Cheick Hamala Diabate Gets Personal

“I told New York last night, ​‘I am going to my favorite place tomorrow.’” An early intimation of love from Cheick Hamala Diabate to his rapt audience Friday evening at the State House. ​“I love Connecticut. We had so much fun last time. This time we have more instruments to make it more fun for you.”

What might have felt like a bit of an ​“I’m sure you tell all the ladies that!” moment lacked contrivance coming from Diabate. Whether because the sentiment was repeated in themes and variations throughout the night, because it’s just nice to believe that you are loved or because Diabate’s paternal benevolence lends a grandfatherly dose of sincerity to his every utterance, I am not sure. I am sure, however, that Diabate was one of the most gracious and genuinely appreciative performers I have ever enjoyed as an audience member.

The night began with a heaping helping of the good stuff courtesy of an all-vinyl set by DJ Shaki, a.k.a. Rick Omonte, one of the finer all-around stewards for quality New Haven music haps. Omonte and his compatriots at the State House regularly put a lot on the line to make sure good acts come to New Haven, and play shows that are intimate, affordable and truly memorable.

As the house filled and fluttered, Vermont psych-folk-trouba-duo MV & EE took the stage to sew soft sonic quilts and build a hearty hearth of fireplace jams for a soggy summer evening. MV & EE make tunes that you can smell in the shower as they wash, like smoke, out of your hair. Their cantering psychedelic romps through slender wooded brooks of modulated echoes feel at once experimental, exploratory and wholesome. Matt Valentine’s fingerpicked leads were spacious enough for Erika Elder’s twinkling tenor guitar to waft over and around the warm inner spaces. At times their array of pedals allowed them the freedom to feel truly multitudinous and expand their palette beyond that of your average folk duo, but they never came close to repeating the folk-pop tropes of many contemporaries — who may share an ear for Neil Young and an eye for effects pedals and electronics, but lack the restraint to pull of such a quality set so effortlessly.

The pairing of MV & EE with Diabate left some folks a tad perplexed, but I suspect it is easy to think too hard about these things. While MV & EE and Diabate may not share specific sonic touchstones, they do share a humble home-grown and inclusive idea of what music should, at its essence, be. It’s an approach to music that is simple, sincere and holistic.

In time Cheick Hamala Diabate took the stage dressed in stark white garments, traditional of griot musicians in Mali. Diabate glowed with the soft focus of a guru, and focused with the soft glow of a saint. His band looked as if it might have been picked out of the crowd, but sounded like it was skimmed from the cream of the conservatories.

And while the ages and cultural heritages of many of the performers diverged greatly, the band itself was tight enough to have come from the same womb. Coloring the spaces around Diabate’s storytelling and exclamations of thanks, the band often confounded listeners, particularly when their syncopated rhythms slithered between the grooves of the (only!) three melodic instruments on stage.

The show was peppered with athletic displays of musicianship, trilling and roiling rolls of sound fired back and forth between flute and conga almost flirtatiously. At more than one point a muscular percussionist leapt form the stage to lead the audience in unself-conscious dance. Her energy inspired an intuitive line dance behind her that swayed wildly and ecstatically threw arms skyward and legs akimbo in tenuous unison behind the free motion of the dance’s leader.

Diabate himself had a wander through the audience, personalizing the collective, playing to individuals who would invite his performance into their personal space. It was a show that was immensely intimate while vibrating with an immutable humanity and collective joy that is lamentably rare.