Kulanjan
 Perennial blues road warrior Taj Mahal and Malian kora
(harp-lute) ambassador Toumani Diabate join forces, blend textures, and
intermingle idioms on this cleanly produced 12-song set, recorded in 1998 in
Athens. Their common ground is best tilled on "Atlanta Kaira" and the
title track, where the plucky filigrees and glittering tone of the kora sound
right at home with Taj's darker, barking National Reso-Phonic steel. "Ol'
Georgie Buck" and their canny cover of Muddy Waters's "Catfish
Blues" are the album's blues banners, which find Diabate's kora
delightfully incongruous, while the walking African ballad
"Tunkaranke" leans most heavily toward the motherland. Fleshed out
with fine vocals by Taj, Kasse Mady Diabate, and Malian chanteuse Ramata
Diakate ("Queen Bee"), and other African instruments, the sound is
defiantly acoustic, intimate, and surprisingly true. --James Rotondi
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