24 July 2007 (gig)
28 July 2007
MOMO is a tiny room off Regent Street below the restaurant of the same name. At a guess it will comfortably hold about forty diners but for the debut of Bassekou Kouyate they maybe squeezed in a hundred and a bit. The audience was crowded around a stage big enough to comfortably hold a couple of skinny girls with guitars and when the ensemble came pouring out of the back room they somehow squeezed 4 Ngoni’s, three percussionists and Kouyate’s wife, Ami Sacko, onto or around the stage. And, having managed to find perching room, they then proceeded to play one of the finest gigs I have ever been privileged to see.
The music, mainly based around the 'Segu Blue’ album, was riveting and the rhythms drew all of the crowd closer and closer to the stage as though they couldn’t get enough of the music from where they were.
As the band developed the songs into frantic percussive jams or built up Ngoni solos in layers of beautiful harp-like tone, the audience grew more and more enlivened and at the end of most numbers there was a palpable breathing out as though the entire audience had been holding its breath.
That the music was magnificent goes without saying, because the sound of the Ngoni when played by a master is as pure as a harp and Bassekou Kouyate is a master, having learned at the side of Ali Farke Toure and playing with some of Aftrica’s elite. But that isn’t the story – the audience were a part of the gig from the off and as the band turned up the intensity they got it back from the crowd doubled. I honestly cannot remember another gig with the emotive feedback that was happening here – Marley at the Lyceum maybe – it really was that good.
The rest of the band are top musicians in their own right but here they were all completely in synch with the master and with Ami Sacko’s soaring vocals a revelation they won a huge place in everyone’s heart.
