Dama & D’Gary “The Long Way Home”...

Dama & D’Gary “The Long Way Home”

Shanachie

It’s a sweet irony that it’s taken the high-tech jet age to bring folk musicians from the distant shores of Madagascar together with some from rural Louisiana.

The best part is that this collaboration between singer-songwriter Dama Mahaleo, guitarist D’Gary, fiddler Michael Doucet and guitarists Sonny Landreth and Henry Kaiser makes no artistic concessions to the technology that made it possible. The songs sound as if they emerged from an afternoon session on someone’s back porch.

Kaiser was introduced to Malagasy musicians Dama and D’Gary during his 1991 venture to their island with David Lindley. Kaiser brought the Malagasy musicians to Louisiana, perhaps the most fertile musical turf in the United States. Dama plays the kabosy , which sounds like a cross between a guitar and a lute and looks a lot like Bo Diddley’s famous cigar-box guitar. D’Gary handles conventional electric and acoustic instruments. Both sing.

The textures created can be familiar one minute, exotic the next, and consistently intriguing. “Andeso Aroy” (“Go On With Your Life”) has the percolating lilt of a Nigerian high-life tune. Beausoleil leader Doucet comes forward in the buoyant instrumental “Mpanjono Mody” (“The Fisherman’s Return”), with Landreth applying his bluesy electric slide guitar to the graceful, reggae-like “Mianovana Tokoa” (“The Conceited Beauty”).

It’s a glowing testimonial for the advantages of the global village.