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On July 18th, 2004 I went down to the Ottawa Bluesfest and caught a set by Alpha Yaya Diallo. I don’t really remember this set in particular, but I’ve seen Alpha Yaya Diallo enough times to be able to confidently describe his set as guitar-centric upbeat African-style dance music, à la Paul Simon’s Graceland (sorta-but-different), and it was undoubtedly great, as I have no bad memories from anytime I’ve seen the Guinean-born Canadian guitarist/bandleader.
I’m not sure if this was the first time I had seen Alpha Yaya Diallo or not – likely it wasn’t – but if it was, I was in for a bit of a surprise as soon as the man took the stage.
Y’see, during my first two years of university I was extremely fortunate that the open-minded forward-thinking faculty heads made African drumming a required component of the aural training program (which itself was mandatory for us music students). So every Friday we could pick from the three allotted two-hour time slots where students of guitar, voice, ‘cello, trumpet, piano, and so much more sat with a Malian drummer named Yaya Diallo and drummed. There was no paper, no textbooks, no tests, and no English spoken…just drumming, and I loved it so very much.
And I loved it because of the teacher. Yaya Diallo would take the bus to Ottawa from his home in Montreal every week to teach the classes. He spoke French and his own African language and that was it, but it soon became clear to me that he was the most pure, proficient musician I had ever met and I hung on his every word, though I understood none of them. The guy had played at the Smithsonian several times, he had a Masters degree in chemistry, he was a musical healer as well as a musician, and he had authored two books. He told us the elders in his village had proclaimed him the greatest of friends or the greatest of enemies, and I tell you, you didn’t want to monkey around in his class. I know I sure didn’t.
Soon I found myself going to all three of the Friday sessions, maxing out my time with my African drumming master at six hours per week. One Friday morning I showed up first (as usual) and Yaya told me that he had been contacted by a man who wanted to hire him to go on tour. When he told me the guy’s name was Mickey Hart I almost fell over. Yaya had never heard of Mickey Hart or the Grateful Dead, and when I filled him in he just nodded and went back to warming up.
The next week I asked him about it and he simply told me that he had turned down the gig.
Yaya used to go down to Harlem once a week to pass on his knowledge to young Africans and to play for other Malian nationals who were in need of healing or just a taste of music from home. But Yaya didn’t have a car and he didn’t have a driver’s license. I had both, and he once asked me if I would drive him to New York for the weekend and join him and I jumped all over it. Unfortunately when the weekend came my van was in the shop (or some such thing; I can’t really remember…perhaps Yaya cancelled on me?) and we didn’t go.
Anyway, we were pretty tight.
Yaya used to tell lots of stories about his home country and I became enamoured with the idea of visiting Mali. I remember him telling the class how to buy a drum if any of us were ever in his country. We were to just tip the drum and play each of the three tones on it once, and then you should move on to the next drum. Yaya told us that if you sit there playing some crazy solo on each of the drums they will know you are an amateur and they will charge you amateur prices. Just three tones on each drum and they’ll know you’re a pro.
Speaking of the three tones, Yaya mentioned one time that his grandmother told him that he was a magic child, and I was thrilled to see evidence of Yaya’s magic one day.
The way classes would commence is that our mostly non-verbal instructor would close the door at the class start-time and then he would sit down and start playing a rhythm utilizing the two sounds we knew: the bass sound created from hitting the middle of the drum head and the treble sound produced from hitting the rim. The dozen or so of us sitting in a circle around our leader would join in and follow along, keeping up the same beat for the remainder of the class. It would have been pretty simple except for Yaya’s soloing, which was always breathtakingly brilliant and would usually cause some or all of us to completely lose the rhythm.
In these solos we could hear an unmistakeable third tone coming from Yaya’s drum, a high-pitched snap! that seemed to come from the same motion as the regular treble sound. After a few weeks some of us asked about it and Yaya told us not to worry about it. After a few more weeks us keeners pressed him and he gave a little demonstration.
And we were right: he was striking the drum precisely the same as he did for the treble sound, but on his command the sound could be the high snap! or the normal tone. We were all befuddled, and each of us were utterly unsuccessful in making the sound.
By the time the Christmas break rolled around there were two or three of us that had gotten the mysterious third sound a few times by accident, but none of us could reliably repeat it on command, nor could we tell what we had done differently to get it. Yaya still refused to teach us any more about it.
And then one day Yaya closed the door to start the class and saw a few of us desperately trying to make the third sound, like we did whenever we had a free moment. Exasperated at our impatience (or realizing that we were ready), our magic African healer/master sat down and said, “Okay,” (his only English word).
He slowly looked around the room, catching each one of our eyes. Then he lowered his head and raised his left hand, holding up three fingers. He was going to finally teach us how to make the third sound!
Putting his left hand down he raised his right arm high in the air. All at once he just let it go and his hand fell onto the drum.
Snap!
Of course we all started trying to copy him at once and none of us were getting it. “Non!” he shouted angrily, waving his arm for us to stop. He looked fiercely around the room.
Quickly he swivelled to the girl sitting to his right. He stuck his finger out at her and raised his right arm. She copied him. And then Yaya brought his arm down like he was starting a race, at the same time the girl brought her arm down, her hand landed on the rim of the drum and…
Snap!
The class had no time to marvel. Immediately Yaya turned to the next student – me – and with wide, menacing eyes he stared at me and held his arm in the air. I aped him and sure enough, snap!
And you know, the man went around the room and every single person got the third sound that day, on the first try. Even the elderly opera-singing ladies who were so hopelessly lost and uninterested in the class they could only ever draw Yaya’s ire…they got it too. I went to all three classes that day and it was the same in each one. And you know what else? We could all do it from then on.
It was magic. Or hypnosis that caused magical results. Either way I can still do the third sound every time, but I sure can’t tell you how (though I suppose I just did). And if I try to show you…sorry, you won’t get it. You just won’t.
I know I can still do the third sound because in 2008 I went to Africa for the first time and my first stop was a drum market in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. Of course I selected Mali as a destination because of Yaya Diallo’s influence. I fell in love with the continent on that trip and I’ve been back several times, having since visited Namibia, Zambia, Ghana, and South Africa as well.
And in that market I did what I had been dreaming of doing for almost two decades; I leaned each drum over and played three tones, bass, treble and the easy and reliable third tone, and then I moved on to the next drum. I ended up with a fantastic drum at an unbelievable price, naturally.
Suffice to say, those two years with Yaya Diallo were amazing and hugely influential on a young musical travelbug like me. And so, years later when I saw that a guy named Alpha Yaya Diallo was coming to town I was there with bells on, only to discover that Alpha Yaya Diallo and Yaya Diallo were not at all the same people.
And like I said (way) earlier, I’m not sure if this was the show where I was met with that disappointing surprise or not, but it probably wasn’t.
Todd Man Out 