Master Drummers of Burundi

Why do some tiny countries produce more kinds of soul-snaring music than others ten times their size? The most striking music on the Ocora recording is the eerily beautiful whispered singing that accompanies the inanga zither. But even the more common East African sounds -- the delicacy of the sanza, the almost-human musical bow, the crisp acridity of the spike-fiddle -- seem to reach a peak of eloquence in this moon-mountain land. The master drummers were once royal musicians and they preserve a courtly tradition that has vanished in too many African countries. ~ John Storm Roberts, Rovi