Kalo-Yele (Intakt Records)
Aly Keïta, Jan Galega Brönnimann, Lucas Niggli
Released January 15, 2016
The Telegraph Best Jazz Albums of 2016
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=YV45sV2SEiM
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About:
Aly Keïta is one of the grand masters of the balafon, the West African xylophone. The Ivorian musician fits the balafon in interaction with artists such as Joe Zawinul, Omar Sosa and Jan Garbarek. Together with the Swiss clarinetist Jan Galega Brönnimann and Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli Keïta mixes the traditional African repertoire with Western jazz, Improvisation and African rhythms. This “Brotherhood of vibes and grooves” takes the audience on an adventurous ride.
The first element that underlies “Kalo-Yele” (“moonlight” in Bambara) is a human and affective dimension, whose origin lies many miles from Switzerland and several decades before the three musicians entered the studio. Niggli and Jan Galega Brönnimann were actually born in Cameroon and they have been friends since they were… one year old! So, they spent their youth to the sounds and rhythms of West African music.
Thierry Quénum writes in the liner notes: “If you ever wanted to try and classify the repertoire and interaction of these three musicians, I’d just have to wish you good luck! For each of them can handle the melody as well as the rhythm, or sail close to the jazz coasts as easily as near the banks of so called “world music”.
Track Listing:
1. Kalo-Yele (Keïta) 5:00
2. Nyanga (Brönnimann) 4:54
3. Bean Bag (Niggli) 6:04
4. Mamabamako (Brönnimann) 5:13
5. Makuku (Keïta) 4:47
6. Langa (Brönnimann) 4:10
7. Abidjan Serenade (Brönnimann) 5:06
8. Dreams of Mikael (Keïta) 6:04
9. Bafut (Brönnimann) 4:29
10. Adjamé Street (Keïta) 4:58
Personnel:
Aly Keïta: balafon
Jan Galega Brönnimann: bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, soprano saxophone
Lucas Niggli: drums
Recorded March 27 and 28, 2015, at The Zoo Studio Bern, Switzerland by Mat Callahan
Mixed and Mastered by Martin Ruch at Abhörraum Berlin
Graphic design: Jonas Schoder
Photos: Stefan Postius
Produced by Keïta – Brönnimann – Niggli and Intakt Records
Review:
What would the combination of two Swiss jazz musicians and an African musician from Ivory Coast lead to? A limp specimen of flavourless “world jazz”, would be the sceptical response. In fact this CD is a delight. Clarinetist Jan Galega Brönniman and drummer Lucas Niggli were actually born in Cameroon, and seem to have a natural affinity for the idioms of African music. Aly Keïta plays the balafon, a kind of West African xylophone, and the kalimba, a tuned row of flexible metal plates plucked with the thumbs, known in the West as a ‘thumb-piano’.
Composing honours are shared among all three, but the natural joyousness of Keïta’s pieces make them instantly recognisable as his. The two melody players swap roles constantly, first one supplying the repeating pattern underneath the melody line, then the other. Niggli’s drumming is so deft he often creates the illusion of shadowing the melodic patterns. It’s a proper meeting of equals, which is what makes this unlikely album so successful.
Ivan Hewett (The Telegraph)
