Kulanjan

If only album reviews could stop right there. Because there's very little else that needs to be said about Taj Mahal's latest studio offering. Pushing the boundaries of the blues further than ever before, Kulanjan is a kind of esperanto, a universal language that unites African and American music seamlessly. This is spirit-lifting music, fit for nowhere but the soul. But then again, what else would you expect from the man who used to hang out with the likes of the crown prince of high adventure, Ry Cooder?

Toumani Diabate is a Mali musician, master of the kora, and the perfect foil to Taj Mahal's extrovert personality. Luckily for us, after over three decades pushing the outside of the blues envelope, Taj Mahal finally settled down in a front porch in Athens, Georgia, where he jammed and eked out the groove in the company of a herald of magnificent Malian musicians, headed up by Diabate.

Kulanjan's essence is its openness. Its spirit of adventure and of sheer rapture in the face of a musical melting pot is almost palpable. Old blues tunes like 'Queen Bee', 'Ol' Georgie Buck' and 'Catfish Blues' metamorphose into three-dimensional celebrations of the African roots of that music so ably cradled in the arms of the Southern States for so many years.

If there's such a thing as primal memory, then Kulanjan bottles it by the pintful. And even to our untutored ears, it's impossible to miss the joie de vivre of the whole affair. Between kamalengoni (six stringed hunter's harps), ngoni (lute), mande balafon (ancestor of the xylophone), and the magnificent wassoulou singing of Ramatou Diakite, there's enough sugar and spice to satisfy the choosiest of taste buds.

If the mélange of instruments and styles suggests that Kulanjan might be beyond the usual demands of your palate, wait up and listen. Because this music will reach parts of your pysche and pelvis that no others ever did. A magnificent success.