Bassekou Kouyate and True Blues to Perform in Los Angeles February 8, 2014

Malian ngoni maestro Bassekou Kouyate and his outstanding ensemble Ngoni Ba is scheduled to perform Saturday, February 8, 2014 at Royce Hall, UCLA. Blues musician Corey Harris will open the concert.

Ngoni Ba includes four sizes of ngoni, backed by percussion from the calabashes and tama (West African talking drum) with Kouyate’s wife Amy Sacko in lead vocals.

Bassekou Kouyate has collaborated with many musicians in and outside of Mali. He played in the Symmetric trio together with Toumani Diabate (kora) and Keletigui Diabate (balafon). He was part of Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabate’s “Kulanjan” project, as well as being one of the key musicians on Ali Farka Touré’s posthumous album “Savane” that was released July 2006.

After his celebrated debut album Segu Blue and the follow-up I speak fula, hundreds of concerts all over the globe, performing as headliner in the AfroCubism project Bassekou Kouyate released the critically acclaimed album Jama ko.

Guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, bandleader and MacArthur Genius Grant winner Corey Harris has become a standard bearer for acoustic blues guitar, performing with Alvin Youngblood Hart and Guy Davis in a stripped-down all-acoustic set of his ongoing passion project, True Blues.

General tickets ($25-$60) are available at cap.ucla.edu, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 310.825.2101 or in person at the UCLA Central Ticket Office located in the southwest corner of the James West Alumni Center.