Vieux Farka Touré's debut album is a transitional work, representing the passing of a standard from a father to a son. Some of Malian guitar legend Ali Farka Touré's final recordings are here on his son's debut, which takes the signature desert guitar style of Ali and subtly builds on it. It's difficult for a young musician to step out from the shadow a parent so revered in the same field, but to his credit Vieux is content to move slowly and find his own approach to the style.
Vieux and Ali play together on two tracks, and their interaction-- the son plays rhythm guitar and gives his father's unmistakable leads free reign, with interjections from ngoni player Bassekou Kouyaté-- is not surprisingly marked by deference and respect. "Tabara" is a slow and meditative instrumental spotlighted by a mellifluous lead from Ali, into which Vieux perfectly slips his minimal backing rhythm. The other collaboration, "Diallo", is a conversation between Vieux's wizened, parched vocals and Ali's electric guitar, which carries his distinctive pinched tone. The rhythm is propelled by hand percussion, which is this case means sound actually created by the hands, without drums or blocks.
As if to draw a line in the Saharan sand between father and son, "Tabara" is immediately followed on the record by "Ana", a song that unites Mali and Jamaica, bringing desert guitar to the funky upstroke of reggae. At first, it feels like a minor excursion, but then the horns and bassline hit and drive the groove home all the way for a stunningly effective synthesis of the humid and the arid. "Courage" features an even more thrilling fusion, beginning in a sort of desert modal jazz fashion, with an acoustic guitar part that recalls the bassline of Miles Davis' "So What", but jumping into a straight-ahead rock groove a minute and a half in. Guest vocalist Issa Sory Bamba lets loose a crazed melismatic wail worthy of the most full-throated muezzin, and later harmonizes with album co-producer Eric Herman while Hassey Sarré's violin-like njarka lets loose fluttering phrases that sound a bit like backwards guitars.
At the other end of the spectrum lie Touré's two instrumental duets with another elder statesman of Malian music, kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté. "Touré de Niafunké" and "Diabaté", both tributes to the respective families of the men, display a deeply subliminal connection between the musicians. Diabaté's kora playing is delicate and precise, his glissandos traversing Touré's rich guitar lines as if held to them by gravity. The two close the album with nine minutes of slowly churning mind-meld that shivers with intensity.
Touré dedicates the whole album to the memory of his father, who clearly is the single greatest influence present here. Listening, though, it's obvious that the younger Touré is itching to move on, experiment, and build something new of his own. He's not far from something truly progressive on his debut, and there are moments where he blows down barriers with frightening ease. His father's legacy may loom large, but Vieux Farka Touré stands well on his own.
