Will Ridenour - Will Ridenour [CD]

This CD is an instrumental, intimate venture into traditional and original West-African Kora music. Most of the songs are solo or multi-tracked kora. Acoustic guitar compliments on 4 songs, percussion (jembe, dunun, shekere, karinyan) on another. Most of the songs were composed for a wedding celebration in December '06. All are original except for 'Alla La Ke', which is a part of traditional kora repertoire. The Kora is a 21-stringed bridge-harp from West-Africa originating, according to oral traditions, with the Senegambian Mandinka of the Kabu Empire, which encompassed parts of present-day Guinea-Bissau, southern Senegal, and the Gambia. The strings are made of fishing line and they resonate through a large, halved calabash gourd stretched with a cow hide. The Kora traditionally is played by mandinka jalis and mande jelis, a special caste of society that work as musicians and oral historians. They are walking libraries of information, artisans of sound and speech. Will Ridenour comes from Greensboro, North Carolina, USA, and his mission is 'not to become an African Kora Player. That is impossible. No matter how long a canoe lies in the river, it will never become a crocodile. My hope is to bring the beautiful instrument, the music, and the culture behind it to the ears and souls that seek it, for whatever reason, learning and growing along the way. The history and traditions of the Kora must be respected, yet the scope of it's future unhindered. There's a fine line there. So that's what I'm working with. What can a white boy bring to the table of this immeasurable art?' 'I first plucked a dusty ole Kora in 1999. I began to teach myself and took a few lessons but had no real teacher. In 2003 I traveled to Senegal and Mali for 6 weeks to learn from the source, and that has been the best thing I have ever done as a musician. I returned to Mali for 4 months in 2010 to continue my study of the culture and it's music. Everyone should go one day, if not to play, then to breathe, look, feel, think... rethink... Today I play traditional Kora music and compose original tunes with the blessings of my teachers, Djeli Madiya Diebate from Cassamance and Djeli Fily Sacko from Bamako (student of the worldly Toumani Diabate) and the renowned Djeli and kora maker Dialy Mady Cissoko from Mali..'