The first time I heard this was the album version, and I had no idea who, or what, I was hearing; I just thought it sounded really nice.  Then I played it again a week or so later, and the intro caught me; is that one guitar or two?  The more of that intro I listened to, the more it seemed to be only one player; but how was he doing it?  Maybe it's one of those harp guitars; if so, I have to see it.
 
So, I ran a search.
 
is the same song with video; the name of the song is Sira.  It's a duet; but the intro is indeed just one player.  His name is Ablaye Cissoko, and this song is beautiful.  Pay particular attention to the intro, before the singing and trumpet come in, and to how he weaves melody, chordal movement and harp-like embellishments together seamlessly, yet with wonderful attention to dynamics.
 
I just really like the way this song is put together.  Ablaye's vocals and the trumpet statements by Volker Goetze just add to the overall beauty of the tune.

Beautiful. Thank you Dave.

Thanks Dave , I really like that, I love the way the Trumpet becomes ONE  with the piece as well as the vocals. Thanks for posting , I will pass it along to others who might enjoy it as much as I did.
 
 
 Wolf

Thank you for posting Dave. I love beautiful sound of cola very much. I was very surprised at that cola body is made of pumpkin.
 
Toshiaki

Toshiaki, it is not exactly a pumpkin, Kora uses a calabaza (gourd) as body (the very same fruit used on hindustani sitar's bodies). I feel enlighted everytime I hear a Griot singing...

Toshiaki, it is not exactly a pumpkin, Kora uses a calabaza (gourd) as body (the very same fruit used on hindustani sitar's bodies and brazilian berimbau). I feel enlighted everytime I hear a Griot singing...

Mario, Thank you for the info. I might confused pumpkin with calabash(gourd). I couldn't expected that sitar or berimbau are using same fruit as kora. Each size of their body are much defferent.
 
Toshiaki

Calabash - kabocha - pretty close!

Harry, You found funny thing!
 
note; kabocha = pumpkin in Japanese.

Calabsh can grow in many different sizes and shapes, from big rounded bowl to tiny little ball or elongated cucumber like. Thanks for explaining the meaning of Kabocha (my mother was born in Japan, but I've never learned japanese)

Simply amazing!  
 
Thanks for sharing, Dave. This makes one reassess whether using one hand to 'fret' and the other to 'pluck' is inherently archaic.

Mario, As you mentioned it seems to be that there are many different size of calabashes and pumpkins in the world. In Japan, almost of them grow into berimbau size and a few of them grow into sitar size. If it will grow into Kora size, it will be called monster and will be on TV news.
 
(Message edited by to 81 0190 on April 07, 2011)