Another piece associated with a Davis alumnus that often works its way into Mr. Foster's sets is the pianist Herbie Hancock's 1960s classic of modal funk, "Cantaloupe Island".
His songs mix Ethiopia's modal funk and long, quavery melodies with touches of European pop drama and dance beats.
One song moved to a brusquely swinging modal funk vamp that, to a Western ear, sounded something like Louisiana zydeco.
But they easily had enough in common with Mr. Touré's music to join him and his band for the set's finale, "Sarama," a song from "Fondo" that grew into galloping modal funk, with the Blk Jks guitarist Lindani Buthelezi answering Mr. Touré's Malian curlicues with blues-rock leads by way of Jimi Hendrix.
Its foundation is the brisk, modal funk, topped by Arab-inflected vocals, that has been arriving from Ethiopia since the 1970's.
WILLIAM H. FUNK of Staunton, Va.
Mr. Charles E. Funk, of Funk & Wagnall's Dictionary, has coined a new word for the N. Y. Evening Journal.
If you ever wanted to know what Thrust-era Herbie Hancock would sound like with Stevie Wonder in the mix, check out "THICKMISS"; if you need that Soulquarian modal space-funk, "To Live and Die in the East" is your jam.
"Ghana Soundz: Afro-Beat, Funk and Fusion in 70's Ghana Volume 2" (Soundway) collects hybrids from Ghana, where the funk meshed with the modal lope of that nation's own highlife music and with the Afrobeat percolating nearby in Nigeria.
But in the decade from 1969 to 1978 it produced a homegrown pop: a tense mixture of electric guitars, imported late-60's soul and funk, modal Arab-flavored melodies and voices that veered between the tightly ornamented phrases of Arab music and the exultance of soul singing.
