This production by Lee Townsend (Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny,…) was ranked among the 10 best blues albums of the year by the World Music Charts. Mixed at the legendary Fantasy studio in Berkeley (California), Kalaban Coura was recorded during live sessions performed at La Chapellle Studio. That moment captured acoustic energy born on the street. Endless jams that saw the birth of riffs from the blues and songs backed by a grooving rhythm section. The meeting of two guitars – one nylon, the other steel-string – a voice from Bamako and a violin from the Moroccan desert are the ingredients of this disc.

Kalaban Coura by Quentin Dujardin

« In December 2008 I met up with guitarist-vocalist Kalil Sidy Haïdara in Bamako, Mali. This artist has touched me through his style very much inspired by a traditional instrument called an n’goni (small kora). The whole days we spent jamming on the streets of the Kalaban Coura neighborhood brought back memories of another meeting, dating from 2003, with the Moroccan singer-violinist in Marrakech, Jalal El Allouli: absolutely unexpected and intense. What could be more natural than to envisage bringing together our musical feelings through this new project colored with blues, sounds from the desert and, of course, guitars ! »