Black Bear Moon Music and Cultural Project

Album Name: Fula Flute
Artist: Fula Flute
Released: 2002
Running Time: 59 minutes

A favorite on the playlist here at BBM headquarters is the self-titled album by the group Fula Flute, founded in 1999 by Canadian artist Sylvain Leroux, along with Bailo Bah, Famoro Dioubate and Keba Cissoko.

The “Fulani flute,” (or “tambin”) featured in this album, is specific to the Fouta Djallon highlands of Guinea (Conakry). Bailo Bah, the master tambin player you will hear, learned to play from his grandfather who initiated him to many secrets of nature and music. At the age of fifteen, after his grandfather’s passing, Bailo left his village to go, on foot, to Dakar, Senegal, to find his fortune, carrying one flute with him.

Now living in New York, Bailo is joined by Quebecois, Sylvain Leroux who plays the tambin as well — Bailo leading by ‘overblowing’ the instrument with vocalisms added similar to the way Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, used to shout into his flute. Along with West African kora and balafon, the two Fula flutists trade back and forth, improvise with, against and around each other, to great effect.

Bailo tells a legend about the birth of the tambin: A little orphan boy left to himself was toying with a piece of reed. After weeks of experimenting and playing, he invented the tambin. He climbed up in a tree, up in the Fouta Djallon and started to play. After pouring his heart out in his tambin for a while, he looked down and all the animals of the mountains where at the foot of the tree crying because of the beautiful music he was playing.

Where to Buy

CD Baby
Calabash Music

Track Listing:

1. Wali
2. Keme Bourema
3. Djandjou
4. N’dianamo
5. Chedo
6. Folinke
7. Bani
8. Douga
9. Teriya
10. Soundiata