Griot

"Elisabeth" is a concept album which is the conclusion of the story started in our first album "Gerald". It portrays the upbringing of Elisabeth and her life at The Great City.

Mandingo Griot Society were a Chicago-based quartet who fused elements of African, jazz, funk, and blues musics. Jazz trumpeter Don Cherry guested on this, the band's 1978 debut album.
This, the first album by the Mandingo Griot Society, is not simply a different form of fusion music. True, it does combine traditional African instruments with a contemporary American rhythm section: electric bass, drums set, and percussion. But is it, in fact, a reuniting, a coming together of two musical cultures with a common origin. For it should be understood that the African creative process, spiritual in its essence, has always been the root of American "fusion" musics, most significantly jazz, funk, and blues.

Griot tells a story about Elisabeth, exploring her journey in search of something grand, new… A Journey about something more.
Elisabeth, the second album by the portuguese Griot, is a very interesting conceptual work, an impeccable production, where progressive and jazz styles are merged, but which give them their own space to make them recognizable. There is no musical instrument that is in excess, each one has a reason to be and add value to the compositions.

Griot is a multinational rock band formed by musicians João Pascoal and Sérgio Ferreira in 2014. Griot's sound evokes a style of progressive rock that explores and creates different textures and soundscapes. "Gerald" is a concept album portraying the journey of Gerald, a man with many questions and fewer answers. It's an immersive journey about himself and something more, something grand, something new…

A griot in many West African countries is a storyteller, singer and musician; it could be roughly translated as troubadour. One of the best known active griots is the Malian Baba Sissoko. Through participation in an opera project in Paris, he got to know Madou Sidiki Diabate and Lansiné Kouyaté, players of the kora and balafon respectively - both traditional West African instruments. The three musicians quickly built a strong musical bond, playing together incessantly before and after opera rehearsals, even during breaks. Almost imperceptibly, the material that can be heard on the album Griot Jazz was created. They decided to look for a recording studio in Paris and ended up with keyboardist Jean-Philippe Rykiel. However, during the preparations in his studio, Rykiel also became involved in the project as a musician. For Western ears, his additions counterbalance the traditional African instruments and make the album very accessible. Griot Jazz was recorded in one day and therefore possesses a wonderful organic spontaneity.

It is only natural that Jeremy Pelt's voracious curiosity would lead him to investigate the West African Griot tradition where stories, reminiscences and accomplishments from times past are handed down as oral histories. Researchers such as Art Taylor, William Russell and Alan Lomax have preserved interviews with older jazzmen but for his Griot odyssey, Pelt turns to his own peer group to record their thoughts on creating jazz, playing jazz and experiencing the life of a jazz musician of colour in our own time.

The extraordinary blues musician ERIC BIBB combines different cultures and musical influences on his new album Global Griot. The record, produced together with a multitude of first-class artists, will be released again at the end of October on the established blues label Dixiefrog Records. Eric Bibb seems to have found the perfect mix of blues and world music by combining his grooving modern blues with his African roots as well as reggae and gospel.