An amazing night last night at the Lizard Lounge! Malick Ngom and Aziz Faye joined Lamine Touré & Group Saloum for a rollicking night of Senegalese mbalax. In the picture above you see Malick (seated, left) and Aziz (standing, center) playing sabar drums in the foreground; between and behind them, Paa Seck is also playing sabar, while Lamine (right) is singing. You can catch a glimpse of Hiro Sakaba playing bass, behind Malick and Paa, and Masa Sasaki (far right) playing guitar.

Not pictured above is world-renowned djembe player Billy Konate, who’s in town teaching workshops with The Drum Connection. Billy sat in with the band for a few minutes and shared some amazing licks.

It was incredible to have such a confluence of West African percussion talent gathered in the basement of the Lizard Lounge! I’m grateful to be connected with such an amazingly talented group of people from around the world.

Malick and Aziz are members of the Sing Sing (Faye) family, who are the hereditary géwël of the Cap Vert peninsula, where Dakar is located. Friend of the blog Professor Robert Sipho Bellinger has a web site that explores the significance of the Géwël Tradition in Senegalese music and culture. Professor Bellinger is the Director of Suffolk University’s Black Studies Program; in that role, he has brought members of the Faye family to Boston as Distinguished Visiting Scholars (see more information about the program, which is open to the public). Sipho is also the producer of several CD’s that feature members of the Sing Sing family, including the eponymous Sing Sing Juniors release from 2007.

As an added bonus, check out the video below; it shows Paa Seck and his brother Babacar Moha Seck tearing up the sabar in Providence this fall. Enjoy!