Vieux Kante – The Young Man’s Harp (Sterns Africa, 2016)
I suspect that unseen, undiscovered masters of all shapes, sizes and disciplines brush past us unnoticed and move on their way through life and probably more often than we would really be comfortable with if we had the slightest inkling. So, it must be a real coup for the art seller, movie director or record producer to catch that kind of brilliance and be able to hang it on the wall, capture it on film or snag that illusive talent on tape. There’s that one moment where the extraordinary is captured for all time. It must be like picking out that shiny bit from the dullness and slipping it into a pocket like a found treasure. Nothing could be truer of that shiny bit of brilliance captured than Sterns Africa’s release of Malian musician Vieux Kante’s The Young Man’s Harp.
Known throughout Mali’s Bamako’s music scene, but really unknown to the rest of the world’s musical landscape, Vieux Kante was the master of the kamele ngoni, going so far to add a couple of strings to the instrument to achieve his own vision of what the instrument could become.
Thrumming strings to capture the rhythm, bending notes like a seasoned blues singer and even mimicking the sound of a Brazilian cuica on the kamele ngoni, Mr. Kante, along with his band of jembe drummer, bassist and singer Kabadjan Diakite, crafted a sound that’s dazzling. The unfortunate tragedy is that music was silenced in 2005 when Mr. Kante died unexpectedly at the age of 31. But the clever producer Cheikh Oumar Kouyate saw the shiny treasure of Mr. Kante’s music for what it was and recorded Mr. Kante and that recording is now available as the release of The Young Man’s Harp.
A real treat for Malian music fans, The Young Man’s Harp opens with the fiery rich ‘Sans Commentaire’ with bluesy twists and turns that showcases the true mastery of Mr. Kante’s range on the kamele ngoni against a backdrop of percussion and bass. At first, the piece comes across as spare before the whirlwind of incendiary playing takes over.
‘Lambanco’ is ripe with that familiar feel good cheer of Malian revolving rhythm and vocals. The tracks ‘Fatoumata’ with vocalist Kabadjan Diakite and ‘Saradia’ are truly standout tracks. Listeners get a real sense of the complexity and mastery of Mr. Kante’s playing with these two tracks as they showcase hints at hard rock, Brazilian and jazz sensibilities woven into fabric of the music.
Equally delicious are the tracks ‘‘Sinamon,’ ‘Nafolo’ and the catchy closing track ‘Kono.’
I have no doubt that had Mr. Kante lived he and his band would have blazed a path across the world music scene. Brilliance might have just brushed past us, so it’s lucky someone caught and captured the bright, shiny strains of Mr. Kante’s music so that we might have it for a long, long time.
Buy The Young Man’s Harp in the Americas
Buy The Young Man’s Harp in Europe
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
