CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Performance Friday, Mar 26, 2010 | 10 PM

Bassekou Kouyate

Zankel Hall
A new voice from Africa, Kouyate is Mali’s leading virtuoso on the ngoni, a lute that griots traditionally played to accompany their storytelling. Now it’s a supple, rhythmic instrument, bringing Kouyate to international fame in collaborations with Ali Farka Toure, Carlos Santana, and U2. Taj Mahal calls him “a genius, a living proof that the blues comes from the region of Segu.”

Performers

  • ·· Bassekou Kouyate, Lead Ngoni
    ·· Fousseyni Kouyate, Medium Bass Ngoni
    ·· Barou Kouyate, Ngoni
    ·· Moussa Bah, Bass Ngoni (Ngoniba)
    ·· Amy Sacko, Vocals
    ·· Alou Coulibaly, Calabash
    ·· Moussa Sissoko, Percussion
  • Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba

Program

  • Program is approximately 1 hour, 30 minutes, and will be performed without intermission

Bios


  • Bassekou Kouyate

    Bassekou Kouyate, a master of the ngoni, has brought great attention to this ancient instrument through his innovations, concerts, and recordings. He was born in 1966 in Garana, a remote village on the banks of the Niger River at the heart of the old Bamana Empire. He was raised in a traditional musical environment: His mother, Yakare Damba, is a praise singer, and his father, Moustapha Kouyate, was an exceptional ngoni player.

    When Bassekou was 19 years old, he moved to Bamako where he met kora player Toumani Diabaté. By the late 1980s, he was part of Toumani’s trio and they recorded their first albums together: Songhai and Djelika. He has played in the Symmetric trio alongside Toumani and Kélétigui Diabaté (balafon), and was also a part of the Kulanjan project with Toumani and Taj Mahal (whom he met in 1990 during his first visit to the US for a banjo festival in Tennessee).

    Bassekou toured worldwide as the solo ngoni player in Ali Farka Touré’s band, and was one of the key musicians on Ali Farka Touré’s posthumous Savane album. He appeared on Youssou N’Dour’s album Rokku mi Rokka and Dee Dee Bridgewater’s Red Earth, and was featured on Béla Fleck’s Throw Down Your Heart, which won this year’s Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.

    After years as a sideman to many musicians both in Mali and globally, Bassekou put together his own band, Ngoni Ba (meaning “the big ngoni”), Mali’s first ngoni quartet. In February of this year, Bassekou and Ngoni Ba released I Speak Fula (Next Ambiance / Sub Pop). They are currently touring the US for the first time.

    Bassekou is married to Amy Sacko (called the “Tina Turner of Mali”); the two are in great demand for traditional wedding parties in the streets of Bamako.
    More Info

Presented by Carnegie Hall in partnership with World Music Institute.
This performance is part of the series.