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Release Date: 26-10-1998
Label: Celestial Harmonies
Catalog Number: 11104-2
Barcode: 13711110425
Musical Style: World
Track Listing:
| Disc 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kassa [04:09] | 5 | Allah Lake [13:36] |
| 2 | Santea [05:10] | 6 | Salikaro [04:28] |
| 3 | Yankadi [07:02] | 7 | Dounya [05:32] |
| 4 | Soli [05:36] | ||
Description:
Although world music has become very popular in recent years, flutist and composer Paul Horn has been pursuing his own personal vision of world music for three decades. In his new album Africa, Paul Horn combines his lyrical flute and saxophone playing with the traditional sounds of West African drums, voices and strings. The album features the Guinean master musician Sékou Camara Cobra, as well as two of his French-Canadian students. Sékou performs on guitar and numerous traditional West African drums and sings in two languages, Malinke and Susu. Although the pieces are all original compositions by Sékou, they fall squarely in the ancient tradition of the West African griot. The griots were the hereditary minstrels and storytellers of West Africa; Sékou was born into a griot family of the famous Mandingo tradition. Already a compelling mixture of Western and West African music, Africa is also a seamless blend of old and new. The use of the flute and guitar is not traditional, but has become more common in West African music of this century. Horn's flute and Sékou's guitar clearly echo the sounds of griot instruments like the folk harp and the lute and these original compositions are built around traditional Guinean rhythms and stories. The mood of this recording varies widely, from the joyous, swinging rhythms of Kassa (based on a Malinke rhythm used in working the fields) to the lovely harp-like guitar playing on the ballad Dounya. In addition to the obvious talents of Paul Horn and Sékou Camara Cobra, both Francine Martel and Nathalie Dussault add their voices and the sounds of the kora (lute-harp) and djembé (talking drum). Tragically, this recording was completed just two months before Sékou Camara Cobra's death.
Biography:
A classically trained flautist, Paul Horn played jazz with Chico Hamilton, served as a top studio musician in Los Angeles and recorded with his own quintet in the early 1960s. During that time, he won two Grammy® Awards for his Jazz Suite On The Mass Texts. Increasing dissatisfaction with the Hollywood lifestyle led Horn to India on his search for alternatives, where he studied meditation and began to explore other ways of playing his instrument. The success of his intuitive and contemplative improvisations on Inside the Taj Mahal proved that audiences were ready for a new approach and opened the door to a series of recordings inside acoustic and architectural wonders around the world, including Inside the Great Pyramid and Inside the Cathedral. Both Horn's cross–cultural collaborations and his highly refined works for more conventional Western ensembles have garnered much critical acclaim.
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