Mamadou Diabate tours with a quartet, while Heritage features a versatile quintet that includes balafonist Bala Kouyaté, Baye Kouyaté on calabash and talking drum, American jazz musician Noah Jarrett on bass, and special guest Guinean guitarist Djikorya Mory Kante. In their fiery interactions and seamless chemistry, we discover the results of three years of constant performance. Mande music is almost always centered around a singer, so the decision to keep this work all instrumental and let the musicians do the talking is unusual. This music is not typically accompanied by calabash or talking drum, so the percussive aspect of the group is also innovative. But the deepest innovation comes in the compositions and arrangements themselves.