Customer Reviews
Amazing album, amazing music 
2008-06-25
The music from this album will take you to another world. What's even more impressive is when you find out the two musicians recorded the music unrehearsed.
Brilliant 2008-04-07
This album is brilliant - a good choice for those new to Toure's artistry, and those already devoted fans.
BEAUTIFUL MUSIC FROM MALI 2007-11-25
A GREAT COLLABORATION BETWEEN ALI FARKA TOURE AND TOUMANI DIABETE. I HAVE ALMOST ALL OF TOURE'S ALBUMS, AND THIS ONE REALLY STANDS OUT, IT IS UNREHEARSED SPONTANEOUS JAMMING WITH DIABETE, WHO PLAYS THE KORA. I WAS INTRODUCED TO THE SOUND OF THAT INSTRUMENT ON THE CD "MUSIC FROM THE HEARTS OF THE MASTERS" WITH JACK DEJOHNNETTE AND FODAY MUSA SUSO, WHICH IS YET ANOTHER OUTSTANDING RELEASE. THE KORA IS A 21 STRINGED INSTRUMENT THAT SOUNDS LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN A GUITAR AND A HARP. THIS IS A TRULY EXCEPTIONAL, VERY MUSICAL CD THAT ANY MUSICIAN OR MUSIC APPRECIATOR WILL ENJOY A LOT. TWO SUPERLATIVE MUSICIANS.
Music...as good as it can ever get 2007-08-06
I read from one review that not even 5 million stars could rate this album. I agree. If you are a musician, and you know what it gets to play what these 2 wise monsters of music play, you know that what you have in front of you requires technique, inspiration, and lots of wisdom...
I have heard this CD a million times, and every time I listen to it I just stop whatever I am doing and see myself traveling in some magic world of feelings, conversations. Have you heard "Mamadou Boutiquier"? What a perfect masterpiece! How could in the earth someone just get together, play, and create such a beauty? How can two people, without rehearsing, who have only played once together, who play different music traditions, create something like that? How the song evolves, build its momentum through a progressive intensity, cries out so loud the power of music?
And Hawa Dolo? Ali Farka's song, not one of my favorites, reaches a different dimension in this version. The nostalgic power of this song is difficult to equal.
Kala, Debe, and Kadi Kadi's solos... my gosh! I don't know, I listen to this music and I feel overwhelmed with humility, with admiration to how much these two musicians must know about life, about human beings, about the strings inside us, to do what they just did.
Remember that this is not an improvisation, as Ali says in the cover. They both knew what they were playing, even though they had never played together. They understood a language that for most of us is a mystery.
Thank you Ali Farka and Toumani, the beauty of your work is so inspiring!
Another classic 2007-06-27
Need I say more-this album is a keeper. Might not be as catchy as Talking Timbuktu. Nonetheless, beautiful and powerful.
Good Album very "West African" 2007-05-16
In the Heart of the Moon is a summit meeting between two world music giants, guitarist Ali Farka Toure and master of the kora-the 21-string gourd harp-toumani Diabate. It is the first newly recorded work from either artist in five years and their first album-length collaboration. More an eloquent, in-depth dialogue than a jam session, In The Heart Of the Moon was recorded during three unrehearsed, improvisatory two-hour sessions at the Hotel Mande, on the banks of the Niger river, in Bamako, Mali.
Refreshing change 2007-05-13
Well chosen selections provide a refreshing change from the ordinary. It doesn't matter that I didn't understand the language, I could understand the music. Bluesy ballads with gutsy rythmns.
Beautiful African Mali Masterpiece 2007-05-04
I'm really baffled by the few who trashed this CD. It has no "three chord progressions". The truth is worse than that. All the songs are two chord progressions except the last piece which would be a three chord progression if it weren't for a bridge. True Ali Farka Toure's other CD's can get tiring pretty fast, he is on this CD to basically provide a rhythmic background to Toumani Diabate's Kora. So much so, I can't believe it's even considered a Toure album. This is Toumani Diabate's music all the way and he leaves little doubt that he is by far the finest Kora player ever. I found it anything but bland. Maybe their stereo isn't operating properly. Maybe it's critics threw it on and went in another room and lost all that high end flurry of notes that come blazing across the rhythm section. In the end, maybe it's just the different way people listen to music. I have 3 other Farka Toure CD's and this one leaves the others in the dust. An excellent CD for anyone with a taste for the music of Mali.
sheer,rapturous beauty 2007-05-04
Another "tour(e)" de Force from the Lord's favorite guitarist and if that wasn't enough we are treated to the exquisite sounds of Diabate's kora.
This is music I want to spend eternity in.
It is Heaven to the ears.
Five stars aren't enough-5 million stars might not be enough to give this music the "rating" it deserves.
I feel like I have found the music I've been searching for all my life.
I understand how George Harrison felt when he discovered Ravi Shankar and Hindustani classical music in general-the rapture of his soul.
This music is the soundtrack of my DNA.
TO label it "essential" is like calling the air we breathe "essential".
Let God bless you and get this CD ASAP!
Balm for the heart 2007-04-09
Amazing work. Two whole lives dedicated to music intertwine. Watch us, great Ali Farka Touré, from where you are now, whatever it is.
Never been there. Probably never will (a great sadness). Things are probably not rosy overthere (like anywhere else, if you think about it) but listening to these giants just make you think that there is a whole world of beauty and soul along these banks. This just flows with your imagination. I will not try to rank anything here, it just captures you, and then, perhaps, leads you to Gomni, to name but one, a litle before the end, the kind of uplifting track that you can play twenty times at a stretch and still want more.
