Thailand to Timbuktu to La Paz: world music, film, and travel

“SABANI” by Leni Stern—Expect the Unexpected

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:19:00 +0000

You gotta’ keep an open mind. That is one of the first things you learn in life, hopefully, and one of the best, certainly. Now I’ll confess to no more than a vague familiarity with Leni Stern’s music prior to this album, but a quick look at the PR blurb of a lovely white lady with two traditional African musicians, claiming to pick the banjo-like ngoni old-school-style with the homies… and the first thing I think is that there must be a decent-size dollop of BS to the PR, and some old-school pretentiousness to boot. Of course a little pretentiousness is good; that’s the stuff of creativity; so it’s just a question of proportions—and honesty—and quality. I mean, a woman playing lead guitar is rare enough—even when well done; but ngoni? I believe Leni passes most of the tests in question here with flying colors.

The title of Leni Stern’s latest self-release is “Sabani” and the premise is simple enough, straight out of a Hollywood script in fact—kick-ass jazz guitaresse goes to Africa on a mission of goodwill and instruction, then falls in love with the place and the people and ultimately the instructor becomes the instructed, by no less than Bassekou Kouyate in fact, master of the ngoni (pronounced “ngoni”) and one of Mali’s most respected musicians. Fast forward to the middle of the story and Leni is performing at Essakane’s Festival du Desert with the collected mass of Mali’s finest ngoni-pickers all on stage at once. Fast forward to the present and she’s got an album together with three of Mali’s finest musicians and is embarking on a tour to share and support. That’s not bad for a child prodigy born in Germany who made her name in New York.

This is nothing new of course. Leni has been doing her African musical journey for at least a half decade by now, with influences from a handful of other countries and travels—including India and Madagascar—for another five years before that. Her musical career looks a lot like my travel book, in fact. And all that came after various and assorted work with the likes of jazz and world masters John Mclaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Bill Frisell, Michael Brecker, and many many other top luminaries. Hers seems not so much as a musical career as a musical quest. It’s nothing if not exhilarating. But can you dance to it? That’s up to you. This could be a seated concert or SRO. It keeps you flexible.

Leni of course is an equally accomplished lyricist as well as a smooth-fingered instrumentalist. Her first composition in her new-found home illustrates this nicely. It’s called “Still Bleeding” and features a theme familiar to all, regardless of continent: “It takes some time to heal a heart…it’s easier to break it…I’m still bleeding, I’m still bleeding.” From there the lyrics only get more abtract, more obscure, more… jazzy, such as “Like A Thief, with some excellent jazz guitar: “like a thief in the night when everyone is fast asleep…loves comes on velvet feet…there’s nothing anyone can do,” or “I Was Born,” again with very nice guitar work: “I was born hungry…never felt like I could get enough.” I get the feeling that that is the main recurring theme to much of Leni’s life and work.

Other songs are more African-inspired, like the whispery and mystical Sorcerer:” “you who can talk to the spirits…when you walk through the forest late at night and someone calls your name, don’t turn around, don’t look back…you’ll never be the same.” “Djanfa” is sung by talking drum player Kofo and is entirely in African dialect, presumably Bambara, reminiscences of Salif Keita, to no less effect. The two instrumentals go both ways. “The Cat Stole the Moon” is Leni back on jazz guitar, while “An Saba” could be Ali Farka Toure’s final take of something he’d been noodling with way back when but almost forgot. Perhaps the album’s best song is a combination of all of the above, PLUS fine female backing vocals. “Papillon” begins in African dialect with female backing vocals and then segues into Leni’s finest voice—Ami Sacko instructed her btw—“walk along the same old street, nothing seems the same…you’re motionless silent somewhere deep inside…your heat’s still heavy I can see, but you my friend will always keep butterflies for company.” Once again I’m reminded of Salif Keita, but maybe that should be no surprise; the album WAS recorded in his Bamako studio after all.

I challenge you to listen to this album with closed eyes and pick the foreign white woman out of the mix. All in all the entire work is well worth the listen, but maybe the best parts are not the ngoni numbers, but Leni’s highly accomplished electric guitar mixing and mingling with the traditional Mali urban and Sahel genres. After all that really hasn’t been fully explored yet, except for Justin Adams’ work, but that’s a totally different much more rock & roll style. As Dr. Santana made clear long ago, there’s always room for some virtuoso fret-work to add spice to traditional folk styles. And he wasn’t playing banjo, either. That’s “Sabani” by Leni Stern. Check it out.

“My Life” by Sia Tolno: Another African Success Story

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 23:11:00 +0000

When you hear the name of the country “Sierra Leone,” music is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind, more likely being the movie “Blood Diamond,” the Leonardo D vehicle which portrayed it largely as a tiny remote West African nation enmeshed in a violent revolution funded by corrupt and illicit mining, a portrayal at least partially true. I think of it as the slave-era British counterpart to Liberia, a territory where freed slaves were released and allowed to make their way as best they could without the baggage of the past infringing, hence the emergence of Freetown as capital and major city.

“My Life” is the title of the new album by Sia Tolno, and this is the cultural milieu into which she was born and raised, for a while at least. She, too, like many others, was forced to leave to escape the brutal civil war, and begin a refugee’s life of crowded cramped restless wandering, first in Guinea, then elsewhere as her fame grew. Her music reflects that harsh reality she had to endure to survive. Still she never forgot home, even when ir was largely reduced to ruins. The title to her first song, “Blamah Blamah,” is the name of the town where an annual festival used to be held, back in the good ol’ pre-war days. Such is life, one of makeshift impermanence. Sia Tolno takes it to heart, brooding and growling and cursing the corruption and decadence, while never losing her optimism. And still she’s pure African at heart. If many “world music” artists seem like nothing so much as enlightened hybrids, Sia Tolno is refreshingly pure and authentic, and so is her music.

From that pure percussive African starting point, Sia proceeds to stake her claims to all the styles for which African is famous. If she opened the album singing scat, she follows it up in “Odju Watcha” singing balls-to-the-wall blues, and to good lyrics, too: “People fight here for power… with all the gold and diamonds we’ve got… human pride does not exist…”. There’s some kick-ass good brass and lead guitar showcased here, too. Then she changes it up. This is the mark of the consummate artist, and the place where most fall short, the ability to mix it up in a variety of styles and still resonate (pun intended). “Di ya leh” does just that, with soft and smooth balladry, Sade-like, the moody female reduced to type without being reduced in artistry. The title song “Malaya (My life)” explains: “I spent my life making people happy when I was so sad…Oh God, take me back to your peaceful home…,” slow and brooding and accompanied by some nice clean guitar.

Just as abruptly she shifts right back into defiant mode. “Polli Polli” is a kick-ass rocker—complete with some screamin’ sax—and a blistering critique of corrupt local politics: “what did they say…sister, what did they do?... polli polli no good at all,” Sia all the while growling, cursing, kicking and screaming—yet never losing her cool. Then another signature sound emerges in “Aya ye,” neither harsh nor soft, neither brass nor ballad, more like a jazzy reggae, light and lyrical, prophetic yet fun, “Kongossa” following in a similar vein. “Blind Samaritan (Poor Man)” starts similarly, a reggae-like ballad, “Here comes the blind man, hoping to see the beauty of this world…no man is an island, no man stands alone.” But it also adds another distinct sound, just when I thought Sia had pretty much shown her full palette. She has a Latin side, too. If this is hinted at in several songs, it’s overt in “Tonia (The Truth),” which just may be the most compelling song on the album, or at least a close second to the Afro-Beatish “Odju Watcha.” Slow brooding and romantic and with some biting sharp guitar, Carlos Santana would be right at home on this song and Sia seems right at home with the style, too. This could be a whole new growth area for her.

“Toumah toumah” also features some elegant guitar, and flute, and some whispering vocals that only leave one continually astounded at the range of Sia Tolno’s musical, acoustical and emotional depth. Most of all, though, she’s an African patriot. “Shame upon u” closes the album rocking and rollicking, “We are the owners of Africa… it belongs to us… shame upon you.” BTW, did I mention that the album is elegantly produced, also, by Francois Breant? She’s a keeper. That’s “My Life” by Sia Tolno, out on December 6 on the Lusafrica label. Know what I’d do if I were you? I’d check it out.

JONI HAASTRUP & MONOMONO- TIME TRAVEL ON THE MAGIC CARPET DNA OF MUSIC

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 19:51:00 +0000

It’s not often that you get the chance to re-visit a bygone era and help rescue one its great protagonists from the shadows of obscurity. After all, the future may be a sea of possibilities, but the past is definitely not. Especially in the well-publicized field of pop music, such finds are rare, Nick Drake and Arthur Lee being a few that come to mind in the Anglo-American mainstream of pop music. Within the ample hidden folds of world music the harvest may be a bit greater, as many long gone old-timers are found, revived, and brought back up to the surface for fresh air and ultimate justice. Examples of this might be Boubacar Traore’ of Mali or any of the Buena Vista Social club members. Others of course met crueler fates and survive only through their music, never knowing that they found a posthumous following in the west. Ros Sreysothea and Sinn Sisamouth of Kampuchea are good examples of that.

Meet Joni Haastrup from Nigeria. His band MonoMono was one of the defining acts of a generation that included a much better known Fela Kuti, with whom he collaborated and competed in the 70’s. Now three of his albums from that era have been re-issued and made available to a new generation. Like Fela, Joni too did most of his songs in English, ostensibly to gain an overseas audience, but don’t underestimate the need for the broadest possible lingua franca in a country of over five hundred languages. But Joni was never the attention-grabbing superstar in his own right, shining instead as a vocalist and keyboard player in an ensemble setting, first with O.J. Ekemode, and then Ginger Baker’s Air Force, before forming his own band MonoMono. His lyrics are always upbeat and empowering, shades of another young man from across the sea, also making the rounds in London at about the same time in the early 70’s. Of course, the ‘rush for Africa’ didn’t really begin until Bob Marley hit #1 in the charts, scooping up Fela and King Sunny in its net, while Joni had to wait… until now.

“Give the Beggar a Chance” was originally released in 1972, and it reflects much of what had occurred in Anglo-American rock by this time, especially a wild-ass psychedelic organ derived straight from the 60’s via The Doors, and a clean jazz guitar laid down in light hot licks. But the vocals predominate, to generally good effect. In the title song, lyrics like “what do you need from a beggar?.. give him a chance to blow your mind” exemplify much of Haastrup’s ethos, his love of common people and constant exhortations to forge on and forge ahead. “The World Might Fall Over” even features a Screamin’ Jay Hawkins- like vocal, reminding us that his voice defined him as much as his keyboards. His lyrics were consistently upbeat, but not always bold. ‘Lida Lou’ was a soul number that could have been right out of any 60’s American soul music playbook, if not playlist- “she was so good to me… I’ll never forget her… she was called ‘Lida Lou.” But maybe my favorite song on the entire album is the final number, titled ‘Kenimania’, an organ and guitar instrumental that would do Booker T proud.

1974 saw the release of ‘The Dawn of Awareness’ and an advance in the steadily-evolving progression of Joni and Monomono’s sound. The thick psychedelic organ is now given over to a cleaner tighter keyboard style while guitars take over much of the experimental chores, at least two of them in fact, clean precise jazz licks dueling with fuzz tone power chords, triangulated sonically with an up-front saxophone and percussion that increasingly jumps up off the back line to assume a more prominent place in the mix. “Plain Fighting” is maybe the best example of this in the lot, singing “don’t ever let yourself feel so downcast…your life is exactly what you make it.” ‘Awareness Is Wot You Need’ opens with a nice flute solo and continues in the same vein, “Awareness is what you need… people refuse to see the truth… you don’t know what you are inside.”

The third album of the trilogy ‘Wake Up Your Mind,’ released in 1978, finds Joni back in London and going it solo. While America has gone to disco by this time, Joni moves his sound closer to Fela’s successful Afro-Beat while maintaining his own lyrical similarity to Bob Marley’s successful formula. The opening song ‘Free My People’ explains this well in a opening rap, then continues on with lyrics like, “give us unity, give us peace of mind… we need peace and love all over the world.” The title song keeps it up with, “We have gold, we have silver, we have every thing… we have to open up our minds so we can get back our land.” ‘Champions & Superstars’ is an ode to soccer stars and ‘Do The Funkro’ is a worthy attempt at disco, but Joni is best is his comfort zone, closing the set with “Watch Out…heaven is gonna fall… people get yourself together.” He’s got a point, you’ll have to admit. At the very least Joni Haastrup is an interesting and highly listenable footnote to the 1970’s and the history of world music, not unlike Mamadou or Boubacar or Eliades or Omara or any one of a hundred other undersung heroes. He may even be a lost master. Either way, he’s worth a listen. All three albums have been re-issued by Tummy Touch/Soundway and are available in all formats. Hardie K says check it out.

C. J. CHENIER’S ‘CAN’T SIT DOWN’- ZYDECO LIVES!

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 20:01:00 +0000

The first time I saw Clifton Chenier play was at Antone’s blues club in Austin, TX in 1975, back when it used to be down on Sixth Street, back in the ‘cosmic cowboy’ days, back when a plate of BBQ out on Burnside Road would set you back a cool $3, more than the minimum wage btw. It was a revelation, though, the zydeco music, that is, named after the lowly snap bean, staple food ‘down there’. This was something neither country nor blues, but somehow somewhere in the middle, with a detour through N’awlins, where it picked up a whiff of the French and a flair for funk. Still it was something completely different, closest in genre to the Cajun music of the era, but not really, not exactly. Something entirely new had been born, and this was the man who’d midwifed it, the Bob Marley, the Chuck Berry, the Leadbelly of zydeco. It was being refined and defined and expanded and expounded while I sat there watching and listening. The only question was: What next?

When Clifton died in 1987, would zydeco die with it, like so many other sub-genres? Enter C. J. Chenier, hot on the heels of his father’s success, even taking over his father’s band upon his death, and automatically inheriting much of his success. But that was the ‘90’s; what about now? Fast-forward to the present and much water has passed under the bridge, the old Mississippi River Bridge at Vicksburg. Zydeco’s changed, with Clifton long gone, and a succession of pretenders to his throne having already given their best, a list with names as illustrious as their music- Buckwheat, Queen Ida, Rockin’s Sidney and Dopsie, and many others, not just in southwest Louisiana, but also on the West Coast and even in Europe. And of course, the recording industry has undergone a near-collapse, leaving live performance the only constant in a rapidly-changing music scene. But the best news of all is that C. J. Chenier has gone back into the studio and done an entirely new album in one swift session.

C. J. Chenier’s new album is called ‘Can’t Sit Down’, and while it may not be the “second coming” of zydeco, it’s pretty darn good. Of course, the ‘boogie factor’ is primary, and that’s present in full force, but there’s more than that. Lately zydeco has become more and more a close cousin to Tex-Mex, not surprising considering their geographic proximity in southeast Texas, and their mutual love of that German import for all things polkaic, the accordion. This album changes all that, moving it back toward its original blues roots. This album starts out with the title song, a rockin’ number by long gone daddy Clifton, complete with killer guitar solo, the signature style for modern blues-rock, and waving a flag for what’s to come. ‘Baby Please Don't Go’ by Joe Williams is nothing but wailin’ gutter blues, accordion taking the parts normally assigned to guitar. Then things get really interesting, the reason I wanted to listen to this album in the first place- ready for this? How about ‘Clap Hands’ by Tom Waits? Now I’m not a TW freak, but I do like this song a lot, so anxiously awaited a listen. Expecting something approximating Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, I was disappointed at first, but upon re-listen… no, CJ got it right, nailing it with a 20 oz. claw hammer.

At clean-up position in the lineup, ‘Ridin' With Uncle Cleveland’ is probably CJ’s best self-penned song on the collection, a credit shared with Denise LaBrie, sweet and slow and soulful. Here CJ references his father’s brother and frottoir washboarder par excellence, he and his ever-present bottle of Crown Royale, out on the town. ‘Red Shack Zydeco’, a rockin’ instrumental, kicks the tempo back up again, coincidentally the name of the studio the album was recorded in, and something of an exercise in zydeco fundamentals, complete with guitar solo. ‘Trouble in Mind’ by Richard M. Jones, has a slick bluesy urban groove, and then CJ covers dad’s classic ‘Hot Tamale Baby’. ‘Dusty Road’ by John Lee Hooker continues the blues theme, and CJ pays tribute to his influences with a cover of arguably the first zydeco song ever, ‘Paper in My Shoe’ by Boozoo Chavis.

My only mild complaint of CJ, and zydeco in general, is ironically CJ’s own complaint back in the days when he was a music student at university while Dad was rockin’ the honky-tonks: sometimes it all sounds too similar, a complaint that could also be lodged against many other of the smaller genres, including blues, jazz, even country. It’s no surprise then that they often cover rock and pop hits, even to this day, as this is where much of modern music’s creativity lies. Blues’ inability to do so has bequeathed it a lower status over the years. Novelty sells- that’s the first law of business. Not surprisingly some of the juiciest nuggets on this album are loaners from other genres. Surprisingly blues is often the loan of choice. That’s the way it should be, the way it was always intended. The results are good. The album is called ‘Can’t Sit Down’ by CJ Chenier, out now on World Village Records. Check it out… standing up.

Summer’s not over yet, Best of the Fests yet to come- Electronicaboriginal, maybe?

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 19:49:00 +0000

When you think of music festivals, in the US at least, you probably think of Coachella or Lollapalooza, maybe Bonnaroo, all of which boast of daily attendance numbers well into five figures, with overall totals into six. This pales in comparison with many of those in Europe, though, at least half a dozen of which show numbers well above that, with Glastonbury UK topping the list at some 175, 000 souls per day. Of course ‘Hardly Strictly Bluegrass’ festival in San Francisco this month might have that many if anybody bothered to count. It being a free festival, the only numbers are from the crowd controllers, i.e. police estimates. Nevertheless, Europe has so many festivals- in an area half the size of the US with twice the population- that it becomes something of a Mecca for many US bands looking to make hay while the sun shines. This leaves US fests to concentrate more on, how do you say, the ‘indie’ groups? Yes, with the exception of Bogota’s major festival, you would recognize the names of many, if not most, of the acts at the biggest festivals worldwide. We’re the jugglers and the clowns.

If you’re looking for ‘world music’ fests- (sound of loooong needle scratch on vinyl LP)- the selection goes way down way fast. Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD festivals set the standard worldwide, with long-running events in UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and elsewhere subject to local funding, Dubai being one of the newer more interesting offerings. Here stateside it’s pretty grim for the most part. We create most of the world’s music, remember, along with the UK, so there’s not much initiative to look elsewhere. ‘World music’ itself- music of other languages, cultures, and traditions besides the predominant Anglo one- come largely from the ex-pat African and Latino communities in our largest cities, and France, in addition to major ‘emerging countries’ themselves, such as India, Brazil, and Mexico. People gotta’ eat. Besides that the best music in the world today probably comes from tiny remote impoverished Islamic Mali, the landlocked heart of West Africa, the jigsaw puzzle piece linking African communities black and semitic, woodlands and desert.

!Globalquerque!, in (almost) equally remote and scenic Albuquerque, NM is one of the best world music festivals in the US. This year’s festival takes place on 9/16-17 and features such top world music acts as Los Amigos Invisibles, Cedric Watson, the inimitable Buffy Saint-Marie, and many others, google ‘em. The overlapping World Music Festival in Chicago hasn’t released their schedule yet, but usually shares some of the same bookings, convenient if you don’t happen to live in the greater Albuquerque metropolitan area. Other than that, Francophone-oriented Festival Louisiane in Lafayette, LA simultaneous with the jazz fest in N’awlins in April is by far the best… unless you count the entire summer in LA.

‘World music’ is to be found in North America, too, of course. Buffy Sainte-Marie is a Cree from Canada, and Andrew Thomas, also performing at !Globalquerque!, is a Dine’ (Navajo). When you think of Native American music, what do you usually think of, maybe the sound of a lonely flute echoing over the vast expanses of the Grand Canyon, perhaps best exemplified by Carlos Nakai? I like that, too, but ‘Indian’ music is much more than that, almost anything imaginable, actually. Native American music is not limited to the American Southwest, either, of course, nor does it stop at the two borders. In addition to Buffy Sainte-Marie, there are many others, both north and south. They’ve got shows for that now, too, in the spirit of SXSW and NXNE, specifically to showcase that talent and open them up to increased opportunities.

One of the newer showcases is the Aboriginal Music Week in Winnipeg, Manitoba, November 1-6, which should be diverse and good. The show will include the spacey Indie vibes of World Hood and the Metis fiddle of John Arcand. Then there’s the hip-hop of Winnipeg’s Most and Derek Miller’s roots-rock. Leela Gilday’s introspective folk-rock offerings are as good as any singer-songwriter in the business today, and the Electric Powwow electronica mind-bumfuggle of A Tribe Called Red simply has to be seen- and heard- to be believed. Check ‘em out.

Then there’s LA, which is something of a giant festival all summer… if you know where to go. I haven’t been out as much as usual this year, but still managed to catch Debo from Ethiopia, Bombino from Niger, and others, while missing far more than that simply because of scheduling conflicts or because I’d already seen them. Best part? It’s all free… So, if I achieve escape velocity to actually get out of the crib this weekend, I guesss I’ll just have to content myself with maybe Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loka at LACMA tonight or maybe Quetzal and Conjunto los Pochos down at Celebracion Mexicana in Macarthur Park on tomorrow, or possibly Pete Escovedo at Rum & Humble (yeah) in the courtyard at Hollywood & Highland on Tuesday. Then there’s Ernie Watts at the Farmers’ Market next Thursday. Damn! That’s as many shows as I’ve been to all summer! I used to do that in a single night. I’m younger than that now. C U there. Drive carefully.

Addis Acoustic Project’s Tewesta, “Remembrance”- Eat it with the Fingers

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:10:00 +0000

I don’t remember if I went to Ethiopia first or listened to the album Ethiopiques first- the two events were more or less simultaneous- but my first impression was that here was some really wild really weird stuff, nice but in a curious way. My second impression was that this was not so different from what I was hearing on the buses- like maybe an earlier version- tripping through the Ethiopian outback from Addis to Bahir Dar or Gonder- the Selam bus, that is (don’t even think about the others, at least not from the Mercato at 5am). The music is hard to describe and inquiries about it are usually handled best by responses like, “Here, you take a listen.” It’s something like jazz, with healthy doses of psychedelia, Rai, and Afro-beat… fun-kee, all wrapped up in one big plate of injera bread. Now try to imagine an unplugged acoustic version of that same music, and you’ll have to listen to Addis Acoustic Project’s Tewesta “Remembrance”, out next week on the World Village label.

Now Ethiopia is one of the few countries in the world whose culture is truly autochthonous. Despite the waves of peoples who have passed through or stayed on since the origin of homo sapiens sapiens, that which is Ethiopian was pretty much created right there, and direct foreign influences are few. That doesn’t make description any easier of course. It’s African, but not THAT African. It’s Semitic, but not THAT Semitic. It’s Christian, but not THAT Christian. Truth be told, Ethiopia is no one distinct thing, but an amalgamation, a collection, all gathered up within borders… more or less. The separate countries of Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan all share certain characteristics with their neighbors across the border, just to complicate matters, it seems sometimes. Amharic is the ‘working language’ of Ethiopia, but spoken as first language by little more than half of it, and Arabic would be more useful in much of it.

All of this concoction is reflected in the cacophony of the music, loosely held together by a common thread of musical history and culture and a desire for sonic nourishment. ‘Selam Yihoun Lehoulachin’ is the album's opening song and something of a sleeper, combining clarinet and mandolin with various forms of percussion to create a hypnotic trancelike lullabye. ‘Ambassel’ kicks up the tempo a notch with drums and accordion, pretty much setting the standard for what’s to come sonically. ‘Almaz YeHarrarwa’ gives the lead over to clarinet, alternating musical dialog with mandolin and percussion. ‘Ante Timeta Ene’ betrays an Italian influence, and you might be forgiven for thinking you were on a gondola in Venice if you happened to snooze.

It’s time to wake up with ‘Fikir Ayarejim’ (Love is Eternal) one of the album’s best songs and once a popular hit in its own right. ‘Etitu Beredegn’ ups the ante nicely, adding a dramatic touch to what was previously a certain sonic symmetry. Now you might imagine you’re in the middle of some whodunit, film noir, where everyone thinks the other has something to hide, each as he’s hiding something himself. ‘Anchim Ende Lela’ slows things down a bit again, getting into long low clarinettic grooves interwoven with percussion and mandolin that suggests nothing so much as old movies and old times. ‘Mashena’ continues in a similar vein, albeit more on the side of mandolins and choruses calling-and-responding across the field, across the aisle, across the centuries. This is nothing so much as visual music, music to free your imagination.

Once the tone and tenor is established, there are no great surprises from song to song. The great surprise is the album itself. Where did such a unique form of music derive from? Maybe if you explained the concept of jazz to a group of Ethiopian musicians and asked them to play what they imagine that to be, then this is what you’d get. I don’t know. I like it the same way that I like jazz, just let it play and imagine visual scenarios to accompany. There are no hooks or hangers, and few vocals even. Still it has a compelling quality tht makes me want to listen to it again. Of course, I’m attaching scenes from Ethiopia to it while I listen, so maybe that’s cheating. So go eat some wots with injera, then come back and put this on. If you liked Ethiopiques, then chances are you’ll like this, too. If you didn’t like Ethiopiques, then you should still try this, especially if you like jazz… and not so much funk. If you’ve never tried either, then start right here, tenderfoot, times a-wasting. Savor the flavor. That’s Addis Acoustic Project’s Tewesta - “Remembrance” out Aug. 9 on World Village. Check it out.

ON CD- MALI: TALE OF TWO TRAORE’S; IN FESTIVAL(S): CANADA & LA

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 20:40:00 +0000

What Ali Farka Toure’ accomplished with his Talking Timbuktu album with Ry Cooder, has been consolidated and spread like wildfire through the otherwise harsh reality that is the African country of Mali. The fact that it is really two countries- one Saharan and Semitic, one sub-Saharan and negroid- is the creative conjunction where sparks fly and old battles die, IF (i.e. big if), you can hold it all together. Bottom line, Mali has some of the best music in the world, bar none. In fact, on a per capita basis, given its population of less than fifteen million, it’s arguably THE best music in the world. Too bad it’s so hard to travel there independently, and so expensive once you get there, no small irony in a country with per capita income of less than $700 per year. You could easily spend that on a hotel for a week.

So, have fun if you can find those legendary dimly-lit (lighted?) clubs where people with surnames like Toure’, Diabete’, and Keita show up to play. There’s more than a few of those names, and they may not all be related- not closely anyway- though they probably all know each other, by this time at least. Don’t be shocked when you see street signs with those same names, IF you see any street signs at all. There isn’t much there btw. If you want to go to that night club, you’ll probably need a guide. Bring lots of cash. There aren’t a lot of ATM’s. You’ve been warned.

It’s probably easier to just buy the CD’s, since Mali is now firmly on the world music market, one of the five pillars in fact. Within the country itself you’ve got maybe four or five distinct genres again. Though I haven’t seen any scholarly studies on it (that’s what I’m here for, right?), it seems as though there are genres of traditional/classical/'griot'- e.g. Diabate’, Sahel folk- e.g. Ali Farka Toure’, Tuareg folk rock- e.g. Tinariwen, urban folk blues- e.g. Ali Farka’s son Vieux, and… I’m still thinking, so give me a minute, please…

Meanwhile check out two of the newest releases from a couple of Traore’s (not to be confused with Toure’), Lobi and Boubacar, not related, so far as I know, but… it’s a small country. Lobi Traore’ may have died prematurely last year year at the age of forty-nine, but his music will live on in this group of live recordings from those same dingy night clubs that you’re wandering around the streets of Bamako looking for. If the album starts off a bit slowly but distinctly with the folksy percussive ‘Makono’ and ‘Banan Ni’, by the time we get to songs four and five ‘Jama’ and ‘Mali Ba’ Lobi and band are kicking ass. ‘Bi Donga Fa Ko’ shows some surprising pop hooks and may indeed be the best song on the album, despite its seventh place in the batting order. The album is called ‘Bwati Kono’. Check it out.

Boubacar Traore’ is something else altogether. Firmly within the ‘Sahel Folk’ genre, this is the only person in the Mali music scene that is perhaps even as important as Ali Farka Toure’, and in fact even pre-dates him. If Ali Farka’s music was the revelation, then this is the confirmation. If there was any further proof needed of the close relation between US blues and Mali folk music, then look no further. Regardless of the details in a history largely unwritten, it’s obvious that these two genres have a common source. One branch got shipped off to Clarkdale, MS, up in Coahoma County, while the rest stayed behind in the savannahs and woodlands of Africa, eking out a living there. Only now are they being reunited, through music.

Traore’s newest album ‘Mali Denhou’ is a wonder. If ‘M'Badehou’ and ‘Dundobesse M'Bedouniato’ are pleasant-enough ballads to lead off with, the latter featuring a nice acoustic-guitar lead solo, ‘Mondeou’ turns up the tempo significantly, and by this time you may have a hard time sitting still. I should probably mention the killer harmonica work by French harpster Vincent Bucher, who literally kills on this album, in effect making it a cross-cultural collaboration, some of the best blues harp I’ve ever heard, in fact, albeit of the acoustic sort.

Title song ‘Mali Denhou’ starts off with some really nice atmospheric percussion before settling into a solid blues groove, and then ‘Minuit’ takes a French-style ballad and turns it into a talking blues. ‘Farafina Lolo Lora’ and ‘Djougouya Niagnini’ slow things down a bit, but ‘N'Dianamogo’ puts a pulse back into the beat and ‘Mali Tchebaou’ is an especially nice closer. All in all this ranks up there with the best of Ali Farka and highly recommended. I don’t know if he’s touring the US or Canada this summer, but I’ll be looking.

Ah, summer, it’s that time again, festival season, time to listen to music outdoors, where God intended. Here in LA, best bets for that are the two Levitt Pavilions in MacArthur Park and Pasadena and Grand Performances downtown, featuring such acts as Sambada, Bombino, Seun Kuti, Khaira Arby and Rupa and the April Fishes. Further afield, the Canadian Folk Festivals deserve special mention, in places like Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and even Dawson City, featuring some of the best world music around, amongst other compatible genres. If the gods are willing, I myself will be in Calgary, which is featuring too many great acts to mention. C U there.

VIEUX FARKA TOURE’- TELLING ‘THE SECRET’, TALKING LA2

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:06:00 +0000

Until recently if you were to Google the word ‘jihad’, guess which region of the world you’d be referred to, Palestine maybe, or Iraq? Think again. Actually you’d find out much about the history of West Africa, including Mali, no, ESPECIALLY Mali, in the 1800’s. Timbuktu was a major center of Islamic learning at one point, and still is somewhat even to this day, in fact. This is the path that Islam took across the desert generally, first stop Timbuktu, established on the edge of the Saharan desert and the grassy Sahel. From there it’s but a short hop to the forests and the coast. These incursions gradually changed the nature of the native-grown empires, such as the Songhai. One of the most famous incursions was a Morocco-Spanish one in 1590 that forever changed the history of the region. Their soldiers got left behind.

Ali Farka Toure’ was descended from this small increasingly-mixed group called ‘Arma’, thus making any conclusions about his music comprising the ‘DNA of blues’ largely meaningless, circles interlocking and turning back on themselves to infinity. If Ali Farka Toure’s music indeed is the origin of blues, then it itself may ultimately derive from Spanish and Arab traditions up north. It doesn’t matter, of course. His music was legendary because it was good, and comprised something of a transition style between the raw jangly Tuareg style farther north (only recently come to full fruition) and the more polished Afro-pop styles of the West African coastal regions. For lack of a better term, it can probably be best described as ‘Sahel folk,’ acoustic guitar-based folk-blues ballads lamenting the joys and pains of life and love on the vast African Savannah, albeit in languages most of us don’t understand. And if you were to guess what the music of a son of Ali Farka Toure’ might be like, ‘The Secret’ by Vieux Farka Toure’ might come pretty close, the same folk blues, but with a harder edge and a bit more urgency to it. Ali considered himself first and foremost a farmer, after all.

‘Sokosondou’ gets things off to a rockin’ start, displaying Vieux’s signature guitar style, something like dad Ali’s gone electric, something of a running style that seems to have no beginning nor end, a largely unpunctuated style, a snapshot of Vieux’s oeuvre in process. ‘Aigna’, featuring Derek Trucks on slide guitar, ups the ante a notch, slow with slide wailing, vocals a repetitive chant that gives Derek lots of room to shine. ‘All the Same’, featuring Dave Matthews on vocals gives some insight into Vieux’s lyrical preferences, like ‘when you look at them are they all the same? Smiles and promises… cry real tears till you believe… they don’t want you, want what you got… look at me because I believed, turned my back felt the knife sink deep,’ etc. etc. Betrayal seems to be a big theme. This song also lets Vieux pick some blues licks, too, on his own, shades of Derek. ‘Ali’ sounds a lot like dad, not unsurprisingly, but Vieux’s own take, the slow rhythmic chanting over thumping percussion. ‘Watch Out’ features Eric Krasno, the album’s producer, on guitar and Ivan Neville on organ= funk, rockin’ and bopping. There’s even some genuine guitar interplay, not easy, since Vieux’s style is so singular. I’m not sure if Eric could have done this on day one… nice.

‘Wonda Guay’ is a mid-tempo folksy number, familiar Vieux turf, but title song ‘The Secret’ featuring dad Ali Farka Toure on one of his final efforts, is an especially nice instrumental number that lilts along effortlessly gliding between acoustic and electric guitars, dad and son. From that point on, Dad is gone, and Vieux asserts himself. ‘Borei’ rocks, and Vieux wails, guitar and vocals, too. ‘Sankare Diadje’, with its sing-song lyrics, is a change-up. ‘Gido’, featuring the venerable John Scofield, may have been an experiment, but becomes one the of the album’s best songs, killer guitar and minor keys, brooding and mysterious. Vieux should explore this Middle East feel further. He IS Muslim after all. ‘Amana Quai’ is Ali-esque to start, then shifts the tempo up, chanting and wailing, guitar crying. ‘Touri’ is slow and anthemic, like the final good-bye, a last look back to Dad, church organ playing the closing hymn. All in all, it’s a good album. About the worst you could say is that he doesn’t mix it up enough, too predictable. But wait a minute…

Then there’s the live show, specifically the live show a few nights ago in the Silverlake district off LA. Forget the slow folk ballads. This is kick-ass power-trio blues. I’ve seen Vieux twice before, but I’ve never seen this. This is what a post–psychedelic Hendrix might have sounded like, back to blues, thick and heavy, laying down grooves in sonic washes. Drummer Tim Keiper is a revelation, too. He gets to cut up on stage like he can’t on disc, showing his own style of talking drum kit. The ultimate Vieux Farka Toure’ album just might be a live one. Till then ‘The Secret’ will do nicely. Check it out. Better still, if you can catch these guys on the road this summer, do that, too. Don’t forget to dance.

‘Hammock House- Africa Caribe’ by Fania All-Stars, remixed by Joe Clausell

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Tue, 03 May 2011 23:27:00 +0000

The term ‘Afro-Cuban’ was always something of a misnomer, and ‘Afro-Caribe’ is no different, applying logic to some past event that was probably anything but, what I call ‘back-filling’ logic. Need to fill a hole? I can get you a special price on some day-old logic. Seriously, though, I don’t think anybody sat around thinking and philosophizing and finally deciding ‘let’s mix some African and some Spanish or ‘Latin’ music together and see what we can come up with. No, like most all forms of evolution-whether biological or cultural- the thing was born and the whys and wherefores came later, even from the best little Darwinist laissez faire evolutionists. Probably the best that could be said is that a genre of music distinctly Cuban arose and its most distinctive propagators were of African descent. From there the name game goes downhill- ‘Puerto Rican music’, ‘chachacha’ and, God forbid, ‘Salsa’, a term as ambiguous as ‘zydeco’ (from les haricots- beans). Give me some dirty rice and I’ll have a meal.

The fact that this killer ‘Afro’ music originates in the Caribbean country with possibly the least percentage of African blood- Cuba- is something to discuss over drinks. In fact the Caribbean countries with purest African blood seem to prefer reggae… or gospel. Go figure. Sometimes a culture survives best where it is most threatened. Enter Fania Records and its house band Fania All-Stars at about the time of ‘salsa’s greatest popularity, the late 60’s and early 70’s. Consisting chiefly of Celia Cruz, Ray Baretto, Ruben Blades, Hector Lavoe, and others, Fania quickly set the standard for ‘salsa’, doing a great service by exposing non-Latin peoples to the ‘real thing’, as opposed to the pop stylings of Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine. The movement arguably peaked with Ruben Blades, and from there entered a period of long decline until 2005, at which point the assets were sold. Ironically that sale was the beginning of its comeback, as the archives have been opened for review, reassessment and marketing to an entirely new audience.

Hammock House ‘Africa Caribe’ produced and mixed by the legendary Joaquin “Joe” Claussell is the latest- and maybe best- attempt to revisit the Fania catalog. Clausell is not only of Puerto Rican heritage, but also one hotsh*t New York City DJ/producer, and what he’s done is admirable, arguably remarkable. In one fell swoop he’s almost single-handedly stripped the heavily ornamented ‘Salsa’ sound and returned it to its African roots. The African roots, of course, are percussion, something almost unknown in European ballad traditions until the cultures themselves were mixed. The more recent European orchestral tradition was heavily evident in Cuban mambo, until salsa trimmed it back and slimmed it down. Joe Clausell takes it a step further, until it actually begins to sound African again.

‘African Fantasy’ by Lou Perez opens the album and sets the tone, strong on flute and percussion, probably the world’s two oldest instruments (fife & drum, anyone?). Add to that a singular piano style and you’ve got something that can hold its own with the best of jazz, Latin or otherwise. ‘Undeniable Love’ by Jai Veda is a revelation to me, by an artist heretofore unknown to me. If that’s one of the goals of this remix, then they may be on to something. The voice is sweet and the guitar is transcendant. Who dat? ‘Mambo Mongo’ by the legenhdary Mongo Santamaria stays fairly faithful to the original, with a brassy jazzy mambo sound, while ‘Chango’ by Celia Cruz is positively astounding, a direct sonic connection to the recent ‘Afro-Colombian’ efforts of Toto la Momposina. Now I think we’re getting somewhere. This is the real thing, still jazzy enough for urban tastes, but the African dirt and pulse never hidden too far below.

‘Lucum’ by Eddie Palmieri has it all, except lead vocals- brass, killer keyboards, and guitar. Something only lightly acknowledged in the salsa literature, and forbidden in realated Afro-Beat forays, it’s no accident that ‘salsa’ arose largely AFTER the advent of Santana and his guitar. ‘Exodus’, by Ray Baretto, is a delightful interlude, at once a somnolent soliloquy and a rousing African wake-up call. It’s based on the theme to the 1960 movie, and much better without the Pat Boone lyrics (‘this land is mine’) IMHO. There’s more. And hopefully there will be MUCH more… in the future. This is what re-mixing is all about. Heretofore something of a skeptic, especially when big city club DJ’s are ripping off starving third-world musicians- without compensation- for the amusement of the rich and famous, I find projects like this to be a revelation, the stuff of archeologists and reconstructionists, putting a fresh spit-shine on musty archival material. That’s Hammock House ‘Africa Caribe’, remixed by Joaquin ‘Joe’ Clausell. Check it out. There’s really nothing quite like it.

THAI NEW YEAR IN LA… AND THE FILMS OF APICHATPONG WEERASETTHAKUL, (in which cause + effect = NOT)

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:46:00 +0000

New Year in Thailand is something of a joke, i.e. ‘which one’? Never one to sit out a party, Thailand celebrates them all, the international farang (western) one on Jan. 1, the Chinese lunar-calendar moveable feast in February, and an ancient one, Khmer-derived I think, in November (which many people don’t seem to even know about). But the main one, hands down, occurs on April 13-15 (it seems like forever up north), and is better known amongst foreigners as the Water Festival. Wear protection. Buddhist-oriented and tied to the Indian astrological calendar, ‘Thai’ New Year thus spreads across borders and into neighboring country’s ‘Tai’ and other communities, including Laos, where it’s known as ‘Lao New Year’ and Kampuchea, where it is known as ‘Khmer New Year’ (but NOT ‘the water festival’, since they already have another). Well, as fate would have it, it even spreads across the ocean to Hollywood Blvd., between Western and Normandie. We can do without the water over here, thank you, but otherwise it’s much the same- time to reunite with family and renew your vows with the holy men from the local temple, ask them to bless your existence and consecrate your life. The fact that it is days earlier than the ‘real’ one back home doesn’t seem to bother anyone, since the meaning’s the same. This IS America, after all… and this is my LA.

I think I met Apichatpong Weerasetthakul at the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival back in Dec. 1999. I’m not sure because we were never really introduced and the meeting wasn’t all that memorable, not because he wasn’t the hottest thing in foreign indie films at the time- which he WASN’T- but because the guy is so quiet and low-key. In fact, when I first became aware of Apichatpong’s work in 1994 with the release of Sut Pralat (which does NOT translate to ‘Tropical Malady’ btw) and read that he was one of the honchos of BEFF, I assumed he was the gregarious and outspoken character that I remembered most distinctly, until I googled his picture a couple weeks ago and had a little aha moment, i.e. aha! That’s the other guy! If I remember correctly, Apichatpong was maybe more interested in me, in fact, than I in him, simply because I was the only- ONLY- farang (westerner) who showed up at the temple of experimental film every day, living and breathing it, just like religion. He seemed quite taken by that fact. I’d like to think that I shot up a little flag that influenced his career right then and there, that instead of busting his hump to make lame-ass ghost films that might appeal to a few million Thais, he could make some really good artsy ghost films that might appeal to a few million farangs- like me- around the world. If you were an artist, which would YOU rather do, make good films or bad ones?

With all due respect to J. Hoberman and his characterization of Apichatpong as “the acme of no-budget, Buddhist-animist, faux-naïve, avant-pop, magic neorealism” (whew!), I’d like to propose maybe a minor correction or two. Apichatpong IS an artist, a consummate one, but he’s NOT naïve, not at all, and he’s definitely not faux. He’s Thai. Though he was educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago - and so knows exactly what is good art and what is not- he is still quintessentially Thai. He is quintessentially Thai in the same way that Fellini is quintessentially Italian or Eastwood is quintessentially American (and yes, Clint Eastwood is a great director, one of America’s greatest). He defines the nationality by his characters, and in turn defines his characters by their nationality. He could even be seen as the anti-Fellini or the anti-Clint, where, instead of all these people with all these dreams doing this or that with Clint, or all hell breaking loose- picturesquely- with Federico, almost nothing happens overtly in Apichatpong’s films, at least not in any particular direction, yet at the same time one is swept up into it, subtly engrossed by it, and ultimately liberated by it.

This is the dark side, and that’s not bad. The dark side is beautiful, alluring, irrational, and superstitious- especially superstitious- but not bad. On the dark side everything is the opposite of the ‘real’ world. Our Christian democratic proactive cost-effective positive-thinking fashion-forward work-ethic equation (cause 1+ cause 2= effect) falls flat on its face in this dimension, not for any special reason, but for the absolute lack of it. That’s the equation, get it? Hang that ‘=’ anywhere you like and it’s all the same, i.e. sh*ts happen. Whether this is due to the ultimate passivity of Buddhism or not is not important. In this dimension the fact that anybody accomplishes anything, is not only NOT a miracle, it’s a lie. Things are accomplished, present passive reflective, but the who what why are frequently murky. Save those w’s for your URL. The only truth is in your belief, not the chronology of occurrences. And it ain’t faux. It’s real.

When two hundred aerobicists dance to pop music in the park in Syndromes and a Century (or whatever they called it), that is not magico-realistic staging, that’s Thailand. When a dozen different characters say the same thing over and over and over, that’s not existential reiteration. That’s Thailand… and the list goes on. But it doesn’t matter if no one really understands Apichatpong, as long as they accept his reality as accurate… and beautiful, within its own terms. For within it all is vindicated- Thailand, Buddhism, Asia, the power of the empty hand, me- for having spent ten years of my life there, never sure of who I was fooling- and ultimately, all of us, living our pathetic little lives in what should be a state of at least heightened expectation, if not exalted bliss. I only regret that I missed my chance to suck up to Apichatpong when I had it… but that’s not the Buddhist way… or is it? He obviously didn’t need the encouragement, but I did.

Apichatpong’s new movie is called ‘Uncle Boonmee Remembers His Past Lives’. It won Palm d’Or at Cannes last year. No, I haven’t seen it yet, since I refuse to spend half the day going to Santa Monica and back. I’m too busy trying to finish the final draft to Pancho and Lefty. I’ll wait for Netflix to send it to me. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t, though. Who knows? Something good might happen. That IS the essence of Buddhism, after all, at least Thai-style. Do good things and good things will happen to you, sooner or later, somehow some way, hopefully in this lifetime, pure if not simple. Save your money on the summer retreat. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether the critics ‘get’ Apichatpong or not… as long as they give him the thumb up. Thailand has found its Jarmusch, if not its Del Toro. Let’s call it ‘imagino-realism’. That sounds more realistic.

Native American Music Lives!!! (North of the 49th parallel, too)…

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:17:00 +0000

When you think of Native American music, you probably think of it most often as a genre, typically exemplified by the prominent roles of flute and drum, lilting windswept melodies over pulsing drum beats, words frequently limited to chanting and vocal percussion, a sound that has not only earned it a niche in New Age music circles, but spawned a host of imitators, also. South American folkloric groups long accustomed to playing similar instruments have even taken to copying their North American cousins outright in major European capitals, wearing buckskin and Lakota war bonnets while invoking the Mohicans and others by name in their effort to sell albums while busking. Hey, work’s work, I guess. Just don’t let Russell Means catch you.

But Native American music is more than a genre of course. Native American music is music made by Native Americans. In Arizona alone that can run the gamut from the classic flute style of Carlos Nakai to the politico-punk of Blackfire and a plethora of styles in between. I’m still not sure what genre Keith Secola and his Wild Band of Indians fit into. And that doesn’t even count such icons of pop/rock as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Robbie Robertson and Daniel Lanois, all from Canada.

Yes, Canada’s got a whole lotta’ music, too, not the least of which are such stars as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, so embedded are they into the American music scene that that fact is often forgotten. And yes, they have Native Americans, in a proportion at least several times greater than that of the US (and that doesn’t include Inuits). And yes, they have their own version of the Grammy Awards, called the Juno Awards, held usually in March or April of every year since 1970. They even have a category for ‘Aboriginal Recording of the Year’, an honor accorded no other minority in Canada (except Francophones), not bad for an ethnicity that didn’t even get the right to vote until 1960.

This year they’ve done even better. This year there will be an exclusively First Nations showcase. Since the Juno Awards are an all-week affair, it can become more of a SXSW-style event (not to be confused with the NXNE in June), complete with showcases. The Native American showcase is sponsored by Manitoba Music and will feature five of Canada’s most up-and-coming native artists. Christa Couture is perhaps the most ‘Canadian-sounding’ of the lot- despite her Arapaho father- pure modern acoustic folk, slick and sweet, self-conscious and world-wise, complete with piano and strings. “All the while she was starting and stopping, box-car hopping, to no avail,” she sings on ‘Sad Story Over’, whether autobiographical or not, I couldn’t say. Leela Gilday works in the same folk genre, even though she comes from the far north in Yellowknife NWT, a Dene cousin of our own Southwest US Navajos (Dene:Dine, get it?). Her style is more world-weary then world-wise, though, as in the song ‘End of the Day’- “She gets up from the table, the coffee’s growing old, she thinks of how the years go by, it seems she’s growing old.” Canada has got some of the best folk music in the world, and if they’re reluctant to give that up, then I see no reason to. Their First Nations fit right in.

Canada is not known for its urban music; I wonder why? Maybe they’re just too happy and healthy up in the north country to get bogged down in the anger and hatred that defines much of urban music… and much of America. Maybe that’s what national health care will do for you. If that makes Canada old-fashioned, then so be it. There is some, though, funk and electronica, too, so Natives will have their own versions, and Cris Derksen is a good example of that. A half-Cree classically trained cellist, she gets down down and funky with some hard-edged electronica on ‘What Did You Do, Boy?’ Digging Roots is a bluesy group headed by the collaborative duo of ShoShona Kish and Raven Kanatakta, killer voice meets killer guitar chops sharing a bouquet of flowery lyrics to create a sound that reminds variously of Joplin or Stevie Ray, even got some native rap, too. Coming from Ojibway roots and composition styles, it sounded good enough to win them the Juno award for Aboriginal Album of the year last year for their collection entitled ‘We Are’. Listen with a friend.

But my personal favorite of the five groups showcased is a group called ‘Eagle & Hawk’. Likewise of Ojibway roots and Winnipeg-based, these guys maintain a healthy schizophrenia consisting of gold ol’ R&R and what I could only describe as maybe… Indian rock? This can run the gamut from the chants, strings, and ambient sounds of the ethereal ‘Water Sounds’ to the border-town honky-tonkin’ ‘Wild West Show’. Their self-reflection and mock-deprecation can even be so incisive as to be anthemic, as in “I See Red’- “I’m not embarrassed when I look into the mirror; is it fear and anxiety or just the cost of sobriety?” This is good stuff.

I haven’t been to the Juno Awards before, but I know Canada has THE best folk music festivals in the world out West, and some of the best pow-wows, too, I hear. And if there’s less urban and electronic music than down south here, that’s easily compensated with good solid songsmanship. Check ‘em out if you get the chance.

‘CRUSH’ by TELEPATH (MICHAEL CHRISTIE)- Producer as Auteur... and Star?

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:41:00 +0000

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the nuclear musical group is quickly going the way of the nuclear family- whoever shows up for Sunday dinner is fine… let’s eat! If that offends those for whom a cigarette in the final fret inserted- incensed and wafting- is the de rigeur pose for rocanrolero true believers, then so be it. Some people will never embrace change, no matter what the form… and that’s fine, too. No change is better than mindless change. I hear they still have Grateful Dead nights at one of my old watering holes, though I had never wished it so, past perfect subjunctive. Most of these manifestations and methods of delivery- all for the sake of entertainment- are cyclical, constantly changing and returning. If you miss a certain type of music enough, just make a wish and bide your time- it’ll be back.

It’s always been this way to some extent. The 50’s garage bands were a response to Crosby/Sinatra slick orchestra pop, and early 60’s teen-idol Tin Pan Alley songs were a slick-rock response to that, in some sort of pop-music dialectic that plays out like an apocalyptic struggle between the kids and the companies to see who will win control of the local armory. Did Bobby Rydell have a band? Fabian? Bobby Vee? Who knows, or even cares? With the possible exceptions of Bobby Darin, Neil Sedaka, and the Four Seasons, not even the singing ‘star’ was important in the early 60’s, mere plug-in pin-ups to music formulated and manufactured to its lowest-common-denominator specs, sales measured by the lusty look in a teenybopper’s eyes. Then came the Beatles and Bob, of course, and all Hell broke loose for a decade or so, record companies crisscrossing the map trying to keep up with the Next Big Thing. They regained control eventually, though, so had to be taught another lesson in the late 70’s, just like the one they’re being taught right now.

The problem with electronic music IMHO has always been its self-conscious obsession with its own bells and whistles. Like a 60’s cinematographer playing with the zoom lens, there have always just been too many electronic arpeggios to suit my taste, mindless doodling, too mechanical and cold, not enough heart and soul. Things got much more interesting when electronic musicians and producers started working with ‘world’ musicians, of course, taking some of those hard-to-market abstract qualities and re-combining them with more modern and more Western ones for mutual benefit, both acoustical and financial. I’m not sure I could listen to straight Tuvan throat-singing now that they’ve been re-imagined (in my mind at least) as themes to imaginary Chinese westerns, thanks to Huun Huur-tu and Carmen Rizzo (and you can keep your “In-a-gadda-da-vida” and other Tuvan curiosities).

Still the one thing conspicuously lacking in most electronic music is the simple human voice, in all its beauty and all its language(s). This is where Telepath (Michael Christie) makes a real and genuine contribution to the genre on his new album ‘Crush’. With the addition of that one simple element you can go anywhere… though it hardly has to be limited to one, and certainly doesn’t have to be simplistic. After a jazzy brassy ‘Intro’ with much instrumental fussing and percussing, the album follows with ‘Justify’ (featuring Elliot Martin and Monsoon), a song with a post-modern reggae feel and strong influences from afrobeat and hiphop. From there we go into ‘In This Time’ (featuring Becky Ribeiro), classic jazz/pop with strong female vocals. It also features sitar and tabla percussion, setting us up for the batting order’s sweet spot, ‘Dust’, Crush’, and ‘Rohi’, featuring Pervez Khan, Stephanie Morgan, and Sarabjit Kaur Babbu, respectively, sub-continental-style electronic pop with influences that range from Mumbai to the Punjab, devotional qawwalis to Bollywood follies.

‘Mama’ and ‘The Ancient Ones’ (both featuring Kevin Meyame) have a Brazilly kind of Afrobeat feel, featuring Afropop guitar and Youssou-like vocals. ‘Down the Block’ has strong percussion and surf-rock guitar. There is a little bit of electronic doodling on ‘Critical Mass’ and ‘Connection X’- for those who like that- but it’s not overdone. ‘Carry the One’ and ‘Mirrors’ (which closes the album) both feature Maitrayee Patel and her non-verbal voice as instrument, bringing the experiment full circle- adding voice to contribute concrete human qualities to an essentially abstract genre, and then using that same voice to return to the ethereal qualities from which electronic music comes. Only a handful of musical stars have ever been non-vocalists, and they have all been crack instrumentalists, mostly in the jazz field. Modern producers and DJ’s are turning such simplistic notions on their pointy little heads, and improving our listening experiences in the process. Even more experimental here is the essential modus operandi- the majority of the vocals on this album were e-mailed in. Did somebody say something about re-defining something? If that sounds like too-easy jury-rigging, then I’d vote… not guilty. But don’t take my word for it, you be the judge. It’s called ‘Crush,’ by Telepath. Check it out. (I still prefer four woolly dudes and optional chick singer live, though. I guess I’m old-fashioned).

‘HANDMADE’ by Hindi Zahra- Expect the Unexpected

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:17:00 +0000

Were you expecting Chipmunk-like vocals from some Hindi-language Bollywood-based diva, maybe? Or perhaps you were thinking of tablas and sitar serving in devotion to a few hundred gods? Guess again. Hindi Zahra is Moroccan with Berber roots, French branches, and… English flowers. The name of her first album is ‘Handmade. Now I don’t usually like non-native English singer-songwriters, not so much for the accented singing itself, but for the typically lame compositions from such ‘cross-over’ artists, the subtle nuances of language usually lost in translation. But you’ll have to admit that the quality is getting better, proving not only that the music typically predominates over the lyrics, but that foreigners are increasingly mastering our medium. For a Moroccan Berber- or a Belgian or a Chinese Malaysian or almost any African, for that matter- you’re growing up with three languages already… so what’s a fourth?

The lyrics may be English, but the musical style is unmistakeably French, old school. We’re not talking Manu Chao here; we’re talking Django. And though she counts jazz as her main influence- the album is being released on Blue Note after all (visualize hand swishing a lapel)- be careful: we’re talking Billie Holiday, not Cassandra Wilson. The first song- ‘Beautiful Tango’- a surprise hit in France, illustrates this old-timey quality best, down to the earthy vocals, slow and moody- “beautiful stranger, take me by the hand… sweet music, sweet sweet music”. You can cut the smoky air with a knife.

The next two songs, ‘Oursoul’ and ‘Fascination’, continue in the same vein- yes, THAT vein- doing what Hindi does best (and what the French audience apparently wants), getting sweet and lowdown, albeit in the Berber language on ‘Oursoul’. With ‘Set Me Free’ she explores some new ground, more of a Spanish-Gypsy feel, with percussion and clapping and guitar, with increasingly bluesy vocals- “I know you’ll never be the man I used to know… please set me free, look what you do to me.” ‘Kiss & Thrills’ continues the lament with “in your heart, in the dark…who’s gonna’ love you like I do?” ‘At The Same Time’ tells us why. She’s a hopeless romantic- “I should die in your arms right now, and give it all to you… love is so beautiful and cruel at the same time.” Sooo French. At least that gives it a break from the standard verse- verse- chorus- verse format.

The album’s third third gets more experimental musically… to good effect, in my opinion. ‘Stand Up’ is faster, more lively, and even adds banjo; now that’s very old-school jazz! Ditto the lyrics- “stand up on your two feet baby… you want me to be your mother, but you know I’m too young, and you want me to be your sister, but you know I’m too old”. Then she shows us a side as yet hidden with ‘Don’t Forget’ (“don’t forget about me when you say good-bye”) and the album closer ‘Old Friends’, slower but not moody, instead trippy and dreamy, a side I like a lot- “Old friends and young ones, all the angels and preachers became one… for this heaven we live, reality may come in”…

The one thing this album does NOT include are any Arab standards, or hardly even any influence, surprising given Hindi’s Moroccan origins. The influences are jazz, gypsy music, and French chansons, in no certain order. Given the romantic sensual nature of much of it, it might even be considered a rebellious album, almost anti-Islamic, harking back to an era when Islam was not concerned with fundamentalism. Expect a call from the Brotherhood any day. In fact the album reminds me of no one so much as K. D. Lang, pure torch and twang, and… constant craving. But I won’t go there. YOU go there… and check it out (a brief word about the title: it’s accurate, complete with that ‘lived-in’ feel, family production values), 'Handmade’ by Hindi Zahra.

‘CHAMBER MUSIC’ by Ballake’ Sissoko and Vincent Segal- Mind Over Music

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 20:06:00 +0000

It had to happen sooner or later… that world music would produce a successful collaboration of African classical with Western classical music. After all, there have been collaborations of world music with almost everything else western- rock, pop, folk, hiphop, you name it. But classical? Surely the two traditions are too disparate to merely ‘mash up’ in any meaningful way. I myself didn’t think it could be done. African artists, however masterful, just seemed too self-taught and out of the mainstream of Western music. This seemed painfully clear watching Vieux Toure’ in a jam with other world musicians on a workshop stage at Edmonton Folk Festival a few years ago. It just didn’t fit, so it didn’t work very well. Even if they play in the same keys and tune their instruments the same, the relationship between the people and the music is fundamentally different… isn’t it? Maybe not. Maybe it’s just a matter of combining the right musicians in the right situation.

If ‘Chamber Music’, the new album by Ballake’ Sissoko and Vincent Segal is any indication, then the possibilities are infinite. Ironically the concepts of ‘chamber music’ and ‘world music’ are about equally undefined and undefinable, chamber music being closely associated with ‘classical music’, though smaller- capable of being played in a chamber, or room- the string quarter maybe being the most obvious example of the concept. ‘World music’, on the other hand, can mean almost anything. My own garbled definition vaguely describes it as ‘music of other styles and other languages’ than the predominant Anglo-American established genres… which could be almost anything.

The concept of ‘African music’ is even more misleading, usually almost equally divided between Afro-pop and African roots music, a genre which usually includes the kind of griot/djeli kora-based music of the type that Sissoko plays, kora being the long necked string instrument played extending outward from the griot’s lap, something quite a bit different from Segal’s cello. Maybe it’s time to re-think the difference between roots music and Western art music, the broad category to which all Western classical music belongs. Perhaps, like language, all popular forms of music ultimately derive from more structured forms, from which they deviate and ultimately re-invent.

The opening title song sets the tone nicely, cajoling and teasing and soaring to uncertain heights, just begging you to surrender and let go of your preconceptions. The second song ‘Oscarine’ shows the other side of their collaboration, the slow moody side, which may just be what they share most in common, apart from the mastery of their instruments. All the songs are written either by Sissoko or Segal individually, but I’d challenge you to guess which without referring to the credits. The songwriter’s instrument may be more prominently featured on his own songs, but never overwhelms. That calculated moodiness in fact defines the overall tome of the album.

Both artists are comfortable and competent whether the song in question is solemn or upbeat. They’re all a bit dramatic and suspenseful regardless. One song, ‘Regret’, a tribute to Sissoko’s friend Kader Berry, even has words, supplied courtesy of Sissoko’s fellow compatriot Awa Sangho. Other than that they’re all purely instrumental, with instruments in addition to Sissok’s kora and Segal’s cello contributed to suit the mood and the music. All in all it’s one inspiring effort.

On second thought, I’m not sure whether I’m ready to admit that the two traditions are merely flip sides of one and the same thing. I’d be more ready to allow that these are two extraordinarily well-traveled and well-disciplined masters, who have found in each other’s music something to complement their own. They play as two hands from the same mind, a mind that they’ve cultivated in each other’s company along the banks of the Niger River in Bamako, and in concert halls in Paris. The fruit of their creativity is the music itself. It’s called simply ‘Chamber music’. Check it out.

‘LARU BEYA’ by Aurelio- Garifuna Music Lives!

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:28:00 +0000

The Garifuna people are one of the most unlikely success stories in the long sordid histories of both the African diaspora AND the Native American genocide. Remnants of an African group mixed in varying degress with local groups of Arawaks and Caribs in the Lesser Antilles, these refugees were long ago relocated to the Central American coasts centered around the not-so-golden triangle where Guatemala meets Honduras and Belize, formerly British Honduras. There these almost-black people speaking an Amerindian language encountered local Maya-descended groups- in addition to other Caribbean blacks and mixed-race Latinos- and have proceeded to extend themselves far and wide. They have also proceededed to establish their own identity and culture based primarily on farming and fishing… and poverty… and music. For most people the notion of Garifuna music starts and ends with one name- Andy Palacio, the musician from Belize who made world music history with the album ‘Watina’ and whose life ended tragically soon thereafter, before he even got to enjoy his newfound fame.

Enter Aurelio, aka Aurelio Martinez, from Honduras, another Garifuna musician and close friend of Andy Palacio. He is fully prepared to carry Andy’s torch, and his new album ‘Laru Beya’ (‘at the Beach’) intends to prove it. Gone are the Latino flourishes that graced Aurelio’s previous work, and gave him some connection to the resources and markets of that genre. Largely gone also are the Afro-Pop affectations that made him something of a cause célèbre within that genre. This album, in fact, could almost be seen as much as an extension of Andy’s work as his own. Instead of Latin ‘spiciness’ or African rhythms instead we have minor keys and soulful laments, punctuated by upbeat numbers of philosophic survival. But if you think that sounds like reggae, you’d be wrong.

The opening song ‘Lubara Wanwa’ is not untypical. This is the slow soulful tearful lament of a woman bemoaning the vicissitudes of love and the absence of her sailor lover long gone to sea. And if that sounds like Youssou N’Dour singing complementary vocals with Aurelio, there’s probably a good reason. The title song ‘Laru Beya’ lightens things up with more of a reggae-like feel, complete with full female chorus line and occasional brass. "In the stillness I sleep. I awake and find that I have dreamt of you. I love you. I love you. I'll be sitting at the beach waiting for you", same scenario but more upbeat feel. I guess it’s a ‘glass half-empty/glass half-full’ thing. The next song ‘Yange’ extends the theme, with the same almost fado-like mournfulness and lamentation, this time over a brother hurt at sea.

‘Wéibayua’ warns of the dangers of politicians and ‘Ineweyu’ warns of the dangers of sleeping around, all in lively percussion with occasional brass and appropriate mocking tone. This is music in its primordial function as a tool for social order and morality and transmission of culture, no small task considering that, like many dispersed tribal peoples of the world, the Garifuna are separated by national boundaries. Other songs deal with AIDS, immigration, and the price of cassava, but as always the most common theme here, as with almost any album any where any time, is the love between two humans, the spark that ignites larger fires.

The real theme of this album finally emerges on the tenth song, ‘Wamada’ (‘Our friend’) a soulful ballad featuring Youssou N’Dour that mourns the loss of Andy Palacio, and wishes him his rightful place amonst the ancestors in the afterlife.

‘Nuwaruguma’ (‘my star’)- extends the theme of loss and solidarity and the idea that such phenomena are merely part of a larger order exemplified by the heavens. Faith is always the last refuge of confusion and wonder. Thus the album comes full circle and a lament becomes a eulogy and a renewal of faith. And thus a native people decimated in the Caribbean find cultural survival in the physical bodies of unwilling immigrants who not only meet up again with their Mayan second cousins, but carry their spirit on to the North, in the language of a new paradigm… music. Between punta and paranda and so on and so forth, there’s a lotta’ music emanating from a tiny band of survivors with a base in the Caribbean and a past in the Grenadines… with much of their population now scattered in the immigrant communities of the US, all coasts considered.

This music has DNA from all over, just like the Garifuna people who it so proudly represents. Hybrid vigor rules. The new album is called ‘Laru Beya’ by Aurelio. It’s more than reggae. It’s also being released by Next Ambiance, an imprint of Sub Pop. Remember them? But that’s another story. Check it out.

MOUNQALIBA by NATACHA ATLAS- Classic Arab on Rai, a la Francaise s.v.p.

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 23:45:00 +0000

Though Frau Merkel may have unilaterally declared ‘multi-kulti’ to be dead, the reality at ground zero of world music would hardly agree. We’re just getting started. You ain’t seen nothing yet. If we ever run out of ex-pats and immigrants, then we can always go to remote foreign countries themselves. And if their particular home-grown genres don’t especially appeal to us, then we can just chop their music up into bite-size chunks for use by DJs and avant-garde producers. Natacha Atlas (نتاشا أطلس) can go either way, something of a perfect example of the macro- and micro-cosm of world music. Of mixed roots primarily combining English with Middle Eastern, she was born in Belgium and has lived in England, speaks five languages (while dreaming in two) and has worked variously as a belly dancer and lead singer of a salsa band, in addition to her main role as a proponent and agent provocateur for the musical sub-genres of ‘world fusion’ and ‘ethno-techno’. That’s about as ‘multi-kulti’ as you get. And oh yeah, her career includes major stints with UK-based Jah Wobble and Transglobal Underground.

Now like haze from a machine, Natacha Atlas emerges from the mists of buzz and rumors to finally arrive on the US stage… she’s long been on the world stage. Considering that we have no shortage of our own music, that’s not so easy, and usually involves at least a short-term sublet in LA (or NY). So her name pops up frequently on the entertainment ‘zines around here with gigs ranging from the Skirball summer series out in the hills to her most recent at the Conga Room downtown. She has a new album out, you see, and is anxious to claim some turf in our collective subconscious. It’s called Mounqaliba.

If her past and her palette seem something of a confusion of styles and sensibilities, then Mounqaliba is anything but. This is a newer more mature Natacha Atlas. Gone are any vestiges of her previous life as a dub/techno artist. When she’s not reconfirming her staus as one of the pre-eminent female Arabic-language pop singers, she’s leaning heavily toward the slower classical Arab songs, lush with strings but not so over-produced like much Arab music. Add to that some English laments and slow French-language jazz and there’s plenty of room for Natacha to spread her wings. And that’s just the beginning.

After a nice piano instrumental as introduction- the nice Zoe Rahman piano refrains weave in and out throughout- the album goes into the song ‘Makaan’, a nice slow Arab number infused with flute and strings. ‘Matrah Interlude’ is a spoken-word monologue on the subject of free will, while ‘Bada Al Fajr’ returns to the soft piano instrumentals that almost define the album. ‘Muwashah Ozkourini,’ a classic Arabic standard, with its piano AND lush strings, DOES define the album. For her one English pop interpretation, she makes a definite departure from previous takes of James Brown and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, instead opting for ‘Riverman’ by Nick Drake. The melancholy fits the mood perfectly.

‘Batkallim’ returns to the Arab theme, but a bit electronica in style, to deliver a heartfelt denunciation of hypocrisy. The title song is another lovely piano/flute soliloquy, the perfect lightweight counterpart to the album’s predominant classical Arab- sometimes heavy- feel. From there it goes into its other minor theme- French chansons, slow jazzy laments- with ‘Le Cor, Le Vent’, a theme echoed with ‘La Nuit Est Sur La Ville’. ‘Ghoroub’ is about as slow and mourning as an Arab song can be, while ‘Taalet’ is more like rai, quick and full of joy. ‘Nafourat El Anwar’ returns to the soft piano and dreamy vocals format to close the album, an overall highly pleasant range of songs.

What makes Mounqaliba stand out as a great album- for me at least-are all the intros and interludes that punctuate the album from start to finish, a full half-dozen of them scattered throughout. In an era when songs go for a buck a pop as often as not, this is significant. These include spoken word, sparse instrumentals, calls to prayers, and market and street sounds. They serve to set a tone for the songs to come. They serve to explain the songs that have just gone. They help to make an album more than just a collection of songs. They help to lift the album from the realm of the ordinary. That’s ‘Mounqaliba’ by Natacha Atlas. Check it out.

MIRA by JIENAT- Engineer as Auteur

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:54:00 +0000

One of my first philosophical proclamations- at the ripe old age of eight- was that all of the suitable themes for popular music had been exhausted. There simply was little left to write about. It had all been done. I’ve since revised that theory, in fact inverted it 180 degrees to assume that almost NOTHING has been done. We’ve just scratched the surface- written a few love songs, a few waltzes, a few instrumentals, a few laments, a few rants. Still these days it seems like we’re all on our seats, maybe even biting our nails, some even hedging their bets, as to what will be the ‘next big thing.’ That there will be we all agree; novelty sells, but WHAT?

It’s so bad now that the hottest things these days are slice-and-dice ‘mash-up’ versions of disparate artists from disparate genres sharing a three-inch screen with two or more songs when in fact that may be all they share- except maybe a mutual love of mustaches, or wine vintage, or loopy lyrics, or the key of C. DJ’s are increasingly the stars of musical events, turntablists by trade re-editing the music of others for their own profit, while ‘real musicians’ can barely find gigs and songwriters stand in food stamp lines. What’s going on? I’ve got more paradigm shifts than I have fingers to count them on.

Let’s call it the ‘auteur’ theory, by analogy with what happened in the film industry c. 1959, first in France, later even up here in the Hollys. Everyone’s heard of of the world’s best film directors today, they existing in the public’s imagination almost on a par with A-list actors, TMZ notwithstanding. Most telling is the fact that any actor- or producer or screenwriter- who wants to really ‘get serious’ about film will sooner or later have to try his luck on the other side of the camera. The same thing is happening in pop music. Producers are increasingly becoming directors as fast as DJ’s are becoming producers to move music into a potentially exciting new era where musical performance is more than four guys standing there in T-shirts, cigarettes and instruments dangling… or a troupe of singer-dancers doing choreographed movements, while the real music occurs somewhere in the background. Pop music is growing up. Who knew the name of any record producers forty years ago? Today many people know the names of Lanois, Burnett, Carmen Rizzo, Danger Mouse, and maybe even Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno… while many more DJ’s are stars outright.

Enter into this creative milieu JIENAT (‘voices’ in Sami/Lapp) and its (instru)mentalist/engineer/auteur Andreas Fliflet, with their new album ‘Mira’. Ostensibly a group doing Saami joik music, this is to joik what maybe the Beatles were to rock-and-roll. Not a local himself, the Norwegian Fliflet was able to see in the far northern music something that maybe they couldn’t see themselves. So it’s interesting that, while joik itself seems to be divided into traditionalist chanting styles and a more ‘modern’ ballad style, Fliflet’s style is distinctly closer to the traditional, albeit transformed by the ultra-modern sensibilities of its African/Brazilian-influenced auteur. This means a much heavier reliance on percussion than would otherwise be the case. More importantly, for me at least, it includes a willingness to use anything and everything as components of a total sound.

The song ‘Sissel’ opens the album with visceral vocals and American Indian-like chants, accented with percussion and bells. The similarities to Native American traditional chanting may seem surprising until you consider that these two broad groups may have at one time shared some hunting grounds in the Ural Mountains. ‘Andreas/André adds the female voice of Marit Haetta Overli to the mix, along with scat vocals augmented by percussion. ‘Radio Belgrano’ even incorporates horse hoofs and vendors’ sales pitches as an intrinsic component of the music. But the title song ‘Mira’ tops that with barking dogs that have been known to get cats hot and bothered around the world, no matter their native language. ‘Tudeer’ incorporates a musical saw that sacrifices nothing to a theremine in its creation of an eerie other-worldy sound. ‘August Samuel’ closes with what almost sounds like Gregorian chants. Thus with traditional Sami chanting, assorted percussion, and found objects, Fliflet and Jienat manage to make a musical statement well worth a second listen. Now if we could only get an auteur theory for music videos, then we’d have something… but I digress. That’s Mira by Jienat. Hardie K says check it out.

The Front Lines of World Music

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 02:05:00 +0000

"Today I wish to inform as many people as possible about the paranoid atmosphere of a so called modern country China. Our neighbour is a political activist from Beijing (and) close friend of the guy who just received the Nobel Peace Prize, who is in jail for 11 years... today our neighbour had a discussion with the secret services, (and) the first question was what's your relationship to the French s guy s wife, your neighbour ? He answered in a non controversial way and got away with it, (but) as u all know the government of this country is sick ! A country controlled by the propaganda department, who does not hesitate to even censor the Chinese president who in a CNN interview declared that democracy is needed in china and that message from the president cannot even go through in this sick country. Let me just express my feelings, how long can it go on like that ????????????????
best
Laurent

Such are the trials and tribulations of living and working in China. Laurent Jeanneau perseveres. He has to. It's nasty work, but somebody's gotta' do it. Did you ever in fact wonder where 'world music' comes from? As you sit in Starbuck's listening to the latest Putumayo compilation, you may not fully appreciate the circuitous routes such music has taken in arriving at your eardrums. Maybe you figured that deals are simply made at the executive level between record companies overseas and record companies in America? You're right. Or maybe immigrant musicians in London, Paris, New York and LA re-create the sounds of their homelands with fellow ex-patriates? You're right again. It even goes beyond that, immigrants from different countries creating hybrid sounds and styles, original music that never existed anywhere or any time before. But that only tells half the story.

You can follow any genre of music back to its source and the story is always very similar- village people making music for entertainment, for religion, for tradition. This music may be very simple in style and in execution, but it serves a higher purpose for the villagers themselves. It ties them to their place and their time. When those village people move to cities, they take their instruments with them. There it gets mixed and matched and transformed and exported... or not. Sometimes it never gets heard beyond its village of origin. Sometimes it simply dies out as the next generation might rather emulate hiphop or other foreign styles. What can be done to preserve the original music for the mutual enrichment of the entire human race? Does anyone care?

Laurent Jeanneau does. Since 1995 he has been involved in two complementary activities, firstly recording ethnic minority music mostly in South East Asia, and secondly composing electronic music that includes or transforms those recordings. It involves going to foreign places, often remote, in India, in Tanzania, in Cambodia, in Laos, in Vietnam and China, and finding and then recording the music, often in primitive conditions. Every country has a different context so the approach is different, depending on how much time is available, on how close he is with the people, on the degree of acculturation, on how easy it is to find musicians, on political situations, on who he is working with and which music simply interests him most. He invests time, money and energy on music that moves him, and in most cases is likely the first to record those musicians. He sells it himself and through the American niche label Sublime Frequencies.

"I have no academic background, never studied anthropology or ethnomusicology... (what's) essential is to find cultures which are being ignored by the record industry, which has no interest in totally uncommercial music... My goal is to find original music I love; I don t waste time on music I don t like."

If that sounds like an idyllic lifestyle, the opposite is often the case, especially in dealing with an idiosyncratic political entity like China, where he now lives with his wife and son. This is certainly obvious from the latest e-mail I received from him, as quoted above. Still he perseveres. He has to; it's his life's work. You can listen to music samples on MySpace at: www.myspace.com/kinkgong . If you like what you hear you may follow the links to contact him or to purchase. He'd appreciate it. So would many villagers in many villages scattered throughout the SE Asian region. Think of it as a genome project, unraveling and presenting the DNA of music. The old ways become the New Age, music for a new millennium. Enjoy.

HARDLY STRICTLY SAN FRAN… MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 01:53:00 +0000

What’s the greatest music festival in the world… that nobody’s ever heard of? WOMAD Canarias, maybe, or Sauti za Busara in Zanzibar? My vote would have to be for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in San Francisco, CA. Founded by venture capitalist Warren Hellman and now celebrating its ten-year anniversary, HSB (not the bank) is the best kept secret this side of the International Date Line. While everybody here in LA gets all cummy reminiscing about their favorite Coachella desert encounter or waxing philosophical about the difficulties of maintaining the spirit of Burning Man, in a week when I heard KCRW dj’s exclaiming the unusual bounty of musical talent on display this week, not a word was mentioned about HSB, a short half-day’s drive to the north… likely the cause of much of the synchronous left coast bounty BTW. Down here there was not so much as a word of advertising, nor a blurb of news on the subject. We’re talking about a high six figures in attendance, mind you.

But bluegrass music is not exactly your thing, you say? That’s why it’s called ‘Hardly Strictly.’ In a show that features the likes of Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, Joan Baez, and Steve Earle, they can call it a festival of wedding singers, for all I care. True it IS still heavily roots-oriented, including a heavy dose of alt-country as well as bluegrass proper, but anything that’s heartfelt and genuine seems welcome. Outside the narrow bluegrass genre, artists with lyric-based music seem to predominate. Other than that, the predominant feature seems to relate to the audience themselves, who seem to be… how do you you say it… of a certain age? Ahhh, so that explains the virtual anonymity, doesn’t it? Everybody’s so interested in what the dorky freckle-faced kid down the street is doing when his hands aren’t otherwise engaged, that they could care less about what’s become of the generation that created a revolution in the 60’s… musically at least, politics subject to reinterpretation. HSB featured fairly equal doses of local, Austin, and Nashville artists, with heavy doses of New York, LA and London thrown in for good measure. So there’s not much world music there, but just about everything else.

So the festival stays largely local… and an insider’s pilgrimage. Imagine a Rainbow Gathering or a Grateful Dead New Year’s show, and you’re getting the idea. Many attendees walk or take public transportation, but the best part is that it’s free, yes, FREE… zippo zilch nada nadita, all courtesy of Mr. Hellman. He probably figures ‘why choose the usual Gateways or blow it all in one giant Buffet’… when you can create the world’s greatest party? Thank you, Mr. Hellman. If we’re stuck with cowboy capitalism, we like your horse-riding style. With six stages going more or less simultaneously, everybody’s free to create their own individual show schedule, of course, aided by various real-estate schemes usually involving the creative placement of various tarp-like spreads and items of lawn furniture. It’s almost like Second Life.

My show went something like this: after leaving LA (in the broad daylight) as the sun rose over the Hollywood Hills, we hustled up the central corridor lickety-split so’s to try to make the 2pm Friday half-day opening. Allowing a few stops for corn and various fruit items from the roadside stands, we almost made it. We DID find the righteous parking spaces (Hell no I’m not telling you), so that helped a lot… all three days. So we missed Jerry Douglas with Omar Hakim and Viktor Krauss, but we still got to hear an excellent set by Patty Griffin- with help from special guest Emmylou Harris, and then another by Jenny & Johnny. Worried about losing my street-cred as a musical idiot savant by embracing J & J- after maybe one or two listens- I was relieved when Elvis Costello showed up to help them with a song. So now I feel vindicated. They’re going places. T-Bone Burnett then played MC for his own little revue of current producee clients, but we wandered over to see the Dukes of September, aka Fagen, Boz, and Michael McDonald, a 3-in-1 hitmaking juggernaut anxious to relive the golden days.

Saturday started off with credible performances by Austinites Kelly Willis and Band of Heathens, before moving on to Hot Tuna Electric and a small slice of Fountains of Wayne. Up next then were excellent performances by Joan Baez and David Grisman. It’s always fun to hear Joan going into Dylan-voice to get his songs spot-on, and suffice it to say that the spark never died. Grisman’s set was indeed one of the show’s best, reminding one what string bands might be like if Scruggs never picked, and the heights to which that format can be taken, almost like a string quintet. We then moved on back to the ‘Austin stage’ with a somewhat revived Jerry Jeff Walker and another awesome threesome in the guise of Ely and Gilmore and Butch Hancock’s Flatlanders, but by then the fog had moved in and the temperatures were Arctic. Shivering that much may qualify as a calisthenic work-out.

They save the best for last. Sunday got started with a Peter Rowan hoe-down, before bogging down a bit with the much-respected but hardly exciting Hazel Dickens. As someone commented, that’s ‘a little TOO traditional’. So my friends and I staked out our turf for Randy Newman’s excellent set, and then held our ground while Elvis Costello played over the speakers from the stage next door. He was showcasing a band called the ‘Sugarcanes’, featuring such luminaries as Jerry Douglas in addition to some familiar old Attractions. Hey, if Allison’s gonna play FTSE with Robert Plant, Jerry doesn’t have to sulk alone in the corner now, does he? So they did some Costello standards country style to really nice effect, and even came back for an encore.

But all of this, the entire three days, was only a warm-up for what came next… the closest thing I’ve ever had to a religious experience anywhere… much less a rock music concert. We’re talking about Patti Smith, high priestess of punk, and arguably the best poet since Allen Ginsberg. You had to be there. A third-person narrative would hardly do it justice, but suffice it to say that, yeah, she did ‘G-L-O-R-I-A… in Excelcis Deo’, ‘People Have the Power’… and much more, including quotes from St Francis of Assisi, San Fran’s patron saint. It was incredible. Remember that there would be as many concert stories as there are spectators. Consider it for next year, and bring a friend… but don’t steal my parking space.

‘SHOSHAN’ by Shye Ben-Tzur- Israeli Sufi music? Only in India…

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:30:00 +0000

I’m not a musician. Oh sure, I did my time in the high school band, spewing on the business end of a trombone as part of what our band director affectionately referred to as ‘the sludge pump’ section. And I can even read music, or at least COULD, something a few R & R guitarists couldn’t do in their wettest wildest dreams. But that’s just mathematics, music as equation, the stuff of ‘classical music’-uptown, upstairs, privilege of the landed gentry- while on the other side of town, out in the countryside, simple country folk sang love songs to each other and recited stories handed down through generations, folk heroes kept alive through oral history.

But that’s not what really interests me about music, neither the pleasant effect of particular notes in creative melodic progressions, nor the information conveyed in narrative story-telling. What interests me most is the emotional transcendance capable of being transmitted, something probably best exemplified- at least until the modern era- in church music. “Music, unlike art or architecture, does not represent physical objects, and unlike poetry is independent of propositional thought. Hence it can take human emotions into areas that other artistic works cannot, and offer the prospect of an escape from worldly existence.” (Wikipedia) Obviously they haven’t read much modern poetry, but still, why certain emotions seem best expressed in major keys and others in minor ones is a source of never-ending mystery to me.

And except for some military ‘music’ (yeah, right), that’s pretty much the way it stayed, at least in the Western world, until the arrival of Africans on the scene with their exotic sounds- mostly percussion- and new lyrical concerns that transcended the previously typical themes of… love, mostly. That new emphasis on rhythm, and society, and the willingness of lyricists to gladly take over a role previously relegated to poetry, gave birth to popular music, something far more powerful than the ‘folk music’ that preceded it. I don’t know of anybody- ANYBODY- who hasn’t been touched by popular music, whether intellectual or businessman or ditch-digger, whether rap or rock or country. It somehow SPEAKS to us, inside, side by side with that little voice that is so closely identified with our inner being.

Add to this milieu over the last half century a plethora of foreign styles from a plethora of foreign countries- Mexican son, Brazilian samba, Euro-pop, Jamaican reggae, Peruvian folclorico, salsa cumbia meringue, Afro-beat high-life juju, and they just keep on coming, the DNA of music in constant evolution, the product of both artificial and natural selection. Then the genres start interbreeding amongst themselves, seeking fertile soil in which to drop their genes, and soon you’ve got hybrid genres like Celtic salsa and Cambodian surf music. And just when you think you’ve seen it all, then something comes along like… Hebrew Qawwali music, via Rajasthan, India? Huh? That’s surely a misprint, right? For those of you who don’t already know, Qawwali is Sufi devotional music, some of the purest music to ever come out of the Indian sub-continent, devoted to one of the purest forms of Islam, Sufism… usually, but not always, and not when handled by one of the brighter stars in the current crop of world music pilgrims.

The artist’s name is Shye Ben-Tzur and his new album is called ‘Shoshan’. Ben-Tzur is an Israeli poet who moved to India to study the music… and ended up finding himself in the Qawwali music of the Muslim communities, music best-known as the product of a country that he probably wouldn’t even be allowed to visit on an Israeli passport. This is one of the perks of world music. Things can happen here that couldn’t even happen in the UN, much less the streets of Gaza. But is it any good? It is, but in a different sense than that of, say, master Qawwal Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. This is definitely fusion music, incorporating Spanish guitar and strings as well as the tablas and harmonium more typical of Qawwali music. And the songs are shorter, too, something that Mr. Nusrat himself did to make his music easier for Western audiences.

From the upbeat rousing choruses of the song ‘Shoshan’ to the Latin-Arabic (OK, flamenco) style of ‘Dil Ke Bahar’ and the Spanish guitar of ‘To Die in Love’, the album segues into the minor key wailing of ‘Sovev’ and the brooding harmonies of ‘Daras Bina’. In fact the album is almost dialectic in its approach to the reconstruction of Jewish/Arab Middle Eastern music as manifested there and in its farthest reaches in Muslim India and Moorish Spain. Yet it never strays too far from the tabla rhythms which are indispensable to Qawwali music. This synthesis is nowhere better expressed than in the last song, ‘Shoshan Katan’, which somehow I knew was the last song even when playing at random during my first listen. Why is that I wonder? Is there a certain air of finality that can somehow be conveyed musically? That’s a question I’ll have to save for later. For now I suggest checking out ‘Shoshan’ by Shye Ben-Tzur. It’ll do you good. And have a happy 9-11, may the memory of those who died serve to promote the understanding necessary to mitigate those eternal conflicts that caused it. We all share the same God, remember.

LA SUMMER SEASON WINDING DOWN IN STYLE

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:37:00 +0000

Los Lobos playing down at the corner record store? For free? Ooohh, life’s rough. This is THE Los Lobos, after all, veterans of the American rock music scene for some thirty-odd (some very odd!) years, something of a Mexican-American Grateful Dead, a comparison they would be proud of, considering they’ve included a Dead song in their latest album ‘Tin Can Trust’, had a song on the early tribute album ‘Deadicated’, and toured with them during one phase a couple decades ago. They’re just that kind of band- more substance than style, more music than hype, there more for the fans than the corporations. First I heard of them was almost thirty years ago when I was living in Portland, OR, and they had just canceled a show at a local club… because their van broke down. Since then the ride’s been smoother, they in fact being one of the brighter spots of the 80s-decade which, but for the exception of ‘college radio’, was occupied mostly by big hair and mindless metal (IMHO). Even the Dead themselves were stalled out to almost nothing, Dylan was consumed by Christianity, and the ‘British invasion’ was history which the fashion-rockers Boy George, Eurythmics, and Duran x2 could hardly repeat. Los Lobos gave us hope that maybe the 60s and all that jazz still ‘meant something’. If Santana was essentially Mexican, after all- an exotic product somewhat unfathomable- Los Lobos were essentially American, just like us… almost… ‘just another band out of East LA’. They knew- and played- the American blues and rock idioms as their own, and they could learn to do the same with Mexican cumbias y nortenos tambien… y con venganza.

So now some twenty years after their decada maravillosa do they still ‘have it’? With a vengeance… and a smile. Last Wednesday not only did they play the main hits off their new album, “I’ll Burn it Down” among others, but they also played a smattering of their old stuff, including “Will the Wolf Survive?” No, there was no ‘Bamba’, but lots of other stuff. And they sounded good… as always. After all they should, shouldn’t they, after playing together as a unit for so long. With the exception of a new drummer so that Louie Perez can move up front with his guitar, their line-up hasn’t changed since 1984, when Steve Berlin joined. In fact they played a full hour, hardly what you’d expect on a Wednesday night gig at Amoeba Records. These guys are great and so’s their new stuff. Don’t write them off any time soon.

Mr. Vallenato Friday night was right in that same vein (yes, THAT vein)- good solid roots music, this time from Colombia, where vallenato reigns- along with cumbia, original cumbia- as the people’s choice. It’s infectious, too, capable of turning even the most jaded listener into an ecstatic dancer… you guessed it, me. I’d seen them the week before at Cal plaza downtown, but that was a city crowd. This was mostly Latinos from Central and South… America. This is the kind of stuff you usually have to know somebody to find, out in the barrios, or maybe Hollywood Park Casino… a long way from Hollywood. And it was a good mix, too, some highly motivated whites and blacks in addition to the Latinos. I only feel sorry for the state of the lawn after we got through dancing. You’ve simply got to see- and hear- these guys to appreciate it. Comparisons are difficult. If Very Be Careful’s down & dirty vallenato is analogous to Delta blues, then this is maybe analogous to the Chicago version.

Now for something completely different, like maybe a string quartet, perhaps? Uh huh, like I usually get out to see a string quartet, maybe, once every… decade? But it’s a different motivation when they’re doing Hendrix instead of Mozart, though, isn’t it? You bet it is. But can they really ‘do’ Hendrix? You bet they can. Okay, so it takes four of them to one-up Hendrix, but I’d say that’s not bad. Don’t I wish I could write like Hendrix plays guitar? You bet I do. And that’s not all they do, either. They also cover the likes of Chick Corea as well as many other mods and rockers, in addition to performing works by founder and violinist David Balakrishnan, ‘exploring the mind of David’, as he puts it. It sounds good to me. That two violins, a viola, and a cello, can produce such a full complete sound is a complete revelation for me. Highly recommended.

This week the grooviest scene- now that Cal Plaza has shot their wad for the season- would have to be Dr. John at Santa Monica Pier on Thursday evening. I haven’t seen him in about thirty-five years, so that should be good. In case I can’t get up and out in time for that early 7pm, show, then I’ll go see Viver Dance Brazil at MacArthur Park instead. Aside from that, Rocky Dawuni is looking like the best bet Sunday night at that same MacArthur Park. For anybody who hasn’t heard Rocky, and who maybe hasn’t been too inspired by reggae in a long time, then you’re in for a real treat. Rocky’s got some of the best reggae tunes I’ve heard since the Bobster himself. See you there.

THE OTHER LA: CAMBODIA TO COLOMBIA, HIGH DENGUE FEVER & THE VALLENATO FLU

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:18:00 +0000

Oh, but last weekend was another sublime compilation of subtle pleasures in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula aka ‘L-A’! It’s not all just mindless fun and games, though, of course. There is a strong educational aspect to it also, at least in the ‘world music’ genre that I specialize in (you might want to hedge your bets with ‘death metal’ though). So I started the weekend off early at MacArthur Park with the Korean troupe Noreum Machi. This is a classical Asian genre, not unlike the ‘classic folk’ genres that exist in many other Asian countries- especially the most heavily Chinese-influenced- from Vietnam to China to Japan. Interestingly these are the Asian countries with little or no ‘roots music’ left in their repertoires. Like the others, this one is also heavily percussive, though maybe less then Japanese ‘taiko’ drumming.

But I was most anxious to see Dengue Fever at the Pasadena Levitt Pavilion Friday night, after not totally getting my fix at Cal Plaza the week before. Partly that’s because it was a show split with Bassekou Kouyate, so not really a long enough set to fully take wings, and partly because I just happened to be sitting in a ‘dead zone’ where the chopped-up lower level creates wave interference and certain frequencies are simply canceled out, leaving hums and rumbles in the place of the intricate keyboard melodies that would otherwise occupy the space between Nimol’s high notes and Senon’s bass line… Fortunately acoustics were no problem at Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena. That’s why band-shells are shaped that way. A couple thousand warm bodies in the grass don’t hurt, either. And DF did not disappoint, even though their sax player wasn’t present. Local Khmers were out in force, too, at one point threatening to disturb the peace up front in the over-excitement of the occasion… and maybe an overdose of Mekong whiskey. Good vibes usually win over situations like that, though, and this was no exception. The set was excellent, and included several new songs… or at least ones that I haven’t heard before. I can’t wait for the new album scheduled for release in Spring 2010!

So Saturday night I went back to Cal Plaza for the Latino-themed three-way bill that included Ceci Bastida, Mr. Vallenato, and Nortec Collective. Ceci was first up and managed to get the crowd at least half-way up and on their feet. Ex-sidekick of Mex-pop superstar Julieta Venegas, Ceci has learned her lesson well, and- judging by the amount of time spent in LA- would presumably like to accomplish here exactly what Julieta has accomplished in Mexico itself. For regardless of how ‘indie’ her packaging may seem to us here, in Mexico itself, JV is pure pop, and has been for years. So with that turf largely taken, Ceci’s got her eyes on the big prize, I believe. The formula is not difficult- good songs, Latina cutie, lively Mex-pop band- of which they’ve got at least 2 of 3 down pat already. Now I love a girl wearing cowboy boots, but if Ceci kicks any higher and harder, then we may have to relocate her shows away from the San Andreas Fault. At one point she even brought out a friend dubbed ‘la reina de anarcumbia’- presumably for street cred- but she hit her stride with ‘Ya Me Voy’ - ‘I’m leaving; I’m gone; I’m outta’ here’ (you get the idea). When all her songs are THAT good, then she’ll be ready for Letterman. She DOES speak perfect English btw, so that’s no obstacle. The delivery systems may shift with the paradigm, but a hit’s still a hit…

Mr. Vallenato was up next, but as the turn-around time seemed lengthy, I wandered down to Pershing Square to see what was up. Big mistake. By the time I got back up to the water court, his set was half over, and he was cooking, I tell you- I mean COOKING- eggs, smothered in salsa. Now I don’t have much experience with vallenato except what I’ve heard from Very Be Careful and this selfsame Mr. V sitting in with an otherwise less-than-satisfying Colombian techno group a couple weeks ago, but nothing prepared me for this (and I have listened to Toto la Momposina also)! This guy- and band- can WAIL! If they’re as slick as VBC is earthy, then he is as accomplished on the accordion as many others are dilettantes. These are no oompah-oompah polkas, either btw. If this is salsified vallenato, then add another spoonful on my plate, por favor. I could listen to more of this… and kick muyself for missing part of his set.

Ah, but not to worry, because Mr. V will be back this Friday playing for the homies at MacArthur Park… and I won’t be late this time, either, I can assure you. So what about Nortech Collective (‘presents Bosstich and Fussible yada yada’) last Saturday? Well, my mama told me that if I have nothing good to say then say nothing, so… if you like listening to a tuba player and an accordionist playing minimalistic nortenos while videos screen overhead and two others (Bosstich and Fussible?) stand in front of a backdrop like two geeks in a trade-show booth… then go for it. A cada quien sus gustos. For my money, it’s all pretentious crap. So I aborted the mission after a short couple songs and went back to Pershing Square to catch what I could of the Bo Deans… and was pleasantly surprised. I like the ‘americana’ genre, too, you know… but usually for breakfast, indie rock to get cranking, jazz for lunch, then the rest of the world for the rest of the day…

In addition to the aforementioned ‘Mr. Vallenato’, this week’s best bets look like Katia Moraes and Sambaguru at the Westside Farmer’s Market on Friday and Charmaine Clamor at MacArthur on Saturday… sounds like ‘American Model’, you say? Sounds like that go down easy. Me, I’m thinking Oscar Hernandez at LACMA Saturday afternoon, maybe followed by Turtle Island Quartet at Cal Plaza…doing Hendrix? Oooh, that’s cheating.

AFRO-BEAT, AFRO-TRAD, AFRO-DIASPO, & A TOUCH OF FEVER IN LA

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:18:00 +0000

Well, it doesn’t get much better than this past weekend for variety and quality in the LA free music department, some of it expected, some out of the blue. I’ll have to admit that I almost got my rocks off prematurely with the Budos Band last Thursday night at McArthur Park. I went expecting nothing, but apparently KCRW has been playing these guys regularly, so there was a pretty good crowd out there. Now there’s a concept- LARGE CROWD AT MCARTHUR PARK! I’d like to be able to say that more often. Too often I’m the only guero in a sparse crowd of homies with hot dogs and pupusas. What do I know? I’ve been busy traveling around the world, and then have to turn off KCRW when it’s fund-raising time lest my guilt complex destroy me.

Budos Band is hot! Now I’ve always politely respected ‘afro-beat’, but never followed it too closely for one simple reason- nobody can match Fela. Not even Femi can match Fela, but he probably comes closest, he or brother Seun. Listening to the various pretenders has always been more an exercise in endurance than ecstasy. The Budos Band raise the bar a notch in the ‘other’ department, a good healthy notch. What’s the difference? With Fela there’s always a variable there that can’t be predicted… Fela’s personality. This is something that can’t be taught… though it can be learned. It may be something as simple as coming in on the off-beat on one song… or slightly biting the reed on the next. Once it’s written in, then it’s no longer the spontaneous variable that made it so exciting in the first place, that subtle flick of the tongue that drives you wild. Budo’s got it, but I’m hesitant to speculate on its origin. It just may be that organ, though, which gives it a sound not typical of Afro-beat bands, and may be as close as the genre can come to rock & roll without going to lead guitar, because then it’s no longer Afro-beat. I Hardiely recommend a listen.

Next night was the Big Night Out, Cal Plaza water court under the Perseid showers with Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba opening, to be followed by Dengue Fever, one of my all-time favorite fusionistas, mixing up classic Khmer pop, Ethiopian jazz, surf-rock, and God knows what else those guys- and gal- have got buzzing through their brains. Well Bassekou Kouyate is on something of a roll after sitting near the top of the European world music charts with ‘I Speak Fula’ for many months not so long ago, so he’s doing the roll-out tour now, trying to sell some tickets, since not even Billboard’s Top 10 means that many bucks any more, and certainly not the WMCE. If you want bucks you gotta pack in the butts, not CD’s. Ngoni Ba did not disappoint, though hardly due to Bassekou’s ngoni all by itself, of common ancestry with the banjo, for those interested in the musical genome project. This is one tight band, doing things with talking drums that should have been done long ago- playing lead- not just some curious lilting blips in the background. That Fula/Fulani tradition (Ali Farka also spoke Fula) is well placed to fill the gap between the incredible raw stuff now coming out of Tuareg country to the north and the more citified Keita/Diabate stuff coming out of Bamako and beyond.

An interesting ‘compare and contrast’ could be made with Saturday’s African diaspora band ‘Tabou Combo’, originally out of Haiti, now (mostly) New York. While both bands can certainly rock, Bassekou’s is still clearly tied to the African folk blues tradition. You can almost feel the trodden earth under your feet. Tabou, on the other hand- full of brass and balls- has been freed by the very slavery which produced it, free to experiment with other nearby sounds and influences, free to fly with something of an ‘island sound’ claiming allegiance to no one. While that term may seem rather generic, any other description would require so many hyphens that I probably wouldn’t pass the grammar-check. Better listen for yourself. I bet they’re a regular at SOB’s in NYC.

Then there’s Dengue Fever. Then there’s always Dengue Fever, I hope, notwithstanding the real contagious disease which is currently inflicting so much misery on my sometime-home of SE Asia. This band has simply got to be seen- and HEARD- to be believed. When Nimol breaks into that high-pitch Cambodian squeal so indicative of 60’s pop music there, I get a shiver up my spine that implies that I’m now entering another dimension. Unfortunately the mix didn’t seem quite right last Friday night, as I could hardly hear Ethan’s organ at all. That’s a rather important component of DF’s sound, to say the least. Fortunately they’ll be back at Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena THIS Friday, so that may necessitate a double-dip, something I would not normally do for any lesser band. Cal Plaza may simply not be the best place for their sound, as the acoustics are rather uneven there. I think it’s better upstairs, though you sacrifice any close-up visuals, hardly a loss with the spectacular fountain background. Besides DF, best bets this week look like Nortec Collective and Mr. Vallenato at Cal Plaza on Saturday night, maybe Ceci Bastida, too, Tijuana yes! C U there.

“… HIP-HOP CHILDREN OF BE-BOP PARENTS…”, LA GETS HIP WITH DAAOOD, TRIBLE, AND THE WHOLE INDUS VALLEY

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:10:00 +0000

I haven’t heard anything like it since listening to Jack Kerouac over Steve Allen’s piano (on tape, a**hole, I’m not THAT old)… okay, so maybe not since McClure and Manzarek anyway… the power of poetry- GOOD poetry- being spoken over music- GOOD music. That’s what we lucky ones got Friday night at Cal Plaza’s Grand Performance, in this case by Kamau Daaood- legendary Watts Writer- and a band that included such jazz luminaries as Otmaro Ruiz on keyboards and Justo Almario on reeds. Add to that the vocal stylings of Dwight Trible, and you’ve got an evening to remember. If for Trible the voice is every bit as much an instrument as a saxophone is, then for Daaood the spoken word is every bit as much an instrument as thought itself. Daaood stir-fries words like peppers and onions and meaty healthy tofu on a hot Chinese wok and then tosses them onto your plate over a bed of hot rice percussion to wash down with copious quantities of jazz mead wine. “I do not fit into form; I create form,” Daaood says in his ‘I’m not for Sale’ ode to master Horace Tapscott. You can say that again.

Dwight Trible is something else again, but meshes really nicely with Daaood in a kind of back-and-forth sing-song antiphony. He simply must be seen to be appreciated. Know how blind people ‘let themselves go’ in a way that sighted people can’t? While the short take might be that ‘they don’t know how silly they look,’ I suspect the reason is more one of balance. Close your eyes and see how quickly you lose yours. Dwight Trible resembles a hyper-balanced organism defining the relationship between earth and space/space and time, and his voice reflects this ethereal balancing act, constantly in motion, constantly re-positioning itself with what came before and what is yet still in mind, a mathematical variable seeking resolution.

Frankly Daaood and Trible could suffice with no backing at all, the two aspects of voice- as word and music, then harmony and melody- complete between the two of them. But the percussion gives it rhythm, and the jazz is the icing on the cake. It’s a shame nothing more has been done with the format, but then not much has even been done with the much vaster- and easier- concept of putting together moving pictures and music OR words. Look how MTV made a mockery of that without even really trying. Any body who thinks ‘it’s all been done’ lacks imagination. If it takes a trip down to Leimart Park to see these guys, I’d heartily recommend it… though downtown LA certainly makes it easy. The amount of jazz talent in LA that’s willing to come out and share itself on any given night is simply incredible and a resource not to be taken for granted.

So after a short break most of the opening band’s key members just changed jackets and came back out to back Badal Roy and his ‘Indus Valley Civilization.’ An off-shoot of the ‘Miles in India’ project of a couple years ago, this band is all about music- heavy on the percussion- not vocals. Interestingly enough Latinos Ruiz and Almario are very familiar with the Latin side of percussion, so this is something completely different. Do the two complete the two sides of the jazz percussion psyche? May be. They played a brilliant set anyway, all members taking turns at lead. The use of drum and percussion AS LEAD INSTRUMENT- not just solo rhythm- is something that should be explored much more extensively.

The Mexican band Troker played the third set of the evening, but I cut out early. I get bored on breaks. So I went down to Pershing Square and never made it back up. They sound pretty good on MySpace, though. I’d go back. Other than that there’s not much to report on last week’s offerings. Fishbone at Pershing Square sounded good on the last couple songs I caught, so I’d like to see more of them. Razia Said at McArthur Park was competent enough, but failed to excite me. This week’s looking really good, though. The chill deal looks like Friday evening at Cal Plaza once again, with Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba opening and LA’s much-beloved Dengue Fever coming out later. DON’T MISS!

Other than Dengue Fever, Tabou Combo next night at Cal Plaza sounds good, real island stuff out of Haiti! Besides that The Budos Band and Charanga Cakewalk at Mcarthur Park on Thursday and Friday nights, respectively, look like good bets. Jose Rizo is doing his take on Mongo Santamaria at LACMA’s Latin night, too, so there’s no shortage of tunes this week… and then there’s the clubs. Me, I’ll wait til it gets cold for that. See you at the water court, livest acoustics in town. Just don’t get caught in a dead zone…

PETE E TOPS MUSICAL WEEK IN LA

noreply@blogger.com (Hardie K) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:06:00 +0000

Well, this week in free outdoor entertainment- particularly of the world music variety- got off to a bit of a slow start this week. First there was Palenke Soultribe at McArthur Park. Now they’re not half-bad, mind you, and I’ve got an ever-expanding appreciation of electronica, but I’m not sure that an outdoor stage with tia y abuela y mijo is really the place for it. I mean, isn’t electronic groove, trance, whatever, custom-made for four black walls, spinning lights, mindless butt-twitching, and a healthy dose of ‘E’? Just as I was starting to think, ‘at least Nortec Collective has an accordion player,’ well right at that moment, who walks out but Mr. Vallenato himself, adding some Colombian country soul to Palenke’s techno grooves. There IS a God. I have a little bit of a problem watching people play with their computers on stage to begin with, but I can be flexible. Just try to keep it below the fifty percent threshold.

Adonis Puentes at noon in California Plaza was more my speed. Now I’m a great fan of his brother Alex (Cuba) Puentes, but this is something totally different, maybe the reason the two went their separate ways after an earlier collaboration. While Alex moved toward some impeccable pop instincts, while maintaining a Cuban rhythm base, Adonis remained closer to home, staying close to the Cuban son tradition. Interestingly, home for these guys is not actually Cuba, but British Columbia, Canada. But Cuba is the spiritual home, and the last century is the classical era, an era that Adonis recreates as surely as did the Buena Vista Social Club.

Later the same day, on the advice of numerous of my better-heeled contemporaries, I ventured out to see Cecilia Noel at McArthur Park. Once again, there seemed to be a problem of ‘place’. Is a public park really the place to see a Las Vegas-style act, especially one that features at its head a Latina ‘firecracker’? Isn’t that act a little out-of-date anyway? I mean, Charro may or may not still be alive (I’d need a doctor’s opionion to be sure), but surely with all the Madonnas and Gagas that have have come and gone in the last fifty years, you’d think we’d’ve moved on to another phase by now… not that her show’s no good, mind you. Her band’s killer, in fact, would have to be for Jimmie Kimmel to steal half of it for his own purposes, don’t you reckon? And Cecilia can still do a high-kick with the best of the Las Vegas chorus line… but still…

By all logic, Saturday should have been the payoff- given the law of large numbers and all- but… well… I was really looking forward to the show down at the Cal Plaza water court, to be divided between Nonstop Bhangra and Pacha Massive, but figured I might as well stop off at McArthur Park alolng the way, since it’s on the same Metro red line, so I can use the same ticket. I’ll only have a half hour there at most, so if the cops tell me that’s ‘two rides/two tickets’ I’ll just tell them I got off at the wrong stop, so need to continue on. Hey, I know it’s only a buck and a half, but there’s a principle involved here! The group playing was ‘Monte Negro’, variously credited with ‘rock/reggae/new wave/ska’ but which in reality is just some pretty decent ‘indie en espanol’ (mostly). I only had a few minutes if I wanted to make the start of the Cal Plaza show…

I probably should have stayed, but I’d been wanting to hear Bhangra music ever since I lived in Hounslow west of London (me and a lot of ex-pat sub-continentals) and saw it on all the flyers there every weekend, but… never got around to actually going to any shows. I was disappointed… but of course I really didn’t know what to expect. I’m still not sure if I got the ‘real thing’ or not, but somehow I don’t think a rapper should be coming out every other song to talk that shit... but you never know… The dance numbers were nice, though, even though there were vocals with no singers, i.e. pre-recorded. I left early, figuring to catch the Tubes down at Pershing Square between sets. I finally gave up after 15-20 minutes of waiting, figuring they’d only finally come up and do a quick run-through of their big hits, most of which I wouldn’t even know… So I rushed back to the water court, so’s not to miss Pacha Massive, who I’d heard OF… but never really heard… ho hum… maybe I should keep as a joke my little play on their name, Macha Passive. They make Aterciopelados look- and sound- like Nirvana, sleeeepyyyyyy… good rainy day stuff, pour a little brandy… maybe call up Michael Jackson’s doctor…

Then there’s Pete E, Escovedo that is, and a family that seems to know no bounds. Those guys not only rocked Hollywood & Highland last night, but made it memorable, including a visit by daughter Sheila E sitting in, plus numerous other members of the extended family. Pete and his brother Coke were as much a part of the original Santana sound as was Sr. Carlos himself, and Pete has gone on to become one of the grand masters of Latin jazz, an emerging genre that seems to have energized and stabilized the larger genre of jazz itself, saving it from the icky thump of too much white-boy ‘fusion’, to which jazz over-corrected after the excesses of be-bop. Jazz audiences are the best, too, the most complete mix of black white Latin Asian you’ll ever find. It saved the week for me.

This week is full of a bunch of unknowns- for me at least- so that’s good, as I like to keep it fresh. Adonis Puentes and Pistolera- both great- will be at LACMA and McArthur Park respectively, but I’ve seen both, so will likely be elsewhere. Since Madagascar is one of my favorite places in the world (watch your pockets!), I’ll definitely go check out Razia Said, one of its rising stars. Other than that, it’s pot luck and homework… that’s what MySpace is for. Some people like to rib it because of its second-ran status as a social network, but it’s maybe the single largest database of popular music in the world. There’s at least SOMETHING by almost everyone there. So maybe I’ll see you... somewhere in the golden triangle?