Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder “Talking Timbuktu” / <i> Hannibal</i>

World-music aficionado Ry Cooder just picked up a Grammy Award for his collaboration with Indian musician V.M. Bhatt, “A Meeting by the River.” Expect to see this, Cooder’s meeting across the ocean with West African guitarist Toure, deservedly nominated next year.

The Mali musician has long woven together traditional West African rhythms, North African vocal melisma and good old Mississippi Delta blues. But if this pairing with Cooder, whose music also is founded upon American roots styles, seems less conceptually surprising than “A Meeting by the River,” that doesn’t mean it’s any less remarkable. Take “Soukora.” It’s a love song sung by Toure in Bambara--one of 11 languages he speaks--so all most English-speaking listeners will get of the story is the skeletal synopsis in the liner notes. The music, however, speaks more eloquently than words ever could. Toure opens with one of his signature edgy electric Afro-blues guitar riffs, then Cooder arrives with a delicate acoustic guitar line that floats above the tune with the airy sweetness of a Hawaiian lullaby.

Other musical guests include blues veteran Clarence (Gatemouth) Brown, who adds a haunting viola to “Ai Du,” while jazz bassist John Patitucci and drummer Jim Keltner make up the rhythm section. Later, Toure features the njarka, a one-string lute, and his own Groupe Asco in “Banga,” whose spare melody wends and surges like “the river spirit” it is meant to conjure. It’s projects like this that give the Global Village a good name.

* Ali Farka Toure plays Tuesday at 1 p.m. in the Cal State Fullerton Pub, 800 N. State College Blvd., Fullerton. Free. (714) 773-3501.