Over het album

Timbuktu: the CD title and the name of the capital of Mali has two meanings for the participating musicians and for many people on Earth. On one hand, the city stands for the rich heritage of Africa on many cultural levels, including music, and on the other hand for violence and chaos. The musicians were confronted with sad reports from Timbuktu at the time of recording the CD. During rehearsals, Aly Keita took up a figure that conveys the feeling of the music from the north of Mali. A piece developed from there in a playful and improvising way, which was then named "Timbuktu" as was the complete CD later. Trio Ivoire has succeeded impressively from their beginnings in 1999 until today to interweave the music culture of West Africa with "Western" music, above all jazz, without sacrificing anything in one or the other or even compromising one of the two. A new "Third Stream" is almost created from African rhythmic and melodic elements and the style of jazz. The result does not seem forced or an attempt at cheap sensationalism at any point.
Hans Lüdemann "The combination of instruments in TRIO IVOIRE with balaphon, piano and drums is unique and without precedence. The new album of TRIO IVOIRE brings us back to the core of our long years of collaboration, to very pure and intimate duos of balaphon and piano. However, it also demonstrates the very different colors of the trio, which the new drummer Christian Thomé adorns with very contemporary grooves and provides a lot of variety and surprises with free improvisation in complex pieces as well as in a few catchy tunes."