This concert in celebration of Africa Day was supposed to be a triple bill, with an acoustic set from Malian kora master Toumani Diabate sandwiched between Tunde Jegede's British-African orchestrated fusion and Habib Koite's vibrant Malian pop. At the last moment, however, Diabate pulled out. This also happened two months ago, when Diabate was scheduled to join Damon Albarn for the Mali Music show. Although travel problems were blamed this time, the excuse felt distinctly euphemistic.
Jegede (who, coincidentally, replaced Diabate in the Mali Music band) gave a hint of what we were missing at the start of the show, when he played two of his own yearning compositions solo on the kora. Each was strikingly elegant, subtly blending the ebb and flow of traditional kora-playing with dynamic bass-treble contrasts more familiar from western guitar music. Even through the hiss of shoddy amplification, Jegede's virtuosity glowed.
His set would have been far more impressive if he had continued alone. In collaboration with his ensemble - a vast band featuring a brass quartet, a string trio and a four-piece rhythm section, here augmented by the Adzido Drummers - the balance and grace of his solo music disappeared. Portentous, predictable string lines hung like dead weights in each song, clashing with the perkier brass, while the banal funk drumming jarred with the painfully earnest spoken lyrics. Intermittently the music took an engaging turn, highlighting the spirited percussion of the Adzido Drummers, Byron Wallen's wonderfully rambunctious trumpet, or an irrepressible vibraphone solo from Orphy Robinson. But these isolated moments merely emphasised the messiness elsewhere.
If the ensemble were a touch dispiriting to watch, Koite and his band Bamada were invigorating. Their buoyant pop songs wove crisscrossing drum, balafon, bass and percussion lines so tightly that even conventional rhythms seemed utterly alien. (This became brutally apparent when people began to clap along, all accentuating different wrong beats.) Two guitars zigzagged through these dense patterns with the fleet energy of children darting about in a park.
Koite proved a charming frontman, leading his band in synchronised dances and encouraging the crowd to join in. By the time he made an ill-advised stab at rapping (accompanied, alarmingly, by a guitar riff that could have been stolen from Phil Collins), it felt as though he could get away with anything.
