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This book contains the complete transcriptions of the CD: »The Art of Jenbe Drumming: The Mali Tradition Vol. 1«. The CD presents masters of the jenbe in duet performances with an accompanying bass drummer – one jenbe, one dunun, no bells. Playing in this smallest version of a jenbe drum ensemble was typical for the celebration music style of Bamako in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Today, trio, quartett, and even larger ensembles are the rule, and many stylistic influences from ballet music, the playing styles of Conakry and Abidjan, and of the international jenbe scene based in the rich West, have come to change the Bamako style. Thus the recordings featured here represent sort of a classical aesthetic ideal of Malian jenbe music as crystallized in its capital Bamako after independence. The reduced line-up also has the advantage of very clear and transparent sonic reproduction. Thus the listener can not only perceive the fundamental musical structures, but also experience the high art of drumming, the »talking of the drum«, in its finest rhythmical nuances and timbral shades. As has become usual since the 1960s in studies of West African percussion music, the notes are set in relation to a graphic raster that represents a linear metric system of elementary pulses (smallest time units except of rolls/flams) and beats (comprising either 3 or 4 pulses to larger units). Thus all rhythms transcribed refer to either a quaternary metric system of 16 pulse cycles (4 beats x 4 pulses) or to ternary 12 pulse cycles (4 beats x 3 pulses). Without doubt, the transcription published here do not make an exception from the rule that a musical transcription can always be only an imprecise and incomplete approach to represent a sonic reality. Working with the book makes sense only if the reading of the music comes along with hearing the CD. Hearing the CD, plus of course hearing other jenbe music, continuous practicing basic skills like sounds etc, and studying with a good teacher, are much more important than working with the book, and are preconditions to being able to successfully work with the book.
The author
Dr. Rainer Polak studied social anthropology, African liguistics, Bambara language, and History of Africa from 1989 to 1996 at Bayreuth University (Germany), and jenbe music performance from 1991 until today in Bamako (Mali). All of his studies and work in Bamako were accomplished with the help of the musically outstanding, yet rather locally and traditionally minded drummers whose playing is presented in this book and the corresponding CD. Polak has worked as a professional jenbe player in Bamako for one year in 1997/98, performing at well over a hundred traditional weddings, spirit possession dances and other celebrations on the basis of being hired by the late Jaraba Jakite, most of the times, and occasionally by the late Yamadu Dunbia, by Jeli Madi Kuyate, and by Drissa Kone. The ethnomusicological dissertation and book he wrote on that experience won the academic prize of the German African Studies Association in 2003/04. Polak ranks as an outstanding jenbe soloist in Germany. As a teacher he has specialized in giving focussed classes on micro-timing, and master-classes in jenbe solo performance.