The plucked melodic twang of the ngoni, a west African lute, has long added an unexpected texture to fusion records. Jazz trumpeter Don Cherry featured the stringed instrument cutting through his full-throated blasts on albums throughout the 1970s and 80s, while producer Marc Minelli blended ngonis with synth melody on his 2001 Electro Bamako project and Malian singer Rokia Traoré used the instrument to bolster electric guitar on her rock-influenced 2013 record Beautiful Africa. Swedish flautist Annarella Sörlin is the latest artist to be inspired by the instrument, on her lyrical debut album with Malian ngoni master Django Diabaté.
Several of the record’s 11 tracks feature Diabaté playing alongside a full band accompaniment of flute, bass, drums and keys, to mixed effect. On the mid-tempo funk of Megaphone, Diabaté sits back in the mix, repeating a minimal lead line reminiscent of an electric guitar against the easy groove, while on Degrees of Freedom shimmering keys, clarinet and reverb-laden guitar subsume Diabaté in their desert blues atmospherics.
These are unobtrusive tracks allowing neither the flute nor ngoni to shine, particularly – but when Sörlin and Diabaté strip back the full-band accompaniment, their artistry comes to the fore. Reverberating hand claps and sparse bass drum provide a swaying foundation to Diabaté’s lightning-fast and deeply expressive runs on Hommage à Dallas Dialy Mory Diabaté, while Intro rings with bucolic beauty thanks to its finger-picked acoustic guitar and simple interchanging melodies between ngoni and flute. Closing track Pluie Melancholique is a highlight, featuring Sörlin soaring through keening lines as melodica provides echoes of Diabaté’s tender phrases.
When Sörlin and Diabaté are left exposed, their pairing of flute and ngoni produces a gentle yet pervasive chemistry. Veering from the percussive, whistled flute lines and muscular plucking patterns of Aduna Ak Asaman to the yearning, long phrases of No More, Jouer is an engaging first outing for a promising partnership.
Also out this month
Ethiopian jazz luminary Mulatu Astatke and afro-fusion collective Hoodna Orchestra release their debut album Tension (Batov Records), a loud and often intensely energetic reimagining of Astatke’s jauntily melodic sound. French Algerian singer and cellist Nesrine presents a propulsive blend of Arabic folk melody, western classical and singer-songwriting on Kan Ya Makan (ACT). It’s a heady mix, anchored in the raw, low-register power of her voice. Singer Ganavya continues her exploration of the intersections between spiritual jazz and Indian classical music on Daughter of a Temple (Leiter). It’s in her lusciously arranged versions of Hindu spiritual chants like Om Namah Sivaya and Prema Muditha that Ganavya touches something deeper than song.
