Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some experiments fail but not this one, 25 May 2005
Here's an album so atmospheric you need a decompression chamber after you've heard it. He was born Henry St Clair Fredericks (in New York) but it came to him in a dream that he should call himself Taj Mahal. He's been on a musical odyssey since the 1960s, paying homage to every type of black music he can find - not dissimilar from the path chosen by Ry Cooder, with whom the parallels are obvious - together they formed the short-lived Rising Sons in 1966, and as solo artists both have made album collaborations with Ali Farka Toure and the veena player, V.M. Bhatt. So Taj is already an experienced African musical traveller - he's also done one with Malian kora player Toumani Diabate. Not all TM's experimental albums work, but this one from Zanzibar is a winner all the way.
From Samuel Charter's field trip to Ghana in the 1950s there has been a yearning to connect African-American music with Africa, either directly (did blues forms originate in griot singing?) or indirectly (does the blues singer inhabit the same cultural space as (say) the griots of West Africa?) But the dots cannot be joined so easily and the scholars have returned emptyhanded. When Ali Farka Toure was heard by Westeners the eureka cries were stifled when it was found that he learned all his blues from John Lee Hooker records. So there is a poignancy to TM's quest to marry the lush taarab music of Zanzibar with the soft, sad lilt of the country blues - the latest chapter of his "ongoing musical journey to the source - nothing more and nothing less" as the blurb says.
The Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar, one of the country's prominent folk orchestras (est. 1958), combines Arabic and African traditions, so the lineup includes accordions, nai, three violins, sanduku and three singers, one of which is Bikidude who is, apparently, well into her nineties. Taj brought his rhythm section along, and the ensuing soft collision is like a dream John Fahey might have had, "Stomping Tonight on the Banks of the Mississippi/Rufiji Confluence".
This was indeed an experimental album. The press release says "there was no chance in preparing the music to be made in advance". Some experiments fail, and Taj could have been left with a heap of bent sandukus and smouldering accordions. Instead of which we now have this lovely dream of an album.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
This collaboration DOES DOES DOES work, 17 Dec 2008
Some of the press reviews of this CD expressed disappointment at the outcome of this apparently unlikely collaboration. Having returned to the music again and again over the past couple of years I think this is because the reviewers didn't give it enough time. So if you're prepared to suspend your possible prejudices for a few listens you'll probably find this music creeping under your defences, and before too long you should find the mix of the two styles totally, utterly seductive, and natural too.
Generalising a bit, the tracks alternate between giving one or other side of the collaboration the lead part. So those worried about the possible unfamiliarity and strangeness of the Taarab style of the East African coast can ease themselves in gently with, say, the opening track which is very much Taj Mahal's. It's also a good example of how natural sounding the collaboration gets to sound: I now simply can't imagine this track being so successful without the swooping, slashing interjections by the Zanzibari string players.
On the other hand, where the Zanzibaris take the lead Taj Mahal and his rhythm section make sympathetically powerful contributions, and you feel the Zanzibaris in turn being inspired to greater things. Bikidude, well into her 90s can still blow most singers away - in fact her two tracks will probably have most newcomers checking the personnel listing to verify that it is indeed a woman singer. (What is it with these Muslim old ladies? Cheikha Remitti also carried on showing the youngsters how to do it right up until her death from old age - and incidentally like Biki also courageously championed Muslim women's rights to birth control etc.)
Taj Mahal is, or should be, a national - or rather international - treasure. He is so firmly embedded in the black roots of US - and therefore also by derivation African - musical culture that anyone with a reasonable experience of US popular music over the last 70 years, and an open mind, should have no difficulty giving this a fair hearing. But as stated earlier, make sure that becomes several fair hearings to allow the magic to fully work.
Finally, don't be put off by the artwork which is a fair contender for the worst album cover ever. It's presumably intended to be primitive art - but ignore that, all the art you could want is on the CD.
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~ Taj Mahal
![Leonard Cohen - Live In London [DVD] [2008] [NTSC]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41fupak39DL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
DVD ~ Leonard Cohen
~ Toumani Diabaté
~ Toumani Diabate
~ Taj Mahal
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