The Ripple Effect

A dozen years ago, the American banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck took a journey across Africa to research the origins of the instrument. The sessions he recorded on his travels were heard on the albums Tales from the Acoustic Planet: Africa Sessions (2009) and Throw Down Your Heart: Africa Sessions Part 2 (2010). Toumani Diabaté featured briefly on the first release and the two subsequently toured together, revealing the common roots of the African kora and American banjo in thrilling fashion. Now belatedly comes a collection of ten previously unreleased banjo-kora duets recorded live, available as a stand-alone double vinyl album or as part of a three-CD plus DVD set including the earlier releases under the title Throw Down Your Heart: The Complete Africa Sessions.

Relaxed and intimate in style, the duo are at their most playful on an hilarious ‘Dueling Banjos’, the Eric Weisberg tune heard in the film Deliverance; after Diabaté has peeled off a mind-boggling lick on his kora, Fleck responds with an equally staggering flurry of lightning-fingered banjo phrases. ‘Kauonding Sissoko’, a tribute to Baaba Maal's late kora player, begins in more serious fashion, although Fleck cannot resist dropping in a few bars of Stephen Foster's ‘Oh Susanna’, which Diabaté gleefully echoes. A delight from first note to last.