Koly Sacko Trio plays Dansa suite ( Mahina, Mali, in Feb 2012)

This is percussion music from the Khaso region of Western Mali, associated with the ethnic group of Khasonka. The instruments are two cylcindrical dunduns that come along with a bell each, and a jembe. This type of dundun is called dundunba or dundungo in Khasonka-land and Khasonka-dundun or jeli-dundun in Bamako. The players are
Koly Sacko: dundun solo (right)
Toutou Sacko : dundun acc (left)
Sambou Kante: jembe (center)
Dansa is sort of a signature piece of the standard repertoire of Khasonka drumming. It shows an amazing increase of tempo, which in this performance is arranged in three parts that together form a suite.
I made the recording in Mahina, Mali, in Feb 2012. The recordings were meant for timing analysis, thus I clipped a mic to each instrument, including the dundun players' left hands for the bell. That may look a bit weird, yet it did not disturb the players. Read on the results of the timing analysis and more about Khasonka drumming at http://tinyurl.com/mande-drumming

(A note to those who are familiar with the jembe music repertoire from Bamako: You will miss the classical timeline [o..o..o...x...o.] and corresponding acc and lead phrases of Bamako-Dansa here. By contrast, the third part of the suite "Jelifòli", Sandagundo, which makes part of the core repertoire of Khasonka drumming in Khasonka-land, features exactly that dundun-timeline. Note that what is played in Khasonka-Sandagundo has nothing to do with Khasonka-Dansa; these are different pieces. In Khasonka-Dansa, the timeline and corresponding accompaniment and solo phrases which you know under the name of Dansa from Bamako do not occur, although everybody in Bamako agrees that Dansa originates from Khaso. It is unclear how and why, historically, players in Bamako chose to use the Sandagundo rhythms to orchestrate what is performed as Dansa in Bamako. Note that such processes of musical change do not necessarily represent "mistakes", although mistakes (misunderstandings, misrepresentations etc.) can appear everywhere and anytime, of course. Instances of musical change (either intentional or arbitrarily) often occur in the context of transformational processes, for instance, in the context of the urban appropriation of formerly ethnic-regional repertoires in a million-strong booming metrople as Bamako. But now, enjoy.)