Concert Review: Ablaye Cissoko and Cyrille Brotto @ Proctors Passport Series (GE Theatre), 10/07/2023

Senegalese kora master Ablaye Cissoko and French accordionist Cyrille Brotto spoke scant English and mostly French Saturday in the first Proctors Passport Series show in the GE Theatre. So obliging usher Giselle joined them onstage to say in English what Cissoko explained about the songs.

Their melodies and rhythms work in any language, like watching baseball in Spanish. They connected the dots beautifully in a 90-minute trans-Mediterranean travelogue through West African dance and story songs, French cafe/cabaret romances, and anguished protest cries. If there’s any upside to colonialism – I’m not convinced such exists – it must be in such rich, equal cultural mixing.

Cissoko and Brotto’s hybrid music sounds like silver rain (short kora notes) falling alongside a humming brook (accordion drones). A perfectionist about intonation, Cissoko often re-tuned his kora’s 21 strings, whose length and tension determine pitch, to note Brotto’s accordion.

Kora players anchor their fingers around upright handles set into the resonator gourd that holds the mast supporting the strings like an airy pyramid. They pluck the strings with their thumbs; Cissoko’s phrasing ranges from breakneck presto speed to tender yearning lento. Brotto’s accordion flows under, around and over the flowing melodic framework Cissoko builds

Cissoko launched their opener, “Rencontre,” all alone, a lacy filigree, then Brotto’s accordion joined the complex needlepoint sound and built it big into a happy folk waltz. Afterward, they introduced one another to us with smiles and gestures.

“N’Na” put melody front and center, and their duet style clarified: either could put forward a fresh idea, any time, and the other could echo it back or take it further. And their sounds began to broaden, Brotto somehow managing to bend notes on his boxy diatonic (button-style) accordion.

In “Miliamba,” they used repetition to great effect, pumping and releasing the tension. Both played without looking at their hands or instruments, virtuosos past the point of technique.

Cissoko tried to explain “Pa Kaw” but found his English inadequate and looked a bit lost until French-speaking volunteer usher Giselle stepped forward. She conveyed, sentence by sentence, his lament about the travails of traveling, then hailed the saving grace of their music to make people happy; pleasing just one person makes it worthwhile. Everyone has a mission on earth, Cissoko/Giselle maintained, and his and Brotto’s is to bring peace through art. Cissoko and Brotto would be wise to take their own Giselle on the road.

The song’s uplift carried that message, a wandering intro forming into a lovely tune. To this point, Cissoko’s kora carried the solos, but here, Brotto explored the song more deeply.

“Kolda” began with Kora in low-key exploration of what became a melody and a groove; then he paused as if to invite Brotto into the flow. Brotto repeated Cissoko’s construction of the song but in accordion language: first, single notes, then chords.

Once Cissoko recognized he had a reliable translator in Giselle after she’d explained how “Pa Saw” called for unity and the erasing of artificial barriers between people through art. Now, he asked her to tell us that “Deme Deme” mourned desperate migrants who didn’t survive their ocean voyage escapes.

This helped the music connect: “Deme Deme” felt bottomlessly sad but also related complex emotions of parents’ guilt at not providing adequate livelihoods to keep their children home, fed and safe. Cissoko set aside his kora to sing with Brotto’s organ-like accordion, his voice describing pain, mourning, resignation.

Almost as respite, “Singola” provided instrumental fireworks. Short phrases fed into brisk melody. They took turns, one exploring as the other fed supporting, repeating riffs.

Then Cissoko/Giselle explained that “Kane M’Bife” spoke of love as a mystery, an intoxicant, an essential for life. The song mixed peace and passion, delusion and desperation. To the spoken observation that we can fall in love without knowing why, a front-row guy proclaimed, “I know why!” and embraced his girlfriend.

“Instant,” the title track of their 2021 album, provided all Saturday’s songs, but their encore spun a story melody, each player varying the tale a bit. 

When Cissoko announced their last song, Giselle innocently deadpanned, “I told them, but they don’t understand.” Cissoko and Brotto laughed, relented, and played two more, plus an encore.

These tunes cast moods of adventure. What sounded like a minuet rose in waves, like climbing mountain ridges—a trans-Mediterranean jam. A waltz rode a happy melody; a wandering riff built momentum through spirited echoes. In their last number, Cissoko again set aside his kora to go for deep expression with a soothing, deep voice and eloquent hands. Somber at first, this farewell number grew in force, Cissoko clapping a three-beat pattern the small but very willing audience picked up and rode as it surprisingly mutated into the rock and roll Bo Diddley beat. 

Who knew?

Set List 

• Rencontre
• N’Na
• Miliamba
• Pa Kaw
• Kolda
• Deme Deme
• Signolou
• Kane M’Bife
• Instant
• 3Z
• Amanke

Proctors Passport Series, presented by Music Haven, continues Friday, Oct. 20 at Universal Preservation Hall with the Montreal big band Lengaia Salsa Brava, led by Latin-Guyanese trombonist Giany-Frantz Huyghues-Despointes. www.proctors.org.