Aly Keïta is testament to the adage of an apple not falling far from a tree. Brought up in a family of griot musicians, the award-winning Ivorian grand master of the balafon could not resist adopting ...

Uncommonly worldly, Trio Ivoire is also blessedly free of 'world music' clichés. On Across The Oceans German pianist Hans Lüdemann, West African balafon virtuoso Aly Keita & Dutch/Indian/South ...

Why settle for a recorder when you could wield a contrabass clarinet – or something you invented yourself? Meet the players drawn to the unusual In the 2022 film Alice, the titular heroine – a slave ...

With the continuing flood of current releases in creative improvised music, it’s sometimes easy to overlook artists who rarely receive or accept the opportunity to record. Mallet-maestro Khan Jamal is ...

Cerys handpicks an eclectic Sunday soundtrack and West African balafon player, Kimi Djabaté, performs live in session. Kimi Djabaté is from a village in Guinea-Bissau. Coming from a family of ...

As a boy in Mali, Balla Kouyaté remembers playing the balafon to motivate workers on a farm. He was so small, he had to stand on a large rock to be seen by the crowd. An opportunity like that would ...

Considered to be among the greatest balafon players in Mali, Mr. Kouyate plays two instruments at the same time, achieving a chromatic scale which allows him to play any genre of music in any key. The ...