Taj Mahal: Kulanjan : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Taj Mahal is no purist. His recordings, which cherry-pick influences from Jamaica to India, suggest that Mississippi mud is just one of the blues' many ingredients. And Toumani Diabate, a modern master of the twenty-one-string kora -- Mali's ax of choice -- has expanded the reach of West African music in jam sessions with classical and flamenco virtuosos. So maybe it was only a matter of time before these two cultural ambassadors found each other to further muddy the world-music gene pool.

Globe-trotting fusion albums can have an almost academic gravity, if not the awkwardness of a blind date. Kulanjan has neither. During a weeklong session in an Athens, Georgia, home, Mahal and Diabate, plus a small Malian string band, achieved an unusually relaxed collaboration. Mahal's finger-picking acoustic guitar, thick rust-bucket vocals and simmering sense of tempo bring a languid, sensual air. Diabate dials down his lightning-quick, aggressive tone slightly, so that he embroiders the songs -- a mix of Malian and blues traditionals - rather than running away with them.

A jam-session informality prevails, from the quiet trio intimacy of "Mississippi-Mali Blues" to the jovial, Cajun-style "Fanta Sacko," with Lasana Diabate prancing on the xylophone-like balafon. Cultural exchanges don't sound more organic or revelatory than "Ol' Georgie Buck," which melts a spirited Southern dance tune into a hand-clapping thirteenth-century Malian groove; Mahal grunts along to a driving six-string hunter's harp and mutters approval as Diabate does a little dancing of his own on the kora. The West African vocalists nearly steal the show, particularly Ramata Diakite, whose voice just about breaks Mahal's heart as she floats through "Queen Bee" and "Take This Hammer." Who says the blues aren't from Mali? (RS 819)

GREG KOT