Salif Keita — Talé (2012) | Tais Awards (Czech, Slovakia & Overseas) Music

Salif Keita — Talé (2012)

Salif Keita ♦ Talé
Born: August 25, 1949, Djoliba
♦ Simple guitar and voice tapes from Salif lay the foundations for the album's melodies and harmonies. Rhythmical motifs are woven in and out by local musicians. Salif was joined in the studio by special guests Manu Dibango and his awesome sax-chorus, and Bobby McFerrin, who improvised a soft melody on the simbi over Salif's beat-boxing. The Grammy Award-winning artist, Esperanza Spalding, featured on the song "Cherie s'en va" — a dedication to young girls who leave home to marry. And British prodigy Roots Manuva's flow is captured on "C'est bon c'est bon", a Lee Perry-type production filled with warp-speed, rock-steady infra-bass and soulful backing vocals.
Location: Bamako, Mali
Album release: November 12, 2012/March 26, 2013
Record Label: EmArcy/Wrasse Import/Universal Music France/Cartell/UMA
Duration:     50:28
Tracks:
01. Da      (3:54)
02. C'est bon, c'est bon (feat. Roots Manuva)      (5:01)
03. A demain      (4:10)
04. Après demain      (4:47)
05. Samfy      (4:54)
06. Simby      (3:52)
07. Natty      (4:28)
08. Yalla      (4:02)
09. Talé      (4:10)
10. Tassi      (4:53)
11. Chérie s'en va (feat. Esperanza Spalding)      (6:18)
Website: http://www.salifkeita.net/en/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/salifkeitamusic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Salif-Keita-Official-Fan-Page/107119345998817
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/salifkeitaof...
Press:
Agent:
BBC Review:
♦♦ A loveable enough effort from the Malian star.
♦♦ Jon Lusk 2013
♦ With Gotan Project’s Philippe Cohen Solal sitting comfortably in the producer’s seat, Talé is guaranteed to appeal to Salif Keita fans demanding dance grooves enough to get them out of theirs.
♦ Although it’s not a particularly bold or ambitious album, Talé is nevertheless a pleasant addition to the Malian artist’s sizeable discography, stretching back to the early 1980s.
♦ Keita perpetuates his love of traditional Manding sounds through the inclusion of Mamane Diabaté on balafon and Aboussi Cissoko on ngoni, among others.
♦ He also resumes a longstanding ambition to move his music into the modern world – as well as connecting it with other genres and places – through his choice of guests.
The most radical and unlikely of these is the UK rapper Roots Manuva, who certainly brings his own distinctive sense of place to C’est Bon, C’est Bon.
♦ Manu Dibango adds a hooting, elephantine sax to the spacey Après-Demain, which slows down and speeds up agreeably before dissolving into dubby effects.
♦ For the first time, Keita has made a strong and confident link with African-American music. Grammy-winning jazz artist Esperanza Spalding and Keita develop a convincing dialogue on Cherie S’en Va.
♦ And don’t worry, be happy that Bobby McFerrin does not sound out of place on the reggae-flavoured Simby. Lastly, Keita’s daughter Natty brings it all back home with a deceleration of love for her father on Natty.
♦ Long-term Keita fans may be disappointed that there are no epic, dramatic ballads in the vein of, say, Soro. And there’s no real wow factor to Talé despite its star guests. ♦ But it’s a loveable enough effort.
Fortaken: http://www.bbc.co.uk/
In french:
CRITIQUE:
Christian Larrède
♦ Cet album est né d’une déflagration et cette déflagration est née d’une rencontre, celle entre Salif Keita, depuis près d’un demi-siècle représentant de la culture musicale de tout un pan de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (et, prioritairement, du Mali), et figure emblématique d’une certaine dignité de l’orthodoxie panafricaine, et Philippe Cohen-Solal, trublion et désintégrateur des poncifs du tango au sein de Gotan Project depuis plus d’une décennie.
♦ Leurs points communs ? Un goût irrévérencieux pour la musique en mouvement, celle qui secoue et remue et danse et leur volonté duelle de saisir la beauté classique de l’art mandingue aux cheveux et de lui faire connaître quelques frissons inusités. La convergence entre les deux est donc Talé, album en onze thèmes où la tradition se collète avec la réalité irisée des studios et où le balafon muse et s’amuse avec un sample du « Planet Claire » des B-52’s.
♦ Comme l’entreprise incite à la fête, les invités sont pléthore : Manu Dibango vient barrir de son saxophone camerounais à deux reprises. Esperanza Spalding, contrebassiste et petite merveille du jazz actuel, démontre dans « Chérie s’en va » sa capacité à incarner une jeune femme en quête d’indépendance dans la banlieue de Bamako. Quant à Bobby McFerrin, ses capacités de virtuose trouvent ici et dans un duo étonnant avec Salif Keita un tremplin inusité. On adjoindra au pandémonium une poignée de musiciens cubains, des samples comme s’il en pleuvait et des fantaisies technologiques (loops, bandes à l’envers, etc.) itou. Et on précisera in fine que le patron reste naturellement cet invraisemblable rossignol malien qui nous tient par la barbichette depuis tout ce temps.
♦ Un disque comme une révolution culturelle, une toilette rafraîchissante de quelques concepts et un nouveau slogan : la symbolique du renouveau, c’est maintenant. ♦ (http://www.music-story.com/salif-keita/tale/critique)
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♦ Salif Keita, the long-time ambassador of Malian music, first met producer Philippe Cohen Solal (Gotan Project), in January 2011. Philippe remembers that the first thing Salif said to him about the album was: “I want it to dance!” and Philippe wanted to make a dance record, so they got off to a very good start.
♦ Both Salif and Philippe wanted to breathe new life into the Mandingo tradition. “I've had enough of playing it safe and being labelled as just another African musician,” says Salif. “Philippe's approach suited me: he loves traditional instruments, so we kept that sound but injected a new flavour.”
♦ Doing what he does best, Philippe sat down in his studio to concoct his latest pièce de résistance, a retro-futuristic sound-clash that fuses organic, primitive sounds with contemporary electronic rhythms with a hint of irreverence and a lot of conviction.
♦ “I never like music to repeat itself but this time I really wanted to take the plunge,” says Salif, who since his rise to fame with the Griots in 1969, has often strayed from the conventional route. ♦ In his career, he has explored Afro Pop, Salsa-with-a-Twist, rhythmical funk and even Afro-Jazz-Rock in his more recent collaborations with Joe Zawinul and Carlos Santana.
♦ This latest disc does exactly that; immersing us in the digital fountain of youth, with a sound that references Remain in Light by Brian Eno and Talking Heads – artists who pioneered their own future with their quest into the sounds of West Africa.
♦ Philippe found working on the album really inspiring. But far from copying it note-for-note, he teased out its spirit to create an otherworldly soundtrack. “You think you're taking the music somewhere, but it's the music that's guiding you; it's the music that decides where to stop or when to keep on exploring.” It seems to bridge a gap between the past and the future, fans of hard-core electro and world music. “We want to pave the way for people to discover this whole continent of new music.”
♦ There was no question of trying a simple remix album; the point was to stick to the true song format and adapt it for the dance-floor.
♦ Simple guitar and voice tapes from Salif lay the foundations for the album’s melodies and harmonies. Rhythmical motifs are woven in and out by local musicians Aboussi Cissoko (n'goni), Mamane Diabaté (balafon), Prince (calabash). They are joined by Cyril Atef from Bumcello on the drums and percussions, Hagar Ben Ari, The Dap Kings’s deep-soul bassist, and Christophe Chassol with his 'Philly-sound' string-arrangements.
♦ The featured artists and Philippe’s 'less notes, more effects' approach accentuate Salif’s natural talent: “There are few singers like Salif. He can put his voice to extremely complicated melodies, and add a perfect overdub. His second vocal was so precise that even he couldn't hear it in the mix.”
♦ Salif was joined in the studio by special guests Manu Dibango and his awesome sax-chorus, and Bobby McFerrin, who improvised a soft melody on the simbi over Salif’s beat-boxing. The Grammy Award-winning artist, Esperanza Spalding, featured on the song “Chérie s’en va” - a dedication to young girls who leave home to marry. And British prodigy Roots Manuva’s flow is captured on “C’est bon c’est bon”, a Lee Perry-type production filled with warp-speed, rock-steady infra-bass and soulful backing vocals.
♦ The exciting result pushes musical boundaries. The distinctive sound of the calabash takes us back to the sound of Seventies Disco, while the sticky afro-beats transport us to Detroit.   Elsewhere, we hear the haunting the sounds of the Gnawas' guembri and their metal qraqebs or Egyptian orchestrations being sampled in the middle of “Yala”. In the dramatic “Tassi”, written about a Bamako woman whose son was executed in the US, Philippe summons the Cumbia genre, with two Cubans – Pity Cabrera on piano and Frank Rubio on bass – and those subtle funky n’goni sounds.
♦ “Tassy” plays on the striking contrast present in this album, conveying the paradox of today's world. Between the lines, Salif speaks with the voice of a sovereign. Although he may be singing odes of love, beneath the veneer, Salif points out the excesses of the powerful and the wealthy, putting them firmly, yet gracefully in their place.
♦ Salif clearly prefers the laughter of children, and the wild fun they have on the streets of Bamako. These children introduce the song “Natty”, named after his youngest daughter. In it, like a grown-up, as tall as her tender years, she says to him: "Je t’aime"/"m'bifé" His answer, which is full of love and with a note of humour, is symbolic of the record and puts Papa Keita back where he belongs!
♦ SALIF KEITA — “TALÉ” — Produced by Philippe Cohen Solal
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REVIEW
By Eglantine Chabasseur
♦♦ Salif Keïta’s new album, Talé, put together with Gotan Project’s Philippe Cohen-Solal in Bamako, moves away from a pure “club” sound and takes its listeners into electro lands. RFI Musique spoke with the Malian musician.
♦♦ It has to be some of the most joyous news to come out of Mali lately: Salf Keïta is bringing out a new album. Ever since the late seventies, Malians have enjoyed buying Keïta’s collections, listening and dancing to them, and subscribing to the creativity of one of Mali’s most brilliant cultural ambassadors.
♦♦ In the meantime, though, Bamako has completely changed. The country is going through the worst crisis in modern history, and its culture is suffering the consequences. The North is subject to Islamic silence, while most of Bamako’s inhabitants no longer go out for want of money and enthusiasm.
♦♦ The crisis is all-enveloping. For Talé, the project he embarked upon before hostilities started in 2011, Salif Keïta called on electro craftsman Philippe Cohen-Solal, producer and architect of Gotan Project. The two men didn’t know each other at the time, but already shared a common goal: dance.
Dancing?
♦♦ People in Bamako may not be putting their whole hearts into it, but Malians are trying to live normally and are in need of something a bit different. Salif Keïta’s voice was excited down the phone line, but took on a darker tone when asked what impact the crisis is having on his life as a musician, and on cultural life in general: “When the people aren’t at ease anymore, neither are the artists. We’re the mirror of society! I still do dance events at my club, the Moffou, so that people don’t shut themselves into sadness. They need to have fun. Malians have had their pride hurt…”
♦♦ In times of crisis, dancing can save souls, free the body and help people to “forget”, Keïta suggested circumspectly. He no longer goes to club events himself – he’s organised so many. For a change of scene, he prefers taking off to the bush in his house forty kilometres from Bamako, or shutting himself up in Kalanban, the island he bought in the centre of the capital. “I spend over half my time there. I contemplate, take my guitar and compose, and sitting there in front of the river, I feel the desire to make people dance,” he mused.
Clubbing
♦♦ During our telephone interview, it turned out that he was at the women’s prison in Bolé. He found a quiet spot to carry on the conversation: “I’ve spent so long playing Mandinka music. ♦♦ Philippe has given me an opportunity to move towards electro. I wanted to get my African identity grooving.” This is not the first time that Salif Keïta will have got people dancing in clubs, though. Madan, his 2002 remix with Martin Solveig, became a staple on some of the trendiest dance floors of London, New York and Tokyo. Madan was taken from Moffou, a pared-down album that immediately became a classic, selling over 250,000 copies. Two years later, it was being remixed by DJs and producers round the globe.
♦♦ Almost a decade on, Philippe Cohen-Solal started off with Bamako’s traditional instruments and brought Keïta’s voice up against other sounds that go beyond the “club” scene. There are some irrefutable successes, like C’est bon, c’est bon, with Roots Manuva, Talé’s intoxicating hit that includes supple bass playing, spirited backing vocals and some exceptional voice echoes from round the world, like one from the set of a Jamaican sound system in London, and another from an overexcited Bamako club.
♦♦ A demain and Après demain sound like two versions of the same love declaration: starting with an electro-Fula romance and followed by a feverish, swooning Afro-beat, boosted by some hot saxophone from Manu Dibango. Another distinctive featuring comes fromBobby Mc Ferrin, "A real honour for me, Bobby’s an angel", insisted Keïta.
Thinking!
♦♦ Many other producers have passed through Bamako, and an electro-Mandinka marriage only works if it makes sense, otherwise it can come out sounding hollow or “lounge”. So for Salif Keïta, did the form influence the content? “I’d say that this time, 70 % was about getting people dancing. It’s true that the lyrics are less important than usual. In Da, I sing that today friendship and family ties mean nothing. It’s all about personal gain. On C’est bon, I explain that I don’t envy kings, diplomats or rich people because they can be bad. Us musicians are there to make people happy. Samfi is a political satire…” Still on the end of the line at the women’s prison, Keïta preferred to say no more on that subject.
♦♦ Thinking, dancing or simply forgetting for the space of a groove, there’s something for everyone in this new album. Salif Keïta keenly observed, “Even if a bag of chillies is empty, where I come from we say that there is always enough in there to make someone sneeze!”
Fortaken: http://www.rfimusic.com/
Also:
Anthony May
http://www.festivalphoto.net/reviews&review=2317
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DISCOGRAPHY:
• Seydou Bathili – 1980
• Soro- 1987 - Mango
• Ko-Yan - 1989 - Mango
• Amen - 1991 - Mango
• Destiny of a Noble Outcast - 1991 - PolyGram
• 69-80 - 1994 - Sonodisc
• Folon - 1995 - Mango
• Rail Band - 1996 - Melodie
• Seydou Bathili - 1997 - Sonodisc
• Papa - 1999 - Blue Note
• Mama - 2000 - Capitol
• The Best of Salif Keita - 2001 - Wrasse Records
• Sosie - 2001 - Mellemfolkeligt
• Moffou - 2002 - Universal Jazz France
• The Best of the Early Years - 2002 - Wrasse Records
• Remixes from Moffou - 2004 - Universal Jazz France
• M'Bemba - 2005 - Universal Jazz France
• The Lost Album - 2006 - Cantos
• La Différence - 2009 - Emarcy
• Talé – 2013
♦♦ Opiyo Oloya Interviews Salif Keita
♦♦ Tuesday, April 23 1996 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Interview: http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/feature/keita2.html
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