book review

[johnc]

Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

anybody read this?

ya 2 cents appreciated!

cheers

john

[James]

This book is really good. Not so much musical djembe material, but in terms of cultural details that it's the best I've seen.

Highly recommended!

[Paul]

I liked it myself, found it a bit acedemic in places but thats what it is.

Any books out there written by griots or Djembefolas, or their Biographies.

Heard Adama Drame has a book about him, but only came across it in French.

[bops]

Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

anybody read this?

It's a great book, highly recommended.

Any books out there written by griots or Djembefolas, or their Biographies.

Heard Adama Drame has a book about him, but only came across it in French.

That Adama Drame bio is just what you're looking for... an auto-biography, written by a griot and djembefola. Yes, it's in French. But it's a great read if you understand French. He's got a lot of great stories to tell, and a lot of insight into what it means to be jeli. It seems that the role of the jeli is often misunderstood by us toubabs. And with globalization, opportunities for jeliya in modern, urban African culture are dwindling, so they have to work more aggressively to make ends meet. Things have changed a lot for jeli over the past 20 or 30 years. Very interesting perspective.

[orlik]

Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

What's authors name?

[bops]

What's authors name?

Eric Charry

[johnc]

im saving up to get the Eric Charry book cd package from drumskull and few other cd's as well. the drop in the aus $ against the usa $ means postage must be used wisely.

I was going to get a few cd's from rootsy records but I notice dsd has them, so I suppose rootsy records benefits from their sales as rootsy recordings.

[patricia39]

I love music so it is no wonder that I also read this book "Mande Music: Traditional and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa " by Eric Charry. This book offers the most comprehensive source available on one of Africa's richest and most sophisticated music cultures. I think this is an excellent source of information so if you want to develop your mind with new musical notions and information this is the book for you.

[Afoba]

hello bops,
in my opinion a dyeli is never a dyenbe or dundun player and a dyenbe or dundun player never a dyeli. so how about Adama, was his father or mother a dyeli? did he work as one (don't think so)?
Greets, d

[Dugafola]

hello bops,
in my opinion a dyeli is never a dyenbe or dundun player and a dyenbe or dundun player never a dyeli. so how about Adama, was his father or mother a dyeli? did he work as one (don't think so)?
Greets, d

i think that's more applicable to Guinea and probably Mali too.

in Burkina it's different, griots can play all instruments. There's a griot family that lives in my town from Ouagadougou, BF and they all play drums, bala, guitar, sing etc etc. i will ask Salifou when i see him about this.

[Afoba]

The first one is a good point, Josh. But Adama went to Burkina only 8 years ago and spent (my information) all his life in Côte d'Ivoire. Same there?
The family living in your town is no good example. They might even write "Africa" on basketballs and sell them, if people bought such stuff. Would be no explanation for african lifestyle. Not everyone who is a drummer or whatever in western countries counts as a drummer "there".
Still you are right: Burkina is a special case, for there is no djembé tradition in this country (only a new ballet tradition). So it's probably often players of other instruments (such as dyelis) who start to play djembé to make the white guests and the french/german ty channel "arte" happy (sorry for being a bit provocative, but that's it en gros).
d;-)

[Dugafola]

The first one is a good point, Josh. But Adama went to Burkina only 8 years ago and spent (my information) all his life in Côte d'Ivoire. Same there?
The family living in your town is no good example. They might even write "Africa" on basketballs and sell them, if people bought such stuff. Would be no explanation for african lifestyle. Not everyone who is a drummer or whatever in western countries counts as a drummer "there".
Still you are right: Burkina is a special case, for there is no djembé tradition in this country (only a new ballet tradition). So it's probably often players of other instruments (such as dyelis) who start to play djembé to make the white guests and the french/german ty channel "arte" happy (sorry for being a bit provocative, but that's it en gros).
d;-)

FYI...this is the family that lives in my town:
http://www.africanfamily.org/grandparents.html

[bubudi]

i believe these are some of the guys duga is talking about: