Toumani, ever the griot, embraces its educational component with a number of pre- and post-performance demonstrations and Q&As at university concerts, like tonight's at UMass, Amherst. He and his Symmetric Orchestra performed in New York City last weekend, which the Village Voice describes as "a decidedly extroverted, celebratory affair," such that midway in, "the band and crowd were at a full lather, ebullient and ecstatic." Time Out New York says: "By the end of the main set, the stage was flooded with audience members, dancing feverishly, arms and legs flailing. The show built to a roar; the crowd jumped to its feet, passionately cheering."
Toumani Diabaté and his Symmetric Orchestra are at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for a performance at the school's Fine Arts Center tonight, preceded by a free pre-performance talk with Professor of Music Olabode Omojola. Toumani and members of the band also participated in the school's official Earth Day celebrations yesterday with a drum circle outside the Center.
Toumani, ever the griot, continues to embrace the role's educational component with other upcoming concerts, including the pre-performance demonstrations and post-performance Q&A around this Saturday's concert at Burlington, Vermont's Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, and next week's free discussion and demonstration on Dartmouth's Brace Commons a day before a concert there.
The kora master and his band were in New York City last weekend for two shows at the Greenwich Village club Le Poisson Rouge. In the Village Voice's "Sound of the City" blog, reviewer Andy Beta calls Sunday's show "a decidedly extroverted, celebratory affair," such that, by the fourth song, "the band and crowd were at a full lather, ebullient and ecstatic."
And after all that, these performances, too, included a tutorial of sorts on the ancient instrument. Reports Beta: "He demonstrated how he could elicit such heavenly sounds from just thumbs and forefingers, the left thumb handling the bass tones, the right thumb the melody, the two lightning-quick digits improvising effortlessly."
Read the review at blogs.villagevoice.com.
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In Time Out New York's music blog "The Volume," reviewer Jay Ruttenberg reports on the party atmosphere as well. "By the end of the main set, the stage was flooded with audience members, dancing feverishly, arms and legs flailing," he writes. "The show built to a roar; the crowd jumped to its feet, passionately cheering."
Ruttenberg declares last year's The Mandé Variations, a more reverential, solo album by Toumani, to be his favorite of the kora player's albums. And even backed by his raucous band, he found Diabaté to remain "Yoda-like at the center of a storm. Not for nothing does one collaborator, Björk, call him a 'sage.'"
Read the review at www3.timeoutny.com.
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