Fortunately it doesn't occur often, but in the case of The Touré-Raichel Collective yours truly is definitely guilty of negligence. As we weren't that impressed with The Idan Raichel Project, we decided to pass on The Touré-Raichel Collective, the collaboration project of Vieux Farka Touré and Idan Raichel (which got started after the two met each other by accident at a Berlin airport). Wrongly so as it turns out, because 'The Paris Session' (following 2012's 'The Tell Aviv Session' already the duo's second album) sounds intriguing and musically situates itself somewhere between Arab jazz (see also Rabih Abou Khalil) and West African desert blues. Even though the original plan was to record this album in Bamako and it was then still going to be called 'The Bamako Session', because of the unstable political situation in Mali Raichel and Touré decided on Paris instead. Noticeable guests on 'The Paris Session' are Daby Touré on bass, Seckouba Diabate giving a vocal contribution on 'Soumbou Toure' and Eyal Sela on flute (even though it lasts less than two minutes, next to the slightly psychedelic 'Allassal Terey', 'Gassi Gabbi' was our favorite song from the track list).