Post by grumpy on Nov 6, 2011 17:10:50 GMT
To the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds last night to see the Malian "kora king", Toumani Diabaté. The H.A.R. is a newish (and very welcome) addition to Leeds venues; a refurbished wing of the Grand Theatre which, in turn, is home to Opera North. The “opera” last night was the Queen tribute musical, “We Will Rock You”. This fact has been advertised by an ochreous (not to say bilious) 100ft statue of Freddie Mercury in full pomp strut standing in Queen’s Square that has greeted passengers emerging from the northern concourse of the railway station and diverted their attention from the humbler statuary of 19th century worthies interspersed with scantily caparisoned naiads which seem to be the humbler staple of Victorian civic homage in municipal public spaces. Freddie has now been replaced by evidence of a different upcoming gaud-fest, a heavily fenced-in Christmas tree. But back to last night. As I was waiting for friends at the entrance to the theatre, it was mildly interesting to speculate which of the incoming crowds of folk were here for “Freddie Mercury” and which for Toumani Diabaté. In truth it wasn’t much of a game.
The Howard Assembly Room is a pleasant hall, at once airy and intimate, with superb acoustics – a fact which, ironically, makes it all the more crucial to get the sound-balance right. I remember being here a year ago and watching the increasingly agitated bass ngoni player in Bassekou Kouyaté’s band pointing and gesticulating almost continuously to the sound engineer during the first couple of songs. No doubt the presence of an audience upsets the pre-concert sound settings and requires their subtle recalibration.
Toumani turns out to be a lovely and engaging man, modestly self-deprecating about his faltering English which is nonetheless sound enough to give us a coherent description of his instrument, the kora, and a brief lesson on how to play it (of which more below). I was unaware until last night that he has a paralysed leg and can walk only with the aid of a crutch. He began – or so we thought – with an exquisitely tuneful melody which he suddenly aborted after about a minute and said, archly, “that sounds right”. In fact he had been checking his tuning. You compare to a guitarist tuning: plink plink, plunk plunk, plonk plonk and here is Toumani tuning up with a little improvisation which, if there was any justice, would be released as a single and move straight to the top the charts. He then starts in earnest with a tune that lasts almost quarter of an hour though you really don’t notice as he begins with a theme, improvises on it, returns to it, before setting off on another improvisation returning to the base theme maybe three or four times. It draws you in. He then introduces his three-piece backing band (the typical rock ensemble of guitar, bass and drums – though we are warned not to think of them in rock terms but in traditional Manding terms: for example, the guitar will play the balaphon and ngoni lines). They were as tight and disciplined as a detachment of guards, but compelling and propulsive at the same time, complementing Toumani’s excursions to nanosecond perfection. And although they were never let off the leash, they really rocked.
Just before the final number, Toumani described his kora, made of calabash and cow-hide and the 21 strings of fishing wire. As he turns it round for us to see, he looks at it with parental affection and says, “it is beautiful”, almost as though describing a daughter. Unbelievably, given the sound he gets out of it, he uses only the thumb and index finger of each hand to play. The other six fingers are used solely to hold the instrument steady. The thumb and index of the left hand command ten strings, those of the right the other eleven. The thumb of the left hand sets out the rhythmic base line, the thumb of the right plays the melody line and the two fingers are used to improvise. He illustrates each part as he is describing it and then he is into the tune. I found this short excerpt on You-Tube which shows his technique quite clearly.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SVAPvnR0og
The tune in the clip is Elyne Road which he played last night. He told us the tune was inspired by a party that he and Ali Farka Toure went to in London on their first trip to England twenty odd years ago. Toumani refers fondly to Ali Farka Toure several times during the concert and clearly they were soul mates.
The support act was an English band called Revere, or rather a stripped-down version of the same. We were told they are normally a noisy seven-piece, but for the occasion they had dropped the guitar, bass and drums, and played an acoustic set as a quartet of guitar, cello, violin and harp. They were not bad at all and even made a decent stab at a Diabaté tune.
The Howard Assembly Room is a pleasant hall, at once airy and intimate, with superb acoustics – a fact which, ironically, makes it all the more crucial to get the sound-balance right. I remember being here a year ago and watching the increasingly agitated bass ngoni player in Bassekou Kouyaté’s band pointing and gesticulating almost continuously to the sound engineer during the first couple of songs. No doubt the presence of an audience upsets the pre-concert sound settings and requires their subtle recalibration.
Toumani turns out to be a lovely and engaging man, modestly self-deprecating about his faltering English which is nonetheless sound enough to give us a coherent description of his instrument, the kora, and a brief lesson on how to play it (of which more below). I was unaware until last night that he has a paralysed leg and can walk only with the aid of a crutch. He began – or so we thought – with an exquisitely tuneful melody which he suddenly aborted after about a minute and said, archly, “that sounds right”. In fact he had been checking his tuning. You compare to a guitarist tuning: plink plink, plunk plunk, plonk plonk and here is Toumani tuning up with a little improvisation which, if there was any justice, would be released as a single and move straight to the top the charts. He then starts in earnest with a tune that lasts almost quarter of an hour though you really don’t notice as he begins with a theme, improvises on it, returns to it, before setting off on another improvisation returning to the base theme maybe three or four times. It draws you in. He then introduces his three-piece backing band (the typical rock ensemble of guitar, bass and drums – though we are warned not to think of them in rock terms but in traditional Manding terms: for example, the guitar will play the balaphon and ngoni lines). They were as tight and disciplined as a detachment of guards, but compelling and propulsive at the same time, complementing Toumani’s excursions to nanosecond perfection. And although they were never let off the leash, they really rocked.
Just before the final number, Toumani described his kora, made of calabash and cow-hide and the 21 strings of fishing wire. As he turns it round for us to see, he looks at it with parental affection and says, “it is beautiful”, almost as though describing a daughter. Unbelievably, given the sound he gets out of it, he uses only the thumb and index finger of each hand to play. The other six fingers are used solely to hold the instrument steady. The thumb and index of the left hand command ten strings, those of the right the other eleven. The thumb of the left hand sets out the rhythmic base line, the thumb of the right plays the melody line and the two fingers are used to improvise. He illustrates each part as he is describing it and then he is into the tune. I found this short excerpt on You-Tube which shows his technique quite clearly.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SVAPvnR0og
The tune in the clip is Elyne Road which he played last night. He told us the tune was inspired by a party that he and Ali Farka Toure went to in London on their first trip to England twenty odd years ago. Toumani refers fondly to Ali Farka Toure several times during the concert and clearly they were soul mates.
The support act was an English band called Revere, or rather a stripped-down version of the same. We were told they are normally a noisy seven-piece, but for the occasion they had dropped the guitar, bass and drums, and played an acoustic set as a quartet of guitar, cello, violin and harp. They were not bad at all and even made a decent stab at a Diabaté tune.