Stone finds where Africa and Appalachia meet

Sometimes, musicians find their inspiration far, far from home. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘It started when I heard… Sometimes, musicians find their inspiration far, far from home. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘It started when I heard that the banjo had its roots in West Africa,’ said Jayme Stone, who is from Boulder, Colo., about the motivation behind his recent journey through West Africa to explore the banjo’s history.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘I had been listening to a lot of music from all over Africa, but particularly the music that always kind of tugged at my heartstrings was the music from Mali.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ In the spring of 2007, Stone spent three months in Mali researching the banjo’s history, a journey that inspired his new album, titled Africa to Appalachia, and it also resulted in his collaboration on the album with Mansa Sissoko. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘I was churning all of these ideas in my mind about how I was going to go about [researching the banjo],’ said Stone. ‘I thought it would be best if I went to Mali to see where the banjo comes from, to learn more about the music and about the predecessors of the banjo.’ In West Africa, explained Stone, ‘they of course don’t call them banjoes. It’s still a little bit of a mystery where the name banjo came from.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ There, Stone says the people use a more popular traditional instrument called the ‘ngoni,’ which is closely related to the banjo. The ngoni can have anywhere from five to nine strings. It is different from the banjo in that it has a short drone string, which Stone says adds a more ‘lego-like quality’ to the music’s sound. ‘ ‘ ‘ Stone’s collaborator on the new album, Sissoko, is a griot (a West African poet) from Mali. Also a master player of the kora, a 21-string harp, Sissoko began to direct Stone’s interest toward the banjo’s West African roots when they first met four years ago. Stone knew on their first meeting that they would share musical collaborations ‘mdash; the partnership just seemed to fit. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘We started touring and spending time together developing a repertoire,’ said Stone, ‘finding different places to meet and trying to enter into each other’s musical worlds.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ Stone first heard the banjo at age 16 when he stumbled onto acoustic music, old-time music and bluegrass music that used the banjo, which became a point of convergence for his musical interests. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘I fell in love with the sound of the banjo and traditional American roots music that had banjo in it,’ said Stone. ‘I heard a fellow named Bela Fleck play. He is a huge pioneer of the instrument, and every time he came out with a record at the time, he was playing music no one had ever thought possible on the banjo. I was inspired by the old traditional things and the enormous possibilities with the banjo, so I traded the guitar for the banjo immediately, never looking back.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ In Africa to Appalachia, Stone uses his experiences in West Africa to form a new musical world steeped in the roots of the banjo. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘I have a great love for making a record that engages through and through,’ said Stone. ‘It’s not just a collection of songs. It’s really important to make sure that every song on the record contributes to this new landscape.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ The compositional methods that Stone encountered while in West Africa heavily influenced the formation of the songs on the new album. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘Repetition is very much a quality of West African music,’ said Stone. ‘In fact, one of the things that is a little bit different about our record is how much more arranged it is. Generally speaking, West African music will feature a repetitive phrase or melody that will cycle for 10 or 15 minutes with some completely unchanging parts, while other parts may overlap on top of that.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ The album also incorporates other musical flavors, bringing Africa into other areas, as the album’s title suggests. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘There’s one piece that sounds almost like African music gone to Cuba and music that goes down to the Appalachian mountains,’ said Stone. ‘ ‘ ‘ Many eclectic interests influence Stone’s music and take it in diverse directions at any given moment. Currently, he’s been listening to Spanish fiddle music, a Swedish folk rock band called Vasen, as well as Bach concertos, which he has been playing on the banjo. ‘ ‘ ‘ This will be Stone’s first time performing in Pittsburgh, a show that will take the album, which provides a snapshot of the time at which it was made, and build upon this moment through improvisation. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘[Live performance] sort of predates the world wide web,’ said Stone, ‘in that you can play something that’s 500 years old, or play something that comes from a completely different continent than you are on, or play a song that you wrote years back and have it come alive as if you just wrote it again.’