The first time David Harrington met Trio Da Kali, they made him cry. The lead violinist and founder of Kronos Quartet was at the home of a colleague in London where he was to be introduced to the three Malian musicians. The door opened and there stood Hawa Diabaté, who spontaneously broke into a Malian praise song on the threshold. “She was smiling and singing for me,” Harrington tells me. Her song moved him to tears. Almost five years later, he is still spellbound. “It was incredible to be brought into a world of music I’d never encountered.”
Diabaté’s voice and presence reminded him of American gospel diva and civil rights activist Mahalia Jackson; for a moment, he says, “it was like having Jackson herself sing to me”.
For Diabaté, too, it was a powerful moment of connection. “I sang one of my songs in Bamana [her mother tongue]. A song of women. David is an artist with a big heart,” she says. “He is like a father.”
The two groups have collaborated on a superb new album, Ladilikan, produced by ethnomusicologist Lucy Durán and Nick Gold of World Circuit Records. It was Durán’s matchmaking that brought them together. Kronos Quartet were looking to collaborate with Malian artists and Durán tapped three griots – hereditary musicians – all from extraordinary musical families, to form a sort of supergroup. Vocalist Diabaté (the daughter of the celebrated singer Kassé-Mady Diabaté) is backed by the balafon (xylophone) played by Fodé Lassana Diabaté, and the bass n’goni (lute) played by Mamadou Kouyaté. “I thought they would complement the sound of the quartet and would bring out the ‘classical’ side of the [west Aftican] Mande repertoire,” Durán says. Their lineup, too, is a traditional one, a format that, along with the traditional music they perform, is an endangered species in contemporary Mali.
Making music with a Malian supergroup is all in a day’s work for Kronos. The quartet has worked with musical partners from all over the world, from folk and pop to jazz and world music. But, says Harrington, the enchantment of that first meeting led to something special on Ladilikan. “The interaction felt really natural,” he says. “We felt appreciated, and we hope they did too for the immense tradition they embody with every note they play. It’s one of our most beautiful collaborations.”
None of the trio had ever heard a string quartet, nor were they familiar with western classical music. Lassana Diabaté confesses that he was anxious how his percussive balafon would blend with Kronos’s strings. When the seven musicians first sat down to rehearse together, he was particularly curious to hear what Kronos had done with one of his own compositions, Samuel, for solo balafon. Durán’s album notes pick up the story: “A cascade of delicate interlocking melodies, some bowed, some plucked, began flowing. Lassana’s jaw dropped in astonishment. When it was over he had tears in his eyes. He rushed over to grab David’s hand. ‘You play it better than me!! I can’t believe what you have done. This is going to be the best collaboration I’ve ever done in my life!’”
The interaction of the trio with the strings on the album is artfully done, running the gamut from subtle harmonic counterpoint, to circular riffs reminiscent of Steve Reich’s minimalism, to grander phrasings that seem to join the dots between Malian blues and Appalachian folk.
One of Harrington’s favourite gospel songs, God Shall Wipe All Tears Away, recorded in the 1930s by Jackson, is at the heart of the album, reworked with lyrics in Bamana and showcasing Hawa’s powerful contralto voice, with Kronos’s strings emulating the legato sustain of the original’s church organ.
The title track, Ladilikan – which translates as “words of advice” – draws on another Jackson song, I’m Going to Live the Life I Sing About in My Song. New lyrics address the threat posed by Islamist extremists who seized parts of northern Mali in 2012 and declared religious war against music, among other things. Hawa sings: “You can’t pray on Friday then go out on Saturday and murder children.” Many musicians fled south to the relative safety of the capital, Bamako, although the coup’s economic impact has been a disaster for the city’s musical life. While the jihadist threat dissipated after the French military intervened, extremist factions are still operating in the country, and its musicians continue to defy the violent attempt to erase Mali’s ancient musical culture.
“Lots of things about religion are good – don’t lie, don’t kill, don’t steal,” Fodé says. “That’s part of our culture, but now there are extremists who say you can’t dance and you can’t play music because God doesn’t like that. But God is big and great and doesn’t need anyone to fight his battles.”
“We are griots … We bring peace. We are examples for the youth. We want to bring joy, and council.”
Working with Kronos has changed the way he perceives his instrument, he adds. “I’ve found a way to make music on the balafon in a classical music context where people sit and listen. With this project, I can show that the balafon can do it all – it can make you dance [and] it can make you listen.”
Harrington concurs and talks with delight about the virtuosity on the album. Over the five days it took to record Ladilikan, the quartet were treated to daily improvisations from Fodé, his wooden mallets dancing over the rosewood keys of his balafon. “Before every take Lassana did a little improv to get himself and everyone in the mood,” he says. “Imagine hearing one of Bach’s Goldberg Variations before every take, but the variation was on the music we were about to play. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to being in the same room with JS Bach.”
Ladilikan is on World Circuit Records. Trio da Kali play Musicport Festival, Whitby (21 Oct), Howard Assembly Room at Opera North, Leeds (22 Oct), St Barnabas Church, Oxford (25 Oct) and The Old Church, Stoke Newington, London (26 October).
