Lobi Traore’s ‘Bwati Kono, Vol. 1’: Album review

Before his death two years ago of heart failure at age 49, the Malian singer and electric guitarist Lobi Traore released a series of albums that captured his mesmerizing improvisational blues in the studio. But it’s only with the appearance of “Bwati Kono, Vol. 1,” a compilation of six polyrhythmic performances recorded at club shows in Mali’s capital city of Bamako, that evidence of his incendiary playing is available to those who never witnessed it firsthand. Read ful...