The Paris Session
by The Touré-Raichel Collective
4000Qtrap
4000Qtrap This unvarnished, earnest, serene effort radiates distilled joy. I am partial to the vocal tracks since they add a pastoral, pensive element. Favorite track: Hodu.
Om*Aloha
Guillaume Gay
j-schmidt
Ernest Leroy Wiggins
modern4life
Tom Landon
Konstantine A.
mikele007
frookins68
tsono
larana
Bruce Davenport
Rebecca Michelson
geitungur akureyrar
ginog
astral_impulse
Majero
Glen French
Sutipit Chamnanvanakij
Karen Ritscher
Tim Kelly
thijazi
Eugene Yong
sweet_medicine
Carlos de Sousa
nunesie
Marc Mayer
formara
Abel Boglari
Ross Sharp
sffilmstagemusic
Ronan Jouchet
A N I C O N I C
Harlan Isaac Glatt
davidoo
Br!an
sandubogi
bklyn
Amine Kanzi
bettbett
kyri r2
tonick_moss
John Mortimer
Phil Ward
Osunlade
Henk de Weerd
Antonio Soldati
Thomas Tiedtke
ashiks
Compact Disc + Download
The physical CD is packaged in a 6-panel digipack with 17-page booklet, filled with photos, song lyrics and more.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Paris Session via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
From End to End 04:15
Tidhar 05:26
Hodu 03:26
Gassi Gabbi 01:29
L'amour 03:07
Allassal Terey 04:16
Diaraby 02:23
Debo 04:27
Bandirabait 03:52
Diame 02:23
Soumbou Toure 04:48
Déni Déni 02:12
Philipa 04:28
"These players delve into the swirling waters of our globalized music culture and pull out bright fish, almost perfect, as if designed instead of conjured in the heat of improvisation." – National Public Radio's All Things Considered
The formation and success of The Touré-Raichel Collective, the band led by Israeli keyboardist and songwriter Idan Raichel and Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré—icons in their own countries and abroad—is a reminder of the unique power of music to bridge geographic, ethnic, political and religious differences. As a follow up to their acclaimed 2012 debut, The Tel Aviv Session, the group released The Paris Session on September 30 on the Cumbancha label.
Although a collaboration between an Israeli Jew and a Malian Muslim has unavoidable political implications, what inspired Touré and Raichel to work together was not the potential to make a statement; they simply connected as artists and friends seeking to find musical common ground.
They met for the first time by chance, in 2008 at the Berlin airport, where they expressed mutual admiration and a desire to get together and play. Touré's father, the late great Ali Farka Touré, was one of Raichel's musical heroes and inspirations. Raichel invited Touré to Israel, where they assembled a few musicians and convened an unscripted, improvised jam session. The chemistry between Touré and Raichel was instant and profound. They assumed the name The Touré-Raichel Collective and used the material from that first gathering as the basis for an album, The Tel Aviv Session, which found poignant, musically beautiful common ground between the artists' cultures.
Due to popular demand, The Touré-Raichel Collective has undertaken multiple international tours and performed on some of the world's most prestigious stages. In June of this year, Touré returned to Israel to join Raichel's band The Idan Raichel Project in a performance at Masada, an archeological site of immense significance in Jewish history. Since they recorded their first album in Tel Aviv, the plan was to make the follow-up in Bamako. But for reasons of logistics, cost and security the artists met in France instead. For three days Raichel, who produced, and Touré sequestered themselves at Studio Malambo in the outskirts of Paris where they were joined by a number of special guests. While The Paris Session is the result of the same freeform approach that was used in the first album, this time around they decided to feature more songs with vocals, a wider range of instrumentation, and appearances by musician friends such as Senegalese artist Daby Touré on bass, Israeli trumpeter Niv Toar, Malian singer Seckouba Diabate and others. Touré and Raichel have honed their interplay over the course of multiple tours together, but the album possesses the same spontaneous, heartfelt magic as its predecessor.
One highlight of the recording is a rendition of the song "Diaraby," written by Ali Farka Touré and featured on his landmark collaboration with Ry Cooder, Talking Timbuktu. Raichel says that there was a period of six or seven years during which he had listened to the song nearly every day. Upon sharing a stage with Vieux for the first time, Raichel suggested they play the elder Touré's song together, and doing so brought tears to Raichel's eyes. He describes feeling "a big, big circle from Ali Farka Touré in Niafunke to me in Tel Aviv, then going back to Ali's son."
More broadly Raichel says of his collaboration with Touré, "I'm a musician from Israel, and I will always make Israeli music. And Vieux Farka Touré for me represents the spirit of Mali. I think world music artists by definition are people who reflect the soundtrack of the place they come from. I think that this collaboration between Mali and Israel—and remember we don't even have diplomatic relations between the two countries—creates a new imaginary island located somewhere between Bamako and Tel Aviv."
Touré says, "Idan comes from Israel, he's Jewish. I come from Mali, I'm a Muslim. This project shows the point where there are no real differences between us. Working on these recordings we learn a lot about each other. If music is indeed a universal language, you can't just say it, you have to demonstrate it."It all works, first and foremost, because Touré, Raichel and their guests manage to make singular music. Reviewing The Tel Aviv Session for NPR's All Things Considered, Banning Eyre wrote, "If Raichel and Touré had planned a collaboration, it's hard to imagine that they could have topped the casual charm of this impromptu encounter." Hosting the Collective on WNYC's Soundcheck, John Schaefer called the debut recording "one of the year's most surprising and infectious world music releases." Wall Street Journal rock and pop music critic Jim Fusilli has
described the collaboration as "not so much cross-cultural exercise as an exploration of common ground." Relix called is "as close to perfection as one could imagine," and Songlines raved in its four star review, "There's something very pure of spirit about this album. Although the album grew out of jam sessions, the end result is architecturally robust and infused with strong emotive melodies. A delightful, soulful debut album that exudes optimism." That same optimistic, and adventurous, spirit simmers through The Touré-Raichel Collective's second album. Despite its unassuming spontaneity, the engaging interplay on The Paris Session exemplifies the unifying power of music.
acoustic african folk international israel mali world collaboration fusion jazz multicultural Mali
The Touré-Raichel Collective Mali
Israeli superstar Idan Raichel and Malian guitar virtuoso Vieux Farka Touré first met at an airport in Germany in 2008 while both were on tour. From this chance encounter an artistic kinship was born, culminating in an unscripted recording session that took place one afternoon in November 2010 in a small Tel Aviv studio. The songs they recorded are the foundation of the album The Tel Aviv Session ... more
toureraichel.com
cumbancha.com
The Tel Aviv Session
Contact The Touré-Raichel Collective