Mamady Kouyate & Mandingo Ambassadors
Sunday, April 17th 8:00 PM
The Rotunda
4014 Walnut Street
Philadelphia
FREE
Mamady Kouyate & Mandingo Ambassadors:
The Mandingo Ambassadors was founded in New York City by griot-guitarist Mamady Kouyate in 2005. As a veteran of the great orchestras of the golden age of Guinean dance bands, Mamady is a living library of musical science inherited from his ancestors and from a half century of experience as an arranger, band leader, accompanist and soloist. Mamady Kouyate carried this heritage with him to New York where he has collaborated with members of the West African diaspora and Western musicians to continue the great tradition and sound of Guinean Afro-jazz.
"The music of the Mandingo Ambassadors has been structured to make you feel good. It puts dazzling vocal and guitar patterns over a rhythm section that is like a perfect system: a locked drum groove, much of it played on high-hat cymbal and drum rims; soft bass lines that fall short or start late, or leave gaps in a run of notes; fingerpicked rhythm guitar notes like clear fizz.
(...)The friction between the elder Mr. Kouyate and the rhythm guitarist Mamady Kourouma, their phrases running together and pulling apart, drove the band. Mr. Kouyate's leads were high, trebly phrases, wet with echo, dipping occasionally for a run of authoritative low notes. The rhythm notes, which Mr. Kourouma played with his fingers, popped along steadily. It could have gone on forever, and that was a nice thought." -Ben Ratliff/New York Times
"Guinean guitarist Mamady "Djelike" Kouyate came of age among such legendary 1970s guitarcentric combos as the Horoya Band and Bembeya Jazz, which blended Cuban rumba with traditional balafon-based sounds." - Richard Gehr/Village Voice
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