KALO-YELE, World Music of Moonlight

Line up:
Aly Keïta: Balafon, Kalimba
Jan Galega Brönnimann: Bass Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone
Lucas Niggli: Drums, Percussion

KALO-YELE is bringing the season’s most gripping set of Swiss music with a West African pulse, arriving at World Music Festival and OCT-LOFT Jazz Festival this October, with the support of Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council.

Aly Keïta is one of the grand masters of the balafon, the West African xylophone. The Ivorian musician fits the balafon in inter- action with artists such as Joe Zawinul, Omar Sosa and Jan Gar- barek. Together with the Swiss clarinettist Jan Galega Brönni- mann and Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli Keïta mixes the traditional African repertoire with Western jazz, Improvisation and African rhythms. This “Brotherhood of vibes and grooves” takes the audience on an adventurous ride.

The first element that underlies “Kalo-Yele” (“moonlight” in Bambara) is a human and affective dimension, whose origin lies many miles from Switzerland and several decades before the three musicians entered the studio. Niggli and Jan Galega Brönnimann were childhood friends, who have spent their youth to the sounds and rhythms of West African music.