Cheick Tidiane Seck Kelena Foly

Cheick Tidiane Seck placed his hands on a keyboard for the first time in the late 60s, on a harmonium of the Catholic convent in Sikasso, where he was a boarding pupil preparing his junior high diploma. From the age of 12 onwards, he would compose pieces by singing them to his mother, a,famous singer. Realizing he had talent, one of the nuns instructed him in music theory during his 3 years at school there. Diploma in hand, he that studied fine art at the Bamako National Arts Institute, tinkled the keys at night, playing with the Rail Band at the Buffet de la Gare hotel, moonlighting like his idol, Jimmy Smith,. He also made the most of his free time by playing on the Art Institute’s piano when the music students had gone home. He was swiftly adopted by the musical community of the Malian capital, and set off on Africa-wide tours with Les Ambassadeurs. He set up shop in Abidjan before arriving in France in the mid-80s. Since then, he has multiplied collaborations with jazz artists (Randy Weston, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ornette Coleman ...), African musicians (Manu Dibango, Salif Keita...) and even pop singers (Daman Albarn, Carlos Santana...) After the international success of Sarala, a record he arranged and co-directed with Hank Jones, Cheick released 5 albums under his own name which saved a lot of room for the science of electric keyboards, from the Hammond to the Moog. Kelena Fôly (‘expressing oneself only in music’ in Bamana) is his first solo record in a career spanning almost fifty years. There is no artifice here, just his deep voice and the Steinway grand piano of the Studio Pigalle. Cheick plays pieces anchored in the Mandinka tradition like Kana Kassi, which recounts an episode in the life of the founder of the Wassoulou empire, Samory Touré. He also takes us on American adventures with 56 Walker Street, a theme written at this Manhattan address, where, in the early 2000s, he held legendary jam-sessions with attendees such as Dr Lonnie Smith, Roy Hargrove and Vernon Reid. Kelena Fôly plays out around a poignant tribute to Aimé Césaire. On the track, Cheick Tidiane Seck narrates an extract from the poem Souffles, penned by another great proponent of négritude, Birago Diop. Here, he remembers an invitation from the Martiniquais poet to play in Fort de France, to celebrate the 120 th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. The only cover on the record is his version of Sometimes I feel Like a Motherless Child to which he has added a verse in bamana dedicated to his own mother. The album ends with a piece improvised in just one take. Corona contains a Message of Love for humanity by a musician who survived Covid 19. Hospitalised in Bamako in December 2020 and placed on a respirator, Cheick felt himself leave this world before coming gradually back to life. Today, back on track, this ‘warrior’ has embarked on new cross-continental musical endeavours with this record where he has summoned jazz, blues, Mandinka folk sounds and sources of African music to come together, unified by his exceptional playing style and a voice gorged on soul.