perfidy

Legendary Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré died this week in Mali after a long illness. His exact age is unknown; he was probably born in 1939. Best know in the USA for his 1994 album with Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu, he leaves behind a body of powerful and idiosyncratic recorded work that stands and some of the best that Africa has ever had to offer. Having achieved international fame in his 50s, he spent the last twenty or so years of his life as he spent this first fifty, as a farmer. The only difference being, from time to time he would step up to a microphone and record some of the finest, deepest, and most elemental guitar music ever made.

I have been fumbling with a proper obituary for the man for an hour now, and I can't seem to do him justice. Instead, I will quote from a short blogcritics piece I wrote in 2004 about Malian music that I feel captures what made Ali FarkaTouré special.

Ali Farka Touré himself is a farmer and local (what... chief? mayor? paterfamilias?), who tends to his village first and his music second. In 1995, he reputedly begged off a US tour claiming that he could not leave his home because if he did, he risked losing his land in an armed skirmish. When in 1998, one of his US labels, Hannibal, wanted to record a new record with him Touré insisted the producers bring a mobile recording rig to his compound at Niafunké. The stunning resulting album, aptly titled Niafunké, was recorded whenever farm chores did not press and whenever the mood struck to pick up his guitar.

In 2000, Touré decided to come to the USA for one last tour before devoting all his time to a village irrigation project. I was lucky enough to see his New York date, August 8, 2000, and I can't ever forget it. A big man in person, on stage he looked ten feet tall, wielding his electric guitar like it was a toy and wrenching from it some of the most searing melodies I have ever heard. He was playful, switching between guitar and njerka (a small one-stringed fiddle) and stopping to explain to the New York audience what he was singing about in the eleven languages he writes in. About halfway through the show, he struck on the game of lifting his leg way up in the air and bringing it down onto the stage with a huge *boom*. His band worked the *boom* into the deep percolating groove they had built, and soon Touré was *boom*ing away, each one accented by a chord from his guitar that sounded like trees breaking in the wind. The entire night was unforgettable and absolutely one of a kind. Ali Farka Touré is often compared to John Lee Hooker, whose elemental blues sound seemed to emanate from some half-remembered Mali of the mind, but on that night Ali Farka Touré sounded like Timbuktu.

Before the show, I shared a cab with record producer and Hannibal label owner Joe Boyd, who asked me about African music and what I thought about it. I mentioned Ali Farka Touré, Johnny Clegg, Fela Kuti and a few others before bringing up Angelique Kidjo, who had just released her pop-inflected album Oremi the previous year. Boyd looked at me quizzically and said, "you like that? That speaks to you?" I admitted that it didn't really, it just sounded nice, and he told me that someday, smart kid that I was, I would figure it out, I would get it.

Later that night, I got it.

I should also mention that on that same night, I met Mr. Touré briefly in his dressing room, where he took my stammered compliments with leonine reserve (I speak no French; he gave no indication whether English was among his many tongues). Up close, he seemed positively regal. It was not just that was a large man, but he radiated a genial calmness, a sense of presence, that made it seem that he was simply... in charge. When I saw him on stage seemingly shooting lightning from his fingertips or dancing with his one-string gourd fiddle, It was then that I got it. The god dances and we all must watch. That night was the best concert I have ever seen, or hope to see; it literally changed my life. And now, he's gone. And if his passing matters this much to me, who orbited him once for about forty-five seconds, in Mali it will surely be met with public fetes and much sorrow.

If you have not yet begun your collection of Ali Farka Touré recordings, I would recommend starting with Talking Timbuktu, which is in some ways his most accessible album. Made with Ry Cooder, it is a little less skeletal (and a little more Western) than much of Touré's other work, and is a good point of entry to his music and to Malian music in general. After that, you can take your pick of any one of a number of his records: I am partial to Niafunké and The Source, though many people swear by his self-titled debut on Mango, or Radio Mali, a collection of radio broadcast recordings. You should also check out his last album, 2005 Grammy winner for Best World Music Album, In The Heart of the Moon, which he recorded with Kora master Toumani Diabate. In something of a departure from his other albums, Touré gently winds circular rhythmic guitar lines around and underneath the ethereal waterfall plinking of Diabate's kora (a kind of many-stringed west African harp). Although it was never intended as one, it is a fitting capstone to the career of a giant of Malian music.