Land in Zimbabwe. Hop over to the Congo. Turn to Ghana and Sierra Leone. Think Madagascar without forgetting Mali, Guinea, and Senegal. You could go through leaps and bounds following Banning Eyre in Africa. But then again, consider his music: keeping pace is easier than it sounds. Though a single song is as likely to draw from Shona traditions as Wassoulou, from the blues of America to the griot grooves of West Africa, Banning combines these various strands in seamless performances of African guitar. His concert March 13 at the Cornelia Street Café promises unique renditions of pieces such as Sounjata, the griot epic of the Mande Empire, and it will offer his compositions and interpretations of popular and traditional music across Africa.

The guitar has been widely incorporated throughout Africa in the last 100 years. Guitarists often note the many links between their guitars and traditional instruments. In Ghana and across West Africa, guitarists created a laid-back music called palm wine music. Mande griots in West Africa deftly adapted guitar to the music of their traditional ensemble, comprised of kora, a 21-stringed harp, balafon, a wooden marimba, and ngoni, a small, plucked lute. Mande music is among Banning’s strongest influences, and many griot pieces have become standard in his repertoire, including Sounjata, which tells of Sounjata Keita, the founder of the Mande Empire. He is also strongly influenced by Congolese music, probably Africa’s most well-known guitar style from its rumba roots in the 1950s through its incarnation as soukous in the 1980s.

From Southern Africa, his repertoire includes a number of pieces transposed from the mbira, an instrument of the Shona in Zimbabwe. Mbira music is rhythmically driving, uplifting, and spiritual. Guitarists draw from its intricate and winding melodies, often transposing its music directly. However, the guitar is not generally accepted in traditional mbira ensembles.

In addition to performing in these diverse genres, Banning is a bluesman. American blues has close ties to Malian pentatonic genres, such as Wassoulou, a music associated with hunters and also a region in southern Mali. Banning mixes his blues style with his knowledge of Malian music to compose pieces whose sounds are familiar to American audiences. Listen also for influences from Madagascar, South Africa, and more.

Banning has played guitar professionally since the 1970s, and he has specialized in African guitar for the past decade. His far-reaching work includes studying and performing with such guitar giants as Djelimady Tounkara, of the world famous Super Rail Band of Bamako, and Thomas Mapfumo, Zimbabwe’s Shona music master, bandleader, and musical revolutionary. He appears on two of Mapfumo’s records, and he can be heard on Taj Mahal and Toumani Diabate’s album, Kalanjan. In the United States, Banning has played in soukous groups, a West African folk ensemble, and he is the guitarist for The Glamour Boys, an ensemble that combines guitar and mbira. He was also recently featured in the New York Guitar Marathon performing West African guitar with Abdoulaye Diabate.

Rivaling Banning’s musicianship is his encyclopedic knowledge of African music and his extensive work as a writer. He is author of two acclaimed books, most recently In Griot Time, An American Guitarist in Mali, and his articles have appeared in a number of leading periodicals including The Village Voice and The Boston Phoenix. He also serves as Senior Editor of Afropop Worldwide, the leading web resource and radio program for African popular music.

Where’s the 1? Productions was founded to promote traditional musics and contemporary incarnations from Africa. The Acoustic African Music Series is a unique performance space dedicated to ritual, social, and ceremonial musics. All shows are held at the Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street between Bleeker and West 4th. Show times are 8:30 and 10:30 PM, with doors 15 minutes prior. Tickets are $10, plus a $6 drink minimum.