MORY DJELY KOUYATE & JEAN-PHILIPPE RYKIEL

Line up

• JEAN-PHILIPPE RYKIEL (Piano)
• MORY DJELY KOUYATE  (Voice)

• country:
  Guinea
• style(s):
  • Afro
  • Jazz
• label:
  Rue Stendhal
• instrumentation:
  instrumental, vocal
• artist submitted by:
  Safoul Productions

Put a voice and a piano together, and you get one of the most beautiful marriages in Africa. The Guinean storyteller, Mory Djely Kouyaté and Jean-Philippe Rykiel explore the deep emotions of the African soul in a pared-down, harmonious manner.
All along the Guinean river Tinkisso there's an exceptional Guinean voice producing jazz and gospel with pianist Jean-Philippe Rykiel in the Manding lands. Jean-Philippe Rykiel, an African pianist by adoption, is as adept at electronic explorations as Pierre Henry and at bebop as Thelonious Monk. He has played with Lokua Kanza, Salif Keita, Papa Wemba, Youssou N'Dour and the Super Rail Band. Mory Djely Kouyaté is a Manding griot from Conakry, who has a deep voice, low-pitched and broken with emotion. Such an intense voice seems to carry within it Africa confronted with dramatic natural forces and with the suffering of the exodus. Jean-Philippe Rykiel who plays in a classical way that is both intelligent and melodic, amplifies this nostalgic and agonising emotion that seems to sum up the entire history of African and Western music.

Links

• live performance