive as anything created by a four-stringed version of the same. The only musical sound I have heard that comes close to describing Sare?s overall effect is the babyfood-jar-as-slide work of the obscure Detroit slide guitarist One-String Sam in his 1950s blues ?I Need $100?: eerie and perfect. Like Sam?s one-string guitar, Sare?s violin is a sound that seems to carry a ghost note lurking underneath the one being played, a ghost note that is telling the real story in the song.

It is percussion played by a man named Hamma Sankare on a hollowed-out gourd called a calabash, played bottom side up with two sticks held in a palmed fashion. It is the complimentary interplay of Solo Sidibe?s kamele n?goni with the other three members of the group. It is James?s excellent slide work and vocals. Miles Davis used to describe Bill Evans? piano sound as like water running over rocks; all four of these musicians play like they know that feeling, they also play like they know water in a desert is the most precious thing of all.

And it is more than music: when Timbuktoubab arrived at my P.O. Box, I went home and immediately put it in my CD player with the intention of listening while watching the Giants game on TV with the sound down. The music began, a slide guitar slurring high-to-low notes through the clicking of sticks on calabash. I glanced at the CD?s back cover and saw the first song was titled ?Sixteen Camels.? I turned on the TV and the first image I saw on its screen was a camel. Later that evening I was reading a new short story by Lewis Buzbee about a boy whose father returns from his job in Saudi Arabia. The father gives the boy a present upon his return ? a leather toy camel. It was beginning to seem like, as James stated in our interview, ?there are ancient connections at work.? Ancient or not, I feel a growing connection to this CD?s music and recommend it highly.

For ordering and additional information, visit www.firenzerecords.com or www.cdbaby.com.

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