Toumani Diabaté "Kaira" (4.5*)

Twenty-five years after it appeared there’s not a lot that can be said about Toumani Diabaté’s first solo album except that it was cut in a single session, live and unaccompanied in a London studio in October 1987.

You could, I suppose, set about listing the tracks, all five of them  (Alla L'Aa Ke, Jarabi, Kaira, Konkoba, Tubaka) or say something bout their lengths (5:04 to 10:26) or mutter something about forty and a bit minutes of quite sublime music from a master of the 21-string West African harp-lute known as a kora.

Alternatively, you could mention the fact that Toumani comes from a line of seventy-plus masters of the instrument, and that Joe Boyd landed on this way ahead on the rest of us (released on his Hannibal label in 1988).

After that, you probably scratch your head and do what I’m inclined to do late at night with a glass of good red by my side and a book that needs to be read, pondered and digested.

Which is, of course, to press the play button again for another run through these five sublime instrumentals on an album I’m never likely to tire of.

Trombone Shorty "Say That to Say This" (3.5*)

Well, here we are on the point of parting company with Troy Andrews, at least as far as automatic buy this status is concerned. The third outing under the Trombone Shorty imprint is impressive in spots, lacklustre in others. We twigged a fair while back that there’s a conscious pursuit of mainstream success operating hereabouts, and, increasingly, there’s content that doesn’t fit comfortably into what I’m interested in listening to.
The loping groove that kicks off the title track is just fine. Keep rolling those out, Shorty, and Hughesy will be buying. Say That to Say This offers just under three minutes of blaring brass over a pile driving riff. Tasty. You and I (Outta This Place) has some of those elements lurking under the contemporary R&B vocals that persist through Get the Picture. The problem is that it’s starting to sound a little too much like R&B by numbers with the horns relegated to the background.
Vieux Carre, two minutes forty-five of jazzy Caribbean instrumental groove sets things back to where I’d like ‘em, and the cover of The Meters’ Be My Lady has the original New Orleans fonk masters appearing on record for the first time since 1978. So you can see where he’s coming from, you’ve got a fair idea where he’s headed, but some of us have reservations about the route.
That’s particularly the case with Long Weekend, written by album co-producer Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson. Pleasant enough in its own way, but largely generic and essentially lightweight. Fire and Brimstone has a little more bite to it, a streetwise celebration of survival, with the trombone hauled out for the instrumental break.
Following that, the instrumental Sunrise, while again pleasant enough, is a tad too laid back for its own good. It’s back to R&B by numbers for Dream On, which has no chance of advancing too far in the play count stakes, though the instrumental break’s tasty enough. I’m just not so keen on what you have to navigate to get there.
Far better is Shortyville, just under four and a half minutes of grooving instrumental that could have been a little more energetic but lopes along quite tastily with the brass motifs to the fore. Nola Luck winds things up with a vocal that’s of a piece with its counterparts throughout the set.
As a mix of grooving instrumentals and relatively insipid pop-R&B with close to generic lyrics Say That to Say This switches the four way blend of jazz, funk, rock and hip hop that characterised Backatown and For True for an increasingly R&B-oriented product, which is fine if that sort of thing floats your boat.
Unfortunately, the vocal content here doesn’t float mine. Different strokes for different folks and all that.