{"id":936,"date":"2008-09-07T02:57:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-07T06:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=936"},"modified":"2021-10-11T17:22:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T21:22:13","slug":"ali-farka-toure-and-ry-cooder-talking-timbuktu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=936","title":{"rendered":"Ali Farka Tour\u00e9 and Ry Cooder Talking Timbuktu"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"08-09-07<\/a>I\u2019ve writ\u00adten else\u00adwhere of my love for the music of Ali Far\u00adka Tour\u00e9, whose every chord calls back mem\u00ado\u00adries of the Sahara, and whose spir\u00adit hov\u00adered above Tim\u00adbuk\u00adtu like an angel. His was a pro\u00adfound and sub\u00adtle art, which turned the \u201cblues\u201d into a clar\u00adi\u00adon of sub\u00adlime affir\u00adma\u00adtion. His native Mali suf\u00adfered the exploita\u00adtion of dic\u00adta\u00adtor\u00adship and the hor\u00adrors of civ\u00adil war, but he remained undaunt\u00aded in his opti\u00admism. While oth\u00ader Malian musi\u00adcians fled to Europe and Amer\u00adi\u00adca to pur\u00adsue their careers, Tour\u00e9 stuck it out at home. The over\u00adthrow of dic\u00adta\u00adtor\u00adship pro\u00adduced a renais\u00adsance of Malian music. Tour\u00e9 was the very sol\u00adid rock on which that renais\u00adsance was found\u00aded. True to his char\u00adac\u00adter, he spent the last years of his life serv\u00ading as may\u00ador of a small vil\u00adlage near Tim\u00adbuk\u00adtu, spend\u00ading the mon\u00adey from his inter\u00adna\u00adtion\u00adal record\u00adings to pro\u00advide it with sew\u00ader\u00adage and elec\u00adtric\u00adi\u00adty. My favourite album of his will always be The Source<\/em> (1993), but jostling against it for that posi\u00adtion is this won\u00adder\u00adful 1995 col\u00adlab\u00ado\u00adra\u00adtion with Amer\u00adi\u00adcan gui\u00adtarist Ry Cood\u00ader, Talk\u00ading Tim\u00adbuk\u00adtu<\/em>. Unlike some of the rather patron\u00adiz\u00ading duets between African artists and Euro\u00adpean or Amer\u00adi\u00adcan super\u00adstars, this one is an easy-going ses\u00adsion between two pro\u00adfes\u00adsion\u00adal musi\u00adcians who have lit\u00adtle patience with stage-egos or man\u00adu\u00adfac\u00adtured images. Cood\u00ader is as Amer\u00adi\u00adcan as they come, and Tour\u00e9 as African as they come, and both under\u00adstood how those two places are musi\u00adcal\u00adly and spir\u00adi\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly inter\u00adtwined. Amer\u00adi\u00adca could not have become Amer\u00adi\u00adca with\u00adout Africa. It would just have been one more place where they danced with wood\u00aden clogs in 4\/4 time, and played the accor\u00addion. It could not have brought forth Elling\u00adton, Gersh\u00adwin, Satch\u00admo, Good\u00adman and Chuck Berry and all that came from them. Lis\u00adten to the mar\u00advelous per\u00adfor\u00admances of \u201cAi Du<\/em>\u201d and \u201cDiara\u00adby<\/em>\u201d on this album, and you\u2019ll hear that brotherhood.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve writ\u00adten else\u00adwhere of my love for the music of Ali Far\u00adka Tour\u00e9, whose every chord calls back mem\u00ado\u00adries of the Sahara, and whose spir\u00adit hov\u00adered above Tim\u00adbuk\u00adtu like an angel. His was a pro\u00adfound and sub\u00adtle art, which turned \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[947,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-listening","category-cs-listening-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11247,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/11247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}