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Like the late Congolese rumba impresario
Franco, Boubacar "Kar Kar" Traoré is a legendary artist whose music has been tough to find in the U.S. At home, when Traoré performed on
Radio Mali in 1988 after a long hiatus, listeners who assumed he'd been dead for years feared a hoax. Here in his 50s, Traoré flexes his mastery of the acoustic guitar and blues-inflected vocals on his first readily available release in decades. Kar Kar's deeply soulful songs invite comparison with fellow Malian
Ali Farka Toure. But if the gritty Ali Farka evokes
John Lee Hooker, Kar Kar with his chiming guitar lines and smoke-tinged voice is closer to
Mississippi John Hurt. The gracefully mournful "Les Enfants de Pierrette" is a tribute to his late wife, while on "Bebe Bo Nadero," a celebration of motherhood, he trades licks with pop star
Habib Koite, the disc's artistic producer. Spanish guitar ripples through the meditative "Courir un Homme Qui Vous Aime," but Kar Kar can also pull off a jump-up number like the bouncy, unbridled "Kar Kar Madison," which reclaims a 1960s Malian dance craze. The give and take between African and African American genres is centuries old, but the tug of war seldom achieves a more satisfying equilibrium.
--Bob Tarte.
