Justin Time /

No
Title
Duration
Excerpts
01
Worosodon
00:02:44
02
Yaral Sa Doom
00:04:14
ogg      mp3      
03
Doudou N'Diaye Rose
00:07:00
ogg      mp3      
04
Xamleen Xammé
00:05:31
ogg      mp3      
05
Djembé
00:06:20
06
Modou Modou
00:05:31
07
Tassu
00:04:35
08
Sangara
00:04:26
09
Daan Sa Doole
00:05:12
10
Meeting In Dakar - Pancum Ndakaru
00:04:02

Liner Notes

Mor Thiam: Back To Africa

When Senegalese griot, master percussionist and jazz man Mor Thiam titles his recording debut as a leader, "Back To Africa", the gesture is one of fealty to the traditions and musical circles that launched him in the world-at-large. After all, how can you return to where you've never left? How can you leave a place you've arrived at through your own implacable sense of direction? Truly one can't go home again - so it's tempting to write that Mor Thiam's high-spirited, impressively personal music could just as well be called "Out of Africa" or "Sounds of the Earth Gone 'Round."

Make no mistake: all of the tracks on Mor's first Justin Time release as a leader were recorded in Dakar, capital of Senegal. The music is by a hand-picked all-star West African ensemble, with keyboardist D.D. Jackson, a Canadian New Yorker of African-American and Chinese ethnic extraction, the sole ringer. Authentic African rhythm features alternate with up-to-the-minute Afro-pop. And Mor Thiam has come out of Africa, yet Africa can never be got out of Mor Thiam.

But "Back To Africa" inevitably suggests something of its creator's global perspective and pan-cultural wisdom. Having come to the United States in the late '60s to join Katherine Dunham's dance company as composer-in-residence and head of the percussion department of Southern Illinois University, Mor was in the right place at the right time to hook up with the most venturesome American modernists. These included innovative members of St. Louis' Black Artists Group such as Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake, founders of the World Saxophone Quartet. Through WSQ baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett, Mor eventually met pianist Don Pullen, who put him in his African Brazilian Connection sextet with Brazilian "timba" percussionist Guilherme Franco. The ABC recorded four critically acclaimed albums, including a project with indigenous Americans from Montana's Salish-Kootenai Reservation.

In 1998, Mor collaborated with Hamiet Bluiett and pianist D.D. Jackson on "Same Space" (Justin Time Records). Since the mid '90s, he's maintained a residence in Atlanta, Georgia and a home in Dakar. Touring endlessly, Mor is an energetic, well-rooted cosmopolitan.

On "Back To Africa," Mor draws on sources from Senegal, Gambia, Mali, the Ivory Coast Guinea and Sierra Leone to convey very particular messages. "Worosodon," the album's innovation, is (he says), "a rhythm played in appreciation of the local masters for year-long food, housing, peace and freedom to do whatever they (the drummers, the people) like with their lives and their families."

"Yaral Sa Doom," Mor's composition with a sprightly kora figure complimented by a harmonized horn riff (and solo by Thierno Koité, reedist for Youssou N'Dour), keyboards and vocal chorus, is a call to educate youth. The third track, a layering of patterns on rare drums led by West African stick drummer Doudou N'Diaye Rose, employs a beat from public village festivities in which "everyone is invited to come enjoy themselves." Mor sings lead on "Xamleen Xammé," an elaborate arrangement of kora, tenor sax, guitar and keyboards (both played by Cheikh Tidiane Tall), and backup vocals, meaning "Know, and know what you know."

"Djembé" is a workout for Mor Thiam and Lamine Diallo of the National Ballet of Senegal, with Baboulaye Sissokho playing '"lamb" and "thiol" (a hollow log). The subtleties of the syncopated and tuned percussions - Mor's djembé being hourglass-shaped, with rivets set in two metal "ears" - reward close listening. Try to distinguish the drummers' parts, hear the accents and feel when the rhythms shift. Imagine the dance changing.

"I'm soloing on most of the tunes;" explains Mor. "Doudou and Yamar Thiam, who is one of the greatest of talking drum (tama) players, and Mbaye Dieye Faye" -Youssou N'Dour's percussionist- "play stick drums, though you might say the talking drum is a one-hand, one-stick drum. Mamane Thiam is Yamar's son; he also plays tama. What they do merges with what I do on drums, mostly with my hands. You can hear the high, low and middle pitches, separately. But mixing it all together is what makes it so powerful."

Modou Modou is Mors paean for African émigrés, men and women "trying to make an honest living in the States or Europe, not doing anything wrong, though unfortunately they may not be legal in their paperwork. In their own minds, they're breaking the law; even in Africa they do that," he says. Yes, Mor is singing of "America," while Cheikh Tidiane Tall and D.D. Jackson underscore the kora with multiple keyboard parts; then Jackson solos with a calliope-like sound.

Tassu says that when Africans speak, we speak to the drum. You play what you say, and say what you play. All these pieces are based on traditional rhythms," Mor cautions. "There's some jazz feel in the improvisations, but what we've all done here is put the tradition to modern music. We all agree: This is not jazz, it's African pop music like what Youssou N'Dour and Baba Maal have done. Cheikh Tidiane Tall, our musical director, is a most distinctive arranger and one of the first of the musicians to export Senegalese music to other peoples, working with the biggest West African stars."

The musicians in this ensemble have long histories in such company. N'Diaye Samb Mboup grew up with Mor Thiam, and is "a male vocalist of the highest rank, doing both commercial and traditional songs; a writer and composer who's popular in the community." Mor continues, "Fatou Talla N'Diaye is one of the most powerful female singers we have,' as demonstrated by her stunning chorus on "Xamleen Xammé." "Both are lead vocalists of the National Instrument Ensemble - like the National Symphony
Orchestra - of Senegal. Baboulaye Sissokho plays kora in the national orchestra. Papa Samb Sour is a master of the Western drum kit, or trap set."

"It's hard to adapt our African music," Mor acknowledges. "We usually get the messages across, but timing the rhythms is tricky; usually we must do something familiar along with something new, of course." He says, "the Western instruments come from traditional African musical instruments anyway." And by now most Western ears understand African messages - so very like Western ones.
"'Sangara', I wrote that because I see the harm to anything in your life-your spirituality, your family, your self-that comes from any drug or anything that you overdo," Mor says. "Don't get close to using such a thing" Mor says. "It's better to run away from it."

He translates "Daan Sa Doole" as "be honest for satisfaction: that's the policy of the world;" and of "Meeting In Dakar" he says, "We got together there for the best medicine: knowledge and creativity. We were all blessed to meet in Dakar, which is where our African music began."

How far have Mor Thiam, and African music come? All the way "Back To Africa".