Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane

If you thought the comeback of Orchestra Baobab was heart– warming, the debut solo album of Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane will probably be for you. Now in his mid-70s, Thiossane was a noted Senegalese singer in the 60s and later sang with Baobab, as well as enjoying a successful career as a painter. His belated return to music is a blissful one. The nine songs here mine the same rich blend of Wolof and Afro-Cuban sounds as the mighty Baobab, and share the same relaxed, breezy feel. That's hardly surprising, as three of four former or present Baobabians join him – including the wonderful sax player Thierno Kouyaté, whose weightlessly floating solos on ‘Lat Dior’ and ‘Thiere Lamboul’ are among the many reasons this album is such a joy. Other guests include veteran Congolese guitarist Papa Noel and members of Africando, while five guest singers echo Baobab's famous multi-vocalist approach and gloss over the inevitable fact that Thiossane's own voice is not as powerful as it once was. Nevertheless, he thrillingly rolls back the years on ‘TaleneLampe Yi’, a song he first performed in 1966, when it was chosen as the signature tune for the 1966 Festival Mondiale des Arts Nègres in Dakar: he sang it for an audience that included Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie among others.

‘Laye Woyena Laye’, sung by Thiossane and Africando's Medoune Diallo, is a tribute to Baobab founder Laye Mboup, who died in 1975. One key difference between this release and Baobab's comeback albums, however, lies in the production, with Ibrahim Sylla favouring a simpler and less densely textured approach than World Circuit's Nick Gold.