David Dalle
Thursday June 22nd, 2023 with David Dalle
A dream come true, Kayhan Kalhor and Toumani Diabaté! 24 years of Strut records, the Jazz Festival and the Sun Ra Arkestra.

The annual Morgenland Festival in Osnabrück, Germany, has been a source of truly incredible meetings of musicians from around the world, as well quite a few top recordings, and this new recording is no exception. When I heard this album was coming out, I thought, momentarily, are my dreams coming true? This recording features two supreme masters of their traditions, Kayhan Kalhor and Toumani Diabaté. Both have been essential figures in my musical universe, following their careers and their music for almost three decades, yet they had never met until they both played at the Morgenland Festival in 2016. They had an impromptu musical session at the festival, followed by a very short tour. After the tour, they recorded this album together. There are nine improvised tracks, but I believe it is really one continuous hour-long suite that starts in the equivalent of dastgah Nava, moves to dastgah Mahur, before returning to Nava. The titles are taken from one of Kayhan Kalhor's favoutie poems "Ballad of the Wayfarer" by Mehdi Akhavan-Sales. As you would expect, the music is exquisite, subtle artistry mixing with passionate virtuosity, complete magic.