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This wasn’t so much of a grand opening as a work in progress preview before an audience of warmth-seeking guinea pigs. The coldest March in fifty years brought them to The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff for a night of a thousand and one strings. After the last had been plucked, they disappeared into the slate grey gloom halo’d by what connoisseurs of the British breakfast might call a “Ready Brek” glow.

Apart from a brief first attempt a few years ago involving the great Toumani Diabate, Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita had only been working on their mission to marry the classical harp and the West African kora in total, on an off, for less than a week. This was hard to tell at times given the instinctive intertwining of notes that cascaded up the aisles, eddied round the rafters and poured into the ears of the magnetized audience. Discerning precisely whose flurried fingers were responsible for which cascade often proved fruitless.

This album, which is the third in the series, consists of a unique selection of largely undiscovered tracks from many of the less known corners of the musical globe.

Seckou Keita Miro Astar (48 mins)

Well-travelled griot keeps the home fires burning

Seckou Keita is representative of a new breed of African musician for whom the world really has become a global village. Born into a griot family in the Casamance region of Senegal, he now lives in Nottingham, and recorded this album in six countries across three continents, from Dakar to Havana and from Seville to Bogota. The opening track ‘Rewmi’ (Country) was a popular anthem calling for unity during the Senegalese elections earlier this year, with Keita’s rippling kora work and sturdy voice underpinned by female backing vocals, calabash and the throbbing pulse of Cuban bass player Michel ‘Pata’ Salazar. ‘Hino’ finds the Spanish singer Inma ‘La Carbonera’ delivering a characteristically passionate flamenco vocal in duet with the soulful, Arabic-tinged voice of Mohamed Diaby over Keita’s lovely solo kora. Salazar returns again on ‘Kouma’, a tour de force on which he’s joined by Colombian percussion, flute and balafon. Yet the album is far from being a global mishmash of styles. Rather it beats strongly with a sense of unity of purpose, rooted in both Mandinka and Wolof traditions, so that however far Keita’s musical travels take him, his proud griot heritage journeys with him.

TRACK TO TRY: Kouma

Nigel Williamson

SECKOU KEITA Senegal KORA, VOICE, DJEMBE
ADAMA BILOROU DEMBELE Burkina Faso BALAFON, CONGAS, DJEMBE
ALFRED BANNERMAN Ghana ELECTRIC & ACOUSTIC GUITARS
BINTA SUSO Gambia VOICE
DRAMANE DEMBELE Burkina Faso FLUTE
FANTA YAYO Guinea Conakry VOICE
GUIMBA KOUYATE Mali NGONI
MANECAS COSTA Guinea Bissau VOICE & ACOUSTIC GUITAR
MARIAMA KOUYATE Senegal VOICE
MICHEL PADRON Cuba TRUMPET
MICHEL ‘PATA’ SALAZAR Cuba BASS
NII BOYE OWOO Ghana VOICE
SUNTOU SUSSO Gambia CALABASH, HI-HAT, DUN DUNS
TAPHA GAYE Senegal ELECTRIC GUITAR
TAPHA N’DIONGUE Senegal DRUM KIT
THOMAS OLA Ivory Coast SAXOPHONE & KEYBOARDS

For more information check out the BBC Radio 4 page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01jhb34