Brian Slattery Photo
Seated on the Best Video deck Sunday evening, Mamady Kouyate reached behind him to trigger a tight, intricate loop of drums and synthesized backup. The loops offered harmonic and rhythmic structure, but no sway. That was the humans’ job. Ousmane Kouyate on rhythm guitar and Jocelyn Pleasant on djembe breathed velocity and relaxation into the music, falling in with the programmed elements and bringing them all to life. Now Mamady stood up, and in the light of the setting sun, brought cascades of keening notes, intricate rhythmic figures, idea after idea, speaking of aching joy.
The trio and related equipment heralded the return of the Mandingo Ambassadors to Best Video and to New Haven’s ears, after the threat of inclement weather forced a cancellation of a previous date at the outdoor venue. This time the evening was clear and cool, perfect for being outside. Kouyate began his set with few words. None were needed; with every song, Mamady’s guitar — and sometimes, Pleasant’s djembe — took the lead voice that served as guide through the swirling, hypnotic rhythms the trio set up each and every time.
That a world-class guitarist like Kouyate — who made his reputation in Guinea playing with Bembeya Jazz National — had been living in town for decades was one of New Haven’s best-kept musical secrets. The Mandingo Ambassadors played regularly in New York and elsewhere, just not in the Elm City. That all changed in 2019 when the band played to a packed house at Best Video. They repeated that feat early in 2020, just before Covid-19 arrived. By then New Haven’s taste for African music was well-established, as Best Video, Cafe Nine, and the State House together were regularly bringing African acts — from Mdou Moctar to Les Filles de Illighadad to Tal National to the Krar Collective — to Elm City audiences.
The pandemic has severely disrupted all of that. Internationally, the virus has killed far too many musicians and sickened far too many more. The too-real possibilities for getting sick have made the kind of travel touring musicians do inherently more dangerous. Meanwhile, travel restrictions and shutdowns have meant that, for many of the bands that used to visit New Haven, it’s too difficult and expensive to obtain the travel papers needed to hit the road as before — it was difficult enough before the pandemic — and fewer venues to play at in any case.
Yet the healthy crowd that showed up for Mandingo Ambassadors demonstrated that the desire to hear music from beyond our shores remains. As the band’s sound filled the air, people kept trickling in, solo, with friends, with families. Some people brought dinner. Others brought snacks. Most partook of the beverages Best Video had for sale. Friends loitered near the back of the parking lot to socialize. Children threaded through the naturally distanced crowd. Heads bobbed. A few hips swayed. Others sat up close and just listened and listened.
Just before the final song of the evening, Kouyate thanked everyone for coming. “I hope you come back,” he said. It seemed clear that if he did, they would. In the late summer air, the music of the Mandingo Ambassadors sounded like resilience, a reminder of what was and a promise of what could be again, if we all just hang in there.
