The Touré-Raichel Collective

Vieux Farka Touré (Mali) and Idan Raichel (Israel), virtuosic superstars from very different backgrounds, join together to create masterworks of collaboration and improvisation. After a chance meeting in an airport in Europe, Idan and Vieux forged a deep friendship that led to an impromptu get together at a small studio in Tel Aviv in November 2010. The resulting recording session – acoustic, spontaneous, entirely improvised, and stunningly beautiful – could only be described as magic, and The Touré-Raichel Collective was born. On the upcoming album The Tel Aviv Session, to be released by Cumbancha on March 27, 2012, Idan and Vieux have captured an inspired musical moment that will bring to mind classic albums such as Talking Timbuktu by Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder, Keith Jarret’s The Köln Concert or Vincent Segal and Ballake Sissoko’s acclaimed Chamber Music. The live concert reflects the natural spontaneity and free-form creativity of the recording sessions, allowing audiences to experience firsthand the invention of sublime and transcendent music that crosses boundaries of country, culture and tradition.