Pa Touray's passing away clearly triggers off an interest in the icons
of Gambian music.
Following below the (extended) contents of a private email sent before
to Momodou Sidibeh, asking about Albert Harb, vocalist/saxophone & flute
player/ composer of Ifang Bondi.
I'll be glad to contribute any further details about the history of
Gambian music.

Badou Jobe/Ifang Bondi

ALBERT HARB (1951 - 1993)
Albert (aka Ali) Harb was a wonderful singer, saxophone & flute player
and a gifted composer.
He was born & grew up in Fatoto, where his father was a trader. As a
result Ali was fluent in Fula and Mandinka, both the language and the
traditional music.
He got his musical training with the Police Band, the hotbed for many
outstanding musicians, including Super Eagles/Ifang Bondi members Paps
Touray, Edu Haffner, Pa Njie (bass), Samson Gassama.
(Commander Nicol of the Police Band used to positively hate SE/IB for
hijacking his best musicians!)

Albert replaced saxophonist Modou Cham in 1974, when at the end of an
Ifang Bondi tour in England Cham stayed behind.
Albert soon became the 2nd front man next to Paps. His superb high tenor
voice complemented Paps' grave baritone in a combination unmatched in
African music (as showcased in "Sutukun" on the Saraba album)
Apart from being an outstanding musician & composer - e.g. "Yolele" and
"Nyano Faro" -  Albert was also a wonderful person, the eternal
peacemaker. His exceptional sense of humour & wittiness would make us
helpless with laughter and made us again and again overcome hard times.
With his talents, his great personality and his good looks he was
everyone's darling, both with his colleagues and the audience.

In the early 80s Ifang Bondi got hit by a boycott by the then regime
after I categorically refused to swap our critical lyrics for songs
praising the political leaders & their cronies. As a result public
performance and airplay were denied to us (Ifang Bondi tapes in the
radio archives still show the banning stickers).
We had no other option than to go abroad. Albert headed for Ivory Coast
while the core of Ifang Bondi - Pa Touray, Kunon Jarjutay, Karamo
Sabally, Mawdo Sy and I myself - went to Europe were we recorded the
beautiful album Mantra, the title song of which - for obvious reasons
("Stop the tribalism, nepotism, opportunism") -
never got airplay in The Gambia.

In 85/86 we came back to The Gambia, and, joined by Albert, tried to
perform again. Only to find out that the Ifang Bondi music with its
critical lyrics was still very much unwelcome in our home country. So we

focused on international tours and recorded the album "Sanjo".

>From 89 on Albert came along on all our European tours, forming with
Paps the most beautiful vocal duo to ever exist in African music.
When Paps decided to retire in 1990 - tired of the hardship of touring
and the strenuous demands of working on a new repertoire - Albert
remained the only front man of Ifang Bondi.
In 1993 he developed some lung problems and the doctor advised him to
refrain from singing and playing flute & saxophone for a while. We
decided to leave him in The Gambia so that he would be in good condition

to come over for the recording sessions planned for the end of the year.

In July, during a big concert in Amsterdam, Samson Gassama -just
returned from The Gambia -told us Albert had very suddenly died. It was
the hardest concert I ever had to play in my life: smiling to an
ecstatic crowd whilst inside I was crying.

Albert's family told us afterwards that he was in good shape, cheerful
as ever and had died - completely unexpectedly but peacefully - in his
sleep.
His sudden death, at only 41 years of age, sent shock waves through the
international African
music community but was largely ignored in the Gambia.
I dedicated the new album "Daraja" to him. I also wrote a tribute to
Albert, "Kibaru", a re-working of a popular song Ali & I wrote together,

which features as the first song on the following album "Gis Gis".

Then 3 years ago I lost under tragic circumstances another one of my
lifetime friends, drummer Malan Gassama. In the middle of a live radio
show we did together on radio FM Malan collapsed and died on the spot of

a heart attack. This was just after Malan told me he wanted to rejoin
Ifang Bondi and we were very thrilled about the prospect of our renewed
collaboration. So again the next album - a re-release of the original
Super Eagles material - sadly featured an obituary...

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