smf36: cissoko and cyrille

 

Believe or not, those are both first names!

Ablaye Cissoko is the kora player from Senegal; he's wearing the blue robe.

Cyrille Brotto, of France, plays the diatonic accordion.

Together, they gave us music that... well, here's a few words on that effect on the body.

"When he [Cyrille] plays, it dances - inside, outside - but it always dances!"

I can vouch for that!

But these were not the same dancing motions as for the polskas!

No, today, I danced, but with softer, more flowing, movements.

As for the names of the songs, I only caught two of them.

The first was "Santo Cantata", or something like that.

Then, near the end of their noon30 engagement, they played "Mano Matela", prefacing it with a talk about the hand keeping them down cannot keep them from smiling.

Very interesting piece!

 

But before they performed that for the sparse crowd at the Metal Building, Cissoko had a long talk with us about people always being in a hurry and not knowing why.

It rather reminded me of the message in the Carol King song, "Beautiful", that I've known and loved since I was a teen.

Hard to believe it was almost 50 years ago that I turned 17 years old!

The message today was first spoken in French, then we were in luck: a man in the audience, John Gardner, was able to translate the singer's words to English!

I do hope the show tonight will also have a French-speaker in the house.

Maybe I should contact Axelle and have her go?

(smile!)

This was my penultimate volunteer shift for the 36th Savannah Music Festival.

The flag was still flying, though the bear-constant breeze left over from last night's storm kept trying to wrap it around the post.

The red-shirted folks are John and Cathryn, volunteers like myself, though they're just here through the spring; they fly north for summer.

The younger fellow is Quinn, who told me today that when he saw my name, he knew he could count on me to do whatever was needed.

How very nice of him!!!

He'll be House Manager again tomorrow, and I may well be Express Pass Chica again.

Right now, we, look to have the same crew for the Wednesday noon30 as we did today, so that will be quite nice to see so many familiar faces!

 

I'm hoping the Gate Keeper will be with us, too.

That's him on the right, looking straight at me as I snapped this quickie shot.

I was still standing in the breezeway, after the the front gate pic, when I noticed him standing there, chatting with the police officer.

Justthatfast I clicked the shutter, but Tony Clarke always, always, knows when a camera is pointed in his direction!

(smile!)

So why the Gate Keeper sobriquet?

Well, when I came up to the gate between Metal Building and The Pirate's House parking lot, that gate was locked... yikes!

Gwen was already on the wrong side of it with me, and she said someone was supposed to come and open it, but she'd waited a few minutes already.

That's when I saw Tony and waved and called his name!

Not even a minute later, he was coming up the sidewalk. 

With the short set of keys in his hand, he inserted one in the padlock... it fit!

However, when he turned the key, the lock didn't open.

So he had me give it a try from my side of the fence... ta dah!!!

I had pushed on the lock as I turned the key, as I have to do for my padlock at home.

(smile!)

Hooray!

Gwen said Tony should add that to his list of accomplishments and I immediately came up with the title for that new position: Gate Keeper!

"You know, like the guy in the "Ghostbusters" movie," I told him.

"Was he a good guy or a bad guy," he said, "because I'm ready to be a villain."

Laughing, I assured him that was most def a bad guy position.

"Being the Gate Keeper for the Destroyer of the Universe is certainly a bad guy!"

He liked that.

I wonder if that can be our inside joke?

(smile!)