TEMPERS nearly sparked an international incident minutes into Boubacar Traore's Australian debut. The finger-pointing and headshaking was intense as harmonica player Vincent Bucher strode to meet the sound tech. ''You call this a mix?'' inquired one outstretched arm. ''Don't you know who this is?'' the other one demanded.
Traore is Malian music royalty and an enduring force of nature. Shuffling in soft shoes, flat cap and a suit of dazzling African checks and lines, the 70-year-old blues man could have commanded the room solo and unplugged.
His amplified acoustic guitar was a perpetual rhythm machine under the hammer and flick of one finger and thumb. The rattling timbre and fluid, endlessly unfurling lines were as hypnotic as Sufi spirals while invoking a western history of the instrument from Blind Boy Fuller to the Byrds to Richard Thompson. No rush, no flash, just the source of the blues-folk family tree in one gnarled set of hands.
Malian percussionist Lassine Kone was a contrasting study in minimalism: right fist for metronomic boom, cupped left hand for woody click on his upturned calabash. Bucher made his harps sing to the sky, the howling and fluttering breeze to Traore's Bambara moan. Tumbling like tears though Farafina Lolo Lora and bursting with colour in Mondeo, their conversation was vivid and profound enough to leave sound gremlins and language barrier in the dust.