Ali Farka Touré (1939-2006)

In 1994, my love of Jamaican roots reggae led me to my first exposure to what can be broadly called African music in the form of an amazing album, "Talking Timbuktu," a collaboration between American guitarist and musicologist Ry Cooder and Ali Farka Touré, a self-taught Malian guitarist and songwriter.

Touré, who was 66 or 67 when he died earlier this week, fused the traditional modal riffs of the music of Mali with Mississippi blues. The result was a spine-tingling feast of sounds that were to earn him two Grammys, one with Cooder for "Timbuktu."

He considered himself first a farmer, and seldom toured, but I managed to score great seats for a rare American appearance in 2001. It was not to be. The concert was scheduled for the week after 9/11 and Touré could not get into the country.

Said Cooder on learning of his former collaborator's passing:

It's important for a traditional performer to be coming from a place and tradition, and most people who are like that tend to be part of their scene rather than transcendent of their scene. That's what their calling is all about. But Ali was a seeker. There was powerful psychology there. He was not governed by anything. He was free to move about in his mind.

Cooder was to do music lovers another huge favor three years after first playing with Touré. His travels took him to Cuba, where he assembled an extraordinary ensemble of mostly retired and forgotten masters of the jazzy and romantic Cuban son music form that he dubbed the Buena Vista Social Club. I did get to see them perform. Three times, in fact.