The Second Case of the Mali Mixtape

Today we are returning to one of my favorite themes on the show: "Manding Swing" from Mali and surrounding countries. 

Listeners may be familiar with Mali's "desert blues" sound courtesy of the legendary Ali Farka Toure, or from any number of current artists including Bassekou Kouyate, Sidi Toure, and Songhoy Blues. "Manding Swing" is a term that was coined in the mid-70s to describe the sound of the electric bands that updated the desert blues folk sound with horns, organ, amplified bass lines, and electric guitar. 

Today we hear all music from the 70s (and just a little early 80s). This was the Golden Era for Malian music, the time when the ancient rhythms and stories of West Africa's rich oral history were fused with the instrumentation and musical sensibilities of jazz, rock, latin, etc. The African musical fusion experiment that began two decades earlier in better-traveled nations such as Ghana, Nigeria, and The Congo saw its full flowering in Mali during this era.

This was also an era of Communist rule in Mali, and the official path for music at this time was to be a state-funded orchestra. There was one state-funded orchestra for each of the regional capitals of Mali (Bamako, Segou, Tombouctou, etc). The government determined when each group could perform and record. Sadly, the result is that there is much less recorded content for these brilliant musicians relative to the musical acts from other African nations; the state orchestras each recorded 1 album in 1970 ("Biennale" series; many titles reissued by Portland's Mississippi Records), and just 1 or 2 more LPs in a 1977 series on the state Mali Kunkan label (many titles reissued by Kindred Spirits label). A few artists were able to work around the system with private label recordings in neighboring countries (Rail Band, Super Djata Band, Sorry Bamba). One is left lamenting the many years of wonderful Malian music that left no lasting record.