Q – You’re launching a new
CD ‘Mali in Oak’ during this tour. Can you say a bit about the repertoire
you’ll be playing?
A: I usually
play whatever I am working on at that moment, plus the pieces that I still
enjoy playing and reinventing from the past. So this means a selection of
pieces from my albums Libraries on Fire
and One Night on Earth, plus a few of
the pieces from The Sound of Water,
which has works by myself and the great Brazilian composer Egberto Gismonti. At
present I am working on a very new approach to playing solo Bach works. So I
plan to give these a bit of work during the tour so I am ready to record the
first collection when I get back home. I also have a few new works, one by
Salif Keita and one by Fanta Sacko, a really incredible and influential Malian
singer who recorded in the seventies.
Q – You have transcribed
Brazilian, South African and Malian music for guitar. Where are you going next?
A: I don’t
usually know beforehand, even though I try to plan it never works out ... but I
suspect this Bach project will be my next recording. I am also returning to
some older works from Mali, works by Toumani Diabaté’s father and his aunt, Fanta
Sacko. I also have a collaboration in 2017 with north Indian slide guitarist
Debashish Battacharya, so that should whip me into shape.
Q – You started playing
classical violin at a young age. What was it about the guitar that attracted
you to play it?
A: I started
playing in a loose, crazy band with a friend when I was about fourteen.
Somebody gave me a bass guitar, I borrowed a guitar and learned the chords,
then I started teaching myself to read when a classical guitar teacher came to
teach at my school. Eventually I managed to get him to teach me - he had just
returned from studying with Carlos Bonnel in London, so it was a bit of luck
really. I carried on through high school being a bass player and playing
classical guitar and playing violin in the orchestra. I also learned a bout of
piano but the guitar took over from that - too many buttons for me!
Q – Can you say something
about the South African music scene, which seems to be vibrant at the moment?
A: We have had
more vibrant moments than right now in terms of venues and opportunities. It
seems to go up and down, one minute you're in a musical revolution, the next
moment you can't think of a single venue that hosts live music. It goes like
that because it is organic and there isn't a strong enough structure to support
it. There are some great musicians around though, especially in the jazz scene,
a pretty solid classical scene which tends to be a little conservative, and
loads happening in other realms with younger musicians creating new things all
the time. I probably should pay more attention. Maybe the most interesting
music is in the electronic scene. Right now I am listening to Spiral by an incredible band called
Tananas who made a big impact in the 90's. This reminds me of those gems that came
out of this country. There are many.
Q – You are touring with
the extraordinary ‘prepared guitar’ player, Paolo Angeli – can you introduce
him for us?
A: Well I have
yet to meet Paolo, so I only know him from watching his videos. He looks like
he has had as much fun and applied as much creativity to creating his
instrument as he has to playing it and composing for it. So really it seems he
is representing all aspects of instrumental playing: composition, luthiery and
performance. It’s going to be exciting to get to know more. I mean, the guy has
springs and pneumatic pedals and a
violin bow and God knows what else!
Q – You’re probably best
known in the UK for your recent album and tour transcribing the work of the
great Malian kora players. Do you think there is a common link in ‘African’
music?
A: I think of
the kora players as great Classical composers
that happen to live in Africa and are part of an immense and ancient African
tradition. I know about as much about this tradition as I do about classical
composers ... it’s all hearsay with both, because the classical composers like
Bach lived a long time ago, and West African music, like all music, is always
changing.
Q – Africa is known for
its guitar stylists – Ali Farka Touré, Franco and many others developed styles
very different from those in Europe and America. How have these players
influenced you?
A: Ali Farka
Touré is a huge influence for me, not necessary in his playing style, but in
his approach to music. When I start thinking with too much complexity, he reminds
me that very little is needed to create incredible music. He is one of the
greatest musicians of our era. His work is really unbelievable. I love
especially his early acoustic recordings because they speak to that realm of
music which I really enjoy, the realm like Toumani Diabaté's Kaira or Egberto Gismonti's Solo, even Keith Jarret's Koln Concert ...
one person with an instrument. Okay, Ali Farka Touré had Hama Sankare on
calabash ... but we can't all have it all like he did.
Q
– Can you describe the process of transcribing kora and other musics to classical guitar?
A: Yeah it’s pretty
painstaking - especially at first. I came knowing nothing, having no background
in this style of music, so I was literally land-surveying on foot, tracing the
coastline with a pen and pencil, and then stepping back and seeing where I had
been and what I had found. After a lot of that work I started to get an idea of
the meta-structure, and now I am pretty fluent in that language. Man, it really
taught me how to play the guitar!
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