Interview with Ira Coleman: Basquiat, Jazz and Mandinka Music

Basquiat’s art shows just how deeply he understood the signifying power of music. Beginning in 1982 with the drawing Undiscovered Genius, he turned his attention to the figure of the griot. Originating in West Africa, the term refers to nomadic musical storytellers responsible for preserving African ancestral histories and traditions over centuries. In Basquiat’s drawing, the central figure appears to be blues legend Robert Johnson, above whose image appears the dual label “GRIOT/BLUESMAN,” explicitly linking African and African American musical tradition, and underscoring the artist’s engagement with the African diaspora and Black Atlantic music, to which part of the exhibition is dedicated. In their references to Louisiana Creole music or the lines drawn between jazz and the slave trade, the works in this section evoke Basquiat’s exploration of the forms of culture that were born out of the forced migration of African peoples to Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas.

Although Basquiat tragically died at the age of 27, his presence is strong in our current historical moment, and his work continues to inspire poets, musicians and visual artists alike. This is confirmed by Ira Coleman, the man behind the Jazz and Mandinka Music concert taking place on January 26, 2023. In conversation with Caroline Louis, the new General Director of Bourgie Hall, the bassist explains his relationship to Basquiat, jazz and Mandinka music.

What does it mean to you to be part of this concert series paying tribute to the great American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat?

It’s very inspiring to see an artist whose work draws equally on music, words, images and movement, imagining them as a whole and incorporating his own cultural roots into it as well. The influence of greats like Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday, for example, are plain to see in Basquiat’s work. In the exhibition, you can even hear an ngoni (a traditional Malian guitar) accompanied by a blues guitar. I was touched by that, because it echoes my own history. Basquiat, who was the child of a prominent couple of the African diaspora, had Puerto Rican and Haitian roots. For my part, my father was African American and my mother Swedish, and I grew up in France with North African, Italian and African friends. Over the years, the search for my African roots has led me to reggae, jazz, Mandinka music, Senegalese mbalax music, Afro-Peruvian and Afro-Mexican music... It’s a very rich mix of cultures. In addition, my father was also a painter and had many musician friends, including the American jazz percussionist and composer Max Roach, who called him “the visual musician.” He also listened to music while painting, and most of his works were portraits of musicians. So I see many parallels between my story and Basquiat’s.

And how did you arrive at the musical content for the concert, which has such an atypical combination of instruments (flute, balafon, piano and double bass)?

It’s the result of several years of work and research, but also professional encounters with musicians from all over, including Jessye Norman and Herbie Hancock of the U.S., Jamaican musicians Monty Alexander and Ernest Ranglin, North Indian musicians such as Aashish Khan, Malian musicians including Cheick Amadou Tidiane Seck, Toumani Diabaté, Oumou Sangaré and Ramata Diakité, and Senegalese musicians like Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck. I also had the opportunity to go to Bamako to record an album called Red Earth with Dee Bridgewater.

Then, for a year, I went on tour with griots. In West Africa, and in Mali in particular, there are three main families of griots: the Kouyaté, the Diabaté and the Sissoko. There are also several branches, such as the Koïta, the Zoumana, the Touré, etc. For centuries, their knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation in accordance with the oral tradition. These families are responsible for safeguarding the history of the Mandinka Empire, which was founded by Sundiata Keita in the 13th century and whose first griots were the spokespersons, so to speak. Their role was to promote the empire, sing its praises and preserve the knowledge of Malian society. The Mandinka Empire at the time covered a vast territory that included Mali, Senegal, Gambia, southern Mauritania, and parts of Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Niger. I believe that only the Mongolian Empire was larger in that period. In fact, the ruler was called the Alexander the Great of West Africa!

Mandinka music follows very specific themes. We only know the standards and melodies, and we use those as the basis to add harmonies, to reinvent and to play with other tonalities, beats and rhythms. In fact, Mandinka music and jazz are similar in this respect, as they both have that improvisational element. And that’s the link that I wanted to explore further. So I called on Jean-Michel Pilc, who is a master of improvisation (give him three notes and he’ll make a symphony out of them!), Salif “Lasso” Sanou, who plays the Fula flute (a flute made from a conical vine and also known as “tambin”), and Mamadou Koïta, who plays the balafon. They are originally from Burkina Faso, which was part of the Mandinka Empire from the 13th to the 17th century.

Symbolically, merging jazz and Mandinka music is a powerful gesture. But it’s also important to show respect for both traditions in order to make sure their combination works and that each is given the place it deserves. How did you meet this challenge?

Yes, one has to be very respectful, and I don’t try to impose my perspective on the music. First of all, I’m a bass player. The bass doesn’t exist as such in Mandinka music, but certain “analogies” can be made with traditional instruments. For example, we’ll take a kora part, a percussion part and a bolon part to build a bass line. I also try to keep in unison with the melody played on the balafon or to find something that supports the melody, because we won’t have any percussion in this concert. So I’ll play a repetitive rhythmic role and act as the underpinning for the ensemble, as I’m used to doing as a musician. In all the African diaspora music I play, whether it’s reggae or jazz, I always kind of serve as a foundation.

Would you say that Mandinka music is the “raw material” of the concert, and that you’re adding elements of jazz to it, or that the starting point is rather the jazz itself?

For the Bourgie Hall concert, there will be a combination of Mandinka themes and an improvisation. I’ll start off with Mandinka music and then follow that with a succession of specific themes. There will also be African blues themes, and I will mix diatonic instruments (i.e., producing fixed chords) with chromatic instruments. Finally, there will be a completely spontaneous improvisation that will start from a single note. As a jazz musician, I want to highlight the links between the two musical traditions and show that jazz improvisation is compatible with the traditional musical themes and improvisations of Mandinka music.