He's perfectly comfortable playing traditional songs that stretch back centuries or sitting in on a Björk album, and to hear him play with Touré is a treat.

The first record had been cut in Niafunke, Touré ’s home village in the north of Mali, Diabaté contacted World Circuit's Nick Gold about doing the follow-up in London, where the pair was due to play a couple of concerts. Due to the international success of In the Heart of the Moon, Mandé lineage griot Toumani Diabaté wanted to make a follow-up with fellow Malaian, the legendary guitarist Ali Farka Touré. Touré treated the sessions as though he knew they may be his last, returning to his roots to play "Sina Mory", the song that inspired him to pick up the guitar in 1956, and "Sabu Yerkoy", a celebration of Malian independence in his repertoire since the 60s, but recorded only this one time.For as much pain as he was apparently in, Touré's guitar work sounds untouched by illness. It is not challenging music. Ali Farka Touré died in 2006. Thank you. Care to comment?

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2010 CD release of Ali And Toumani on Discogs.
The album was released after Touré's death in 2006. Ali and Toumani. The bluesy, mesmerising music on this magnificent recording is a fitting memorial to the late Malian guitarist and should be a strong contender for 'World Music' album of 2010. They are joined here and there by guest musicians, including Touré's son, Vieux, and legendary Cuban double bassist Orlando "Cachaíto" López (this is also his final recording), but the focus is on the interplay between the two principles. He recorded only a few times in the final years of his life, having retired to become the mayor of his hometown, Niafunké-- he used his own money to improve the roads and sewage system, and fueled the town's generator as well.

These two men, so different in age and background, nonetheless seem to inhabit the same mind for the length of the sessions. Ali and Toumani …
'Ali & Toumani', produced by Nick Gold was recorded at London's Livingston studios during the same year and also features the subtle Cuban bassist Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez. On "Samba Geladio", you can begin to hear the ways in which Touré's music was a cousin of (but not derived from nor a direct source for) the blues as he pulls some ferocious phrases from his acoustic guitar.Gold and engineer Jerry Boys captured these sessions with uncompromising intimacy-- if you turn it up you can hear the creak of chairs and even a cough. Ali And Toumani The uncommonly beautiful final recordings by Malian guitar pioneer Ali Farka Touré find him once again joined by Toumani Diabaté.Ali Farka Touré died in 2006. Recorded over three afternoons at London's Livingston Studios in 2005, with contributions from the late The recordings on this album, the second collaboration between Touré and Diabaté after 2005's justly lauded Diabaté is a 71st-generation musician, and his mastery of the harp-like kora is complete. They brilliantly display their telepathic sympathy during on-the-spot improvisation "Fantasy", which finds Touré creating a series of anchoring phrases for Diabaté to leap off.

Anyone can approach it easily, and it is the perfect initiation to Touré's talents for listeners who haven't yet heard him. Ali and Toumani is a 2010 record by Malian musicians Ali Farka Touré on the guitar and providing vocals and Toumani Diabaté on the kora.

Ali and Toumani doesn't pick up quite where In the Heart of the Moon left off.