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 As the lights went out in the spring and summer of 2020 the one star that still shone was a Bristol Refugee Festival online filmed gig of Moussa Kouyate on kora, David Mowat trumpet and flugel, Jimi Can bass and Suntou Susso percussion.  This was an unrehearsed event with trumpet improvisation, responding to the kora in the moment. (See video)

From this start came a year of rehearsals, through lockdowns, evictions, and cultural desert to make a band and an album celebrating Moussa Kouyate’s take on his tradition and his persona as griot,  a musician-community-maker not to African high born but to Bristol’s people in streets parks and harbourside. 
Joining the original band on this journey were Emmy Broughton on concert harp (Malaika Kekode, Jakobol) and the BEJE rhythm section of Federico Leonori on double bass and Paolo Adamo on drums. The band are still finding where modal freeform jazz meets West African grooves and where harp and kora meld best. But floating over this fluid rich texture come moving words and stories about and by Moussa, spoken by his friend David. 
This African beat poetry give a fascinating insight into a free creative spirit refusing the restraint of status-less destitute existence: through Moussa’s story we hear the voice of the voiceless.
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  As the album has not  been released yet assembled here are public comments on a pre-release album track put on soundcloud entitled NHS.Some heart and soul lyrics and sounds there and I very much relaxed really listened and enjoyed. Angela Cheetham WilkinsonIt's a great tribute to the NHS x Chandra Moon    Anyone who knows you knows you are a man of all people, respectful of all cultures , humble in your ‘position of power’, a bridge builder and a true asset to the struggle for equality!  Louisa Maynard    in the end David we are individual balls of light doing what we are here to do , with as much integrity as we can muster ! Deasy Bamford    I liked this David. The sincerity with which you spoke came over well. I also love your trumpet playing.....and the purple strides Colin Malsingh    Cool! Lyrical and spiritual and actual  D Fiona Leslie    Poetry with music  Lesley Regan Radcliffe Lee    Fabulous... lovely track, stepping far, far out of the Quaker-Protestant culture of the relegation of the arts. Mike Ralph King 

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