Paris Bamako Jazz

Griot Jazz, the collaboration between ngoni and talking drum master Baba Sissoko, Lansiné Kouyaté on balafon, Madou Sidiki Diabaté and the blind French keyboard legend Jean-Philippe Rykiel rightly earned a four star review in March 2022 (#175) and – even though the balafon and kora are missing this time around – the follow-up is every bit as tasty. Recorded in a single afternoon, the spirit is spontaneous and improvisational but there’s a warm flow and coherence that come from two old friends who know each other intimately, so that the 11 tracks never fall into inchoate jamming. Partly sung and partly instrumental, Sissoko for the most part takes the melodic lead and Rykiel fills in around him on electric keyboards and Rhodes piano. ‘Beni Dakan’ starts things off fabulously with Sissoko singing soulfully over a slow jazz-blues groove while Rykiel weaves modal patterns around the earthy plucking of the ngoni. Elsewhere the title track builds thrillingly to a syncopated climax with Rykiel’s keyboards vamping like Ray Manzarek on the Doors’ ‘Riders on the Storm’. Yet he doesn’t overplay his hand and gives Sissoko his head on tracks such as the bubbling ‘Tienebedeli’ and the lovely Mande tune ‘Makono So’.