Very sad news is just starting to come in from Mali: Wassoulou diva Ramata Diakite has passed away after a long illness. MaliWeb is carrying the story (in French), and they state that she passed on October 30, sadly only five weeks after marrying her new husband. The article lists her as being 35 years old, but other sources say she was born in 1976... in either case, entirely too young.

Known as one of the Wassoulou region's most talented singers, and the best-known, second only to reigning queen Oumou Sangare, Ramata (sometimes called Ramatou) Diakite was a strong ambassador for her culture. I was fortunate enough to see her once, and I (along with the rest of the crowd, which included country singer Patty Loveless, who had played earlier on the same festival stage) was captivated, and I've been looking forward to seeing her again ever since.

Update: Diakite's friend and manager Erich Ludwig has further information and touching remembrances at his personal blog.

Watch Diakite's "Leroule" Music Video on YouTube.

I don't often give bad CD reviews, mostly because I don't often really dislike music. I'm pretty open-minded and I can think of good things about almost anything. In fact, I can even think of some good things about former Celtic Woman Orla Fallon's new release Distant Shore. I just never want to have to listen to it again.

By anyone's standards, it's a well-made CD. The production value is high, the talent is evident, and there's nothing that stands out as "wrong." And frankly, I think that Distant Shore has pretty widespread appeal. However, Michael Buble, ankle boots, and shredded coconut also all have widespread appeal, and I wouldn't mind if all of them just went away, either.

When it comes right down to it, I just think Distant Shore is too pretty. I like my Irish music with a proper layer of grit, and I'm just not finding any here. Then again, to call this CD "Irish music" would be like calling Shania Twain's music "country" (as Minnie Pearl rolls over in her grave). No, it is (at best) Celtic-tinged, despite the fact that Fallon has pretty substantial traditional Irish music street cred, having won a number of prestigious competitions as a harpist. And though I can occasionally get behind a good pop record, this one just does very little for me. Have you heard it? What do you think?

A little over a year ago, a musical called FELA! premiered off-Broadway in New York City. Featuring choreography by Bill T. Jones and musical arrangements by Aaron Johnson and members of New York-based Afrobeat ensemble Antibalas (members of which also appear in the musical), FELA! tells the story of the life and music of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti.

The off-Broadway production of FELA! was received so well by audiences and critics alike that it is now making the big move to Broadway. Opening for previews at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on October 19, the show officially opens November 23. Visit the official FELA! website to learn more about tickets and other information.

In related news, Knitting Factory Records recently bought the rights to the entire Fela Kuti catalog, and is in the process of remastering and releasing the whole shebang. As a predecessor to those releases (which begin with a reissue of Black President on October 27), the Knitting Factory is sponsoring a string of "Felabrations" throughout the country, which began on October 12 - check the Giant Step Media website to see if there's one in your city.

The moral of this story? Fela Kuti is about to be a very big name. If you already know the broader points of his life story and can discuss his music with a certain amount of authority, you're a big step ahead of a lot of people. If you're behind on that stuff, quick! Catch up! You've still got a few days!

Congolese-Kenyan musician Samba Mapangala has released a new song in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund in order to raise awareness about conservation in the Congo Basin, and more specifically, the Virunga region (where Mapangala was born, and what he named his band, Orchestra Virunga, after), the home of over half of the world's 700 remaining mountain gorillas, the habitats of whom have been devastated by human activity, from war to poaching (remember, mountain gorillas are the species that Dian Fossey died trying to save). That's not a typo - there are really only 700 mountain gorillas left.

It's often the case that awareness for important issues only coincides with a tragedy, so I'm always excited when awareness is drummed up by positivity instead. Indeed, that's the case here, as Samba Mapangala is releasing this song for free. It's called "Les Gorilles des Montagnes," and you can download it directly from drop.io, and learn more about the song and the gorillas themselves on the WWF website. It's a beautiful, upbeat song, and totally worth the mere seconds it will take to download it. Just remember the reason he's giving the song away - the gorillas need our help!

I hate Fall. First of all, it's just a terrible harbinger of doom... the nights get colder, the days get shorter, and you know that winter is right around the corner. Yuck! Also, with Fall comes ragweed. Ragweed is my nemesis, you see. Sneezes, hives, and general disgustingness are just some of the fabulous symptoms that come with the season, so I'm forced to stay inside as much as possible. Luckily, I've got Netflix to keep me company, made twice as entertaining by the fact that I don't look at my queue. It's about a billion movies long, and I can never remember what's coming next, because I added it so long ago. I like surprises.

The other day, my fun surprise was The Harder They Come, a classic reggae movie starring (and soundtracked by) Jimmy Cliff. Now, the soundtrack to The Harder They Come is, in my opinion, essential, fundamental reggae listening. The movie itself, though, is bit tougher to take. First of all, the language is hard to understand (though the film does have a subtitled version, the ending is different). Secondly, though much of the film is fun and upbeat and music-related, it pretty quickly becomes very intense and dramatic. If heavy drama doesn't bother you, I think the movie is definitely worth watching. Regardless, it's worth getting your hands on the soundtrack... it's epic.

In July, I reported that Zydeco star Rosie Ledet was under investigation after a deceased fetus was found in a storage shed at one of her bandmates' houses. Apparently, Ledet, unaware that she was pregnant, miscarried the infant, and distraught by the incident, hid the body in the storage shed before going on tour for a long weekend. Upon returning from the tour, she told her bandmate what had happened, and he called the police. According to the Thibodeaux Daily Comet, subsequent investigations did not reveal foul play, and charges will not be brought against Ledet.

Summer is festival season, and as the warm temperatures fade into Fall, so too does the touring calendar for many international touring musicians. Luckily, Fall happens to be the time of lots of CD releases and other fun news, so the world music blogs are a-buzzin'.

We're also headed into awards season, with the Latin Grammys up first. World Music Central gives us a partial rundown of Latin Grammy nominees, focusing on those categories and artists that were popular in the greater world music community, not just the Latin music world. About.com's Latin Music Site has the complete listing, if you want the total rundown.

Over at Spinner.com, Steve Hochman talks to Les Triaboliques, a supergroup of sorts who fuse... well... pretty much every genre you can think of, and manage to pull it off spectacularly. They're releasing a new album called rivermudtwilight, and you can listen to sound clips from the album while you read the interview.

Soundroots.org, a blog which accompanies a fantastic radio show on KAOS in Olympia, Washington, has a great bunch of pictures of Vieux Farka Toure and Delhi 2 Dublin from Seattle's giant Bumbershoot Festival. I'm a big Vieux Farka Toure fan, and though Delhi 2 Dublin have hovered on the edges of my radar for awhile now, I'm just getting to know their music... and I'm liking what I'm hearing!

And finally, a fun little trivia snippet - according to DubMC.com, Moroccan musician Hassan Hakmoun is opening a restaurant in NYC. His sister will be the chef, and Hakmoun himself will perform most Saturday nights. Seriously, Moroccan food to the live soundtrack of one of the world's best musicians? Uh, twist my arm! The restaurant, called Sintir (also the name of the three-stringed lute that Hakmoun plays) is located on East 9th St. between 1st Avenue and Avenue A, just a half-block West of Tompkins Square Park in New York City's East Village. Darnit, now I'm craving tagine, and there's not even a Moroccan restaurant in my sad little city. I'll visit New York soon enough, though, and I will assuredly be found checking out Sintir as soon as I get there.

One of my favorite parts of my job is helping people reconnect with that elusive tune or song they heard on a radio station, or a TV commercial, or playing over the radio system in a store. I listen to so much music that I can usually nail it down in a few tries, but every so often, I'm a stumped chump, and I'm in that situation right now.

A friend heard a song playing in a J. Crew store while shopping. Because of her Master's Degree in music, she's done a bang-up job of describing it, but I still can't quite place it, and I'm hoping you might be able to help!

Here's what we know:

The song was sung by a female vocalist, in French. It had a kind of light, pop-song sound. The chorus sounded like: “Quand je venais chez toi.” If you know solfege, I can tell you that the tune for those words goes “sol sol sol la do do” (ascending).

I started off my round of guessing with Carla Bruni's "L'Amoureuse" (Listen/Download), thinking that the tune structure sounded similar and that the lyrics maybe could be misheard in a noisy store as "quand je venais chez toi." No dice, though... my friend said that the song definitely had a similar feel, but wasn't the one. I also suggested a couple of other artists as "leads" (including Coralie Clement, Sandrine Kiberlain, and Charlotte Gainsbourg) and she said that the song that she's found based on that list that was the closest in sound was Coralie Clement's “On Etait Bien" ((Listen/Download).

We did assemble a few more clues:

• The song is "coy, cutesy, and flirtatious," definitely not a downer.
• The backing music is of an acoustic nature, if there were instruments other than an acoustic guitar, they're very quiet.
• The song sounded recently-recorded, not vintage.
• It was playing in J. Crew, so it's probably something with some relatively current street cred.

So... help! Can you find the mystery song? Leave a comment with your best guess, and you might just be the one to save a person's sanity!

I live in a pretty cool town, and we have a pretty cool music scene and pretty cool music venues. We've got nothing like Berkeley's Ashkenaz, though, and frankly, no one else really does, either. It's a world music venue, vegetarian cafe, beer and wine bar, dancehall, community center, non-profit, and all-around awesome place to experience music for anyone of any age.

Traditionally, world music venues are the sorts of places where you are supposed to sit quietly in your seat, revel in a long-winded pedantic ethnomusicological monologue given by a venue representative before any music starts, clap politely between songs, and -- if you're lucky -- snag a quick overpriced glass of wine in a plastic cup during intermission. Just don't bring it back to your seat.

Ashkenaz is not one of those places. It's the sort of place where you dance (evidenced by the free dance lessons that precede most of the concerts), clap along with the band, cheer whenever you feel like it, leisurely sip a couple/few microbrews, chat and mingle with friends, and even bring the kids along, if you're so inclined. In short, it's fun. And fun is something that is sometimes a little bit lacking in the world music scene, in my never-humble opinion. So if you're lucky enough to live in or near the San Francisco Bay Area, or even if you visit occasionally, make a point of dropping in and supporting the place... it's a rare gem, to be sure!

Hello, new world and traditional music digital collection. Goodbye, productivity.

See, this is why I have Google alerts set for about four dozen phrases. This bright morning, I woke up and checked the alert email for "world music." What I got was an article from the Telegraph, a UK paper, announcing that the British Library put over 2,000 hours of world music recordings online, with free and open access to anyone who wants to hear them.

These recordings are not polished; they're all funky old field recordings (and pub recordings - there are dozens of drinking songs available, sung in the most authentic way possible). That's just fine with me, though, and I plan on spending a perfectly reasonable summer day pawing through them. And I'm in one of those moods where the less polished, the better, so I'm going to start in on the Ethnographic Wax Cylinders collection... the old stuff, some of which is even from the late 1800s.

So go there (when you get a sec... I can accept that some people may not want to forego a sunny day for the sake of ethnomusicology) and dig in! By the very act of using collections like these, you're supporting the creation of more of them.