Music / Vieux Farka Touré.  At The Street Theatre, March 5. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

VIEUX Farka Touré is the son of revered Malian guitarist and singer Ali Farka Touré, who died in 2012.

The elder Touré was a central figure in West African music from the ’80s onwards, creating a distinctive mix of traditional Songhai song using electric guitars as accompaniment, rather than the acoustic-stringed instruments of the region, such as the kora and ngoni. Like his father, Vieux is a guitarist and singer in much he same style and currently touring Australia with a bass player and drummer.

The music is deceptively simple, the songs mostly built around repetitive four-bar patterns that can be the melody of the song or a simple three-note riff on the bass. Touré picks the guitar with his thumb and two fingers, embroidering the basic riffs with a flurry of notes, the music skittering across the fretboard.

The concert started with Touré playing acoustic guitar and the drummer with a large half gourd or calabash, closely miked, which he would thump with the heel of his hand with a sharper counterpoint from a couple of small drumsticks for a most effective rhythmic pulse. After a couple of songs, the acoustic guitar was swapped for the electric, the drummer moved to his drum kit and the bass player turned up his volume a notch or two.

The bass player is the epitome of bass-player cool. Occasional little dance moves with a slight smile while holding the music together and establishing a hypnotic groove. The drummer is not doing what Western rock drummers do, but finding off-beats and patterns that just should not work with what the bass and guitar are doing but it all does. By the last few songs most of the Street Theatre audience were on their feet and dancing to finish off a memorable evening of music.

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