Transitional times

"Gambian multi-instrumentalist Dawda Jobarteh and his top-notch band of Danish, Cameroonian, Ghanaian, Cuban, and Gambian musicians embrace an accessible fluidity of styles, and thus emotions, on Transitional Times. The album centers on Jobarteh's masterful playing on the kora, the Mandinka West African harp that has became a staple piece of transnational "world music" projects. His group's particular matrix of plucked strings, electric rock instrumentation, spiritual jazz, and a loosely unifying theme allows them to toy with labels and stereotypes while opening into less-trodden ground".

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"[Dawda's] varied background is reflected in this album. At one end of the spectrum there is "Dalua" where the solo kora sounds as though it was recorded in a Brikama compound from the way it drifts into a start from a conversation with bird song (a bulbul?) in the background ... At the other end there is John Coltrane's "Transition" where he spars with saxophone, bass and drums, and the experimental jazz played on an electric kora with effects on "Jamming In The Fifth Dimension". In between these extremes there is also rich variety with some breathtaking inventiveness in the kora playing. You will find very few kora records where the possibilities of this wonderful instrument are explored more thoroughly than they are here; you will find none where the kora is better recorded".