The popular Chinese singer Sa Dingding has a new album out, The Chosen Ones, inspired by a trip across China, from Chengdu to Kunming and capturing the music of communities isolated geographically from modern Chinese history.

She was born in 1983 in Mongolia, later moving to Beijing and studying at the Academy of Arts there.  She retained her love of the country and nature from her childhood in Mongolia.

There’s a picture of Sa Dingding on the cover kissing the wrinkled face of an old woman, an image portraying both the hope of youth and longevity of Chinese culture.  Her songs celebrate the beauty of the natural world she grew up in, and also display strong Buddhist overtones, and songs in Tibetan, Mandarin, and Sanskrit.  In this new 2 disc set, there ‘s a DVD film documenting her travels throughout China and the people she met.  There are many images of nature, the vast grasslands of Mongolia, Buddhist monks in prayer and going about their daily lives.

Sa Dingding was the first Chinese singer nominated for a grammy, has done film soundtracks, and has worked with house music icon Paul Oakenfold.  Her albums sell millions in China, and is winning new converts here in the U.S., Europe, and throughout Asia.  Click to listen when she visited us in the studios in 2008 after her 2nd album, Harmony, was released.

There are cuts like The Chosen Ones called “Ru Ying Sui Xing”, or “Like a Shadow is Following You” (track #2) and features the Miao people from the village of Xiaoshuijing on the outskirts of Kunming.  The villagers there have been Christians for over 100 years, untouched by the cataclysms of Mao Tse Tung.  The imagery here is that of flower petals, breezes, and joy.  This cut also features Beethoven’s immortal “Ode to Joy” from his final symphony, an iconic work often associated with historical events (think of the Berlin Wall coming down, concerts played to mark the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks).  Part of the lyrics the Mio villagers sing go like this:

“Goddess of Joy, holy and beautiful….your strength can eliminate all differences between people….take my hand and sing for joy with me…”  Again, music that is an affirmation of humanity and the desire for peace and harmony.

On this cut you hear them singing Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th.  Another cut, “Zhi Shang Ai” (“Dedicated with Love”, track #6) ), Sa Dingding uses a metaphor of one flower among a sea of flowers to represent idealized love.  I think it’s the loveliest cut on the new album.

Some of the other cuts, such as “The Holy Sound of Love” feature synth-heavy production values I don’t really care for.  Remember, however, that Sa has worked with electronica icon Paul Oakenfold, so there is a modernist connection she embraces there.

Here’s a 15′  album sampler of the new album:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Featured in the second half of this Rhythm Planet edition is the music of rising Korean star, Youn Sun Nah.  Her new album Lento just went to #1 on the European music charts. You can read more about Youn Sun Nah in a post published earlier in the week on 5/20/13.

Rhythm Planet Playlist: 5/24/13

1. Sa Dingding | Ha Ha Li Li Remixed by Paul Oakenfold | Harmony | Wrasse Records
2. Sa Dingding | Dedicated With Love | The Coming Ones | Universal Beijing
3. Sa Dingding | Something Like A Shadow Is Following You | The Coming Ones | Universal Beijing
4. Sa Dingding | Capricorn | The Coming Ones | Universal Beijing
5. Sa Dingding | The Fragrance Of The Moon | The Coming Ones | Universal Beijing
6. Youn Sun Nah | Lento | Lento | Act Music
7. Youn Sun Nah | Hurt | Lento | Act Music
8. Youn Sun Nah | Ghost Riders In The Sky | Lento | Act Music
9. Youn Sun Nah | Arirang | Lento | Act Music

Ray Manzarek died this past Monday in Germany, where he was being treated for bile-duct cancer.

I wasn’t into too many popular bands of the 1960s, but I was a fan of The Doors.  They were a quintessential LA band.  The founding members, Ray and Jim Morrison, met on the beach in Venice.  Their song lyrics contained references to Los Angeles.  The band got their start playing at the local clubs throughout the city and landed their first extended run at The Whisky a Go Go on The Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.

It was Ray Manzarek who shaped the sound of The Doors.  His Bach-like intro set the stage for “Light My Fire”, which I listened to non-stop on my 8-track player en route on Highway One up to San Francisco in my Citroën DS 19 in 1968.  It was the perfect soundtrack for the ride up the coast.

Also interesting is that Manzarek’s sound on the Vox Continental keyboard influenced the sound of 1970s African and new Cuban bands too.  The great Marco Werman spoke about this on yesterday’s (5/21/13) Global Hit on PRI’s The World.

Neil Young once said that “It’s better to burn than to rust (actually he said “burn out” but I prefer just “burn”).  Jim Morrison burned out in 1971, drowning in a Paris bathroom after overdosing.  His tomb at Père Lachaise cemetery always has flowers on it.

Ray Manzarek chose to rust instead.  It seems like many boomers are soon going to be rusting too.

Here’s a youtube clip of Ray Manzarek talking about The Doors’, “Riders on the Storm”.

Youn Sun Nah is a far cry from Psy and Gangnam Dance.  Also far from soupy Asian pop or synthetic productions.  She has recorded a few albums for a German label, ACT, and splits her time between Korea and France.  Her new album Lento just went to #1 on the European world music charts.  She also was awarded the French honor of being knighted “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres”  (Knight of Arts and Letters).  I was given this same award in 1998 for spreading Francophone music here in the USA.  So Youn Sun and I have something in common.

She sings with both fire and conviction and tenderness, depending on the song.  She culls repertoire from diverse places: Russian composer Alexandr Scriabin, Nine Inch Nails, Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66, Randy Newman, Rodgers and Hammerstein.  She even did the classic American western song, “Ghostriders in the Sky”.  To say her range is eclectic is putting it mildly.

Here she is singing a Korean traditional “Kangwondo Arirang”  Her version of this old chestnut on the new Lento album is beautiful and very touching.  May Youn Sun Nah’s star continue to rise.

Here she is performing the traditional song in France, where she has a growing and adoring audience.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But a lot of the time, Sun Ra’s music just sounds like a slam-down Kansas City big band blowing session. If you really want jazz from outer space, you need to listen to Ethiopian music.  It is strange, almost disturbing to unwary listeners not used to its unusual cadences and harmonic leaps.  Hearing Ethiopian music for the first time might make such virgin ears uneasy.

But it is fascinating as well.  The series Éthiopiques, produced for Buda Musique, an indy label based in Paris, has just produced its 28th cd, devoted to the late 70s Oromo music of Ali Mohammed Birra (Oromo is the largest Ethiopian community outside of Addis.  The Oromo Ethiopian have their own language, different than the Amharas of the capital, who speak Amharic).

The series curator and producer is a Frenchman named Francis Falceto, who sleuthed and saved much of the music of Ethiopia’s turbulent 1960s and 1970s, when the country was in the midst of a civil war after the monarchy of Haile Selassie was taken down.  Without Falceto, this music might have wound up on the ash heap of history.

Ethiopia, located in what is known as the Horn of Africa, is the birthplace of modern man, one of the oldest places of human existence.  The Ethiopian Coptic Christian Church is one of the oldest churches in Christendom,  going back to the 5th century a.d..

Éthiopiques features a lot of pre-synthesizer music, which is always good.  An earlier album, volume 4, featured the great Mulatu Astatke and was used by director Jim Jarmusch in his film Broken Flowers.   While much of the music in the already encyclopedia 28-cd series, isn’t really jazz as we know it, it’s nevertheless sounds more like jazz than pop.  With a little bit of Memphis Stax-Volt soul shout thrown in.  There is an urgency in the music, and no matter how far out or exotic it gets, it is always soulful, tasty, and full of heart.

While most of the volumes cover the years of the 1970s, a recent 2-cd set, volume 27, covers the very first recordings of Ethiopian music, recorded over 100 years ago in what was then known as Abyssinia.

Volumes 4 and 26 feature two of the biggest stars of the 1970s, singer Mahmoud Ahmed (rec. 1972-4) and the instrumentalist Mulatu Astatkqé (rec. 1969-74).

The most recent cd features singer Ali Mohammed Birra, playing what is known as Oromo music, is more approachable than some of the stranger sounding volumes.  Here is a video of one of the songs on Volume 28, taken from a 1975 single on the famous Kaifa label.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Wikipedia has published a discography of  the voluminous Éthiopiques catalogue.

Finally, the great Marco Werman interviewed series producer Francis Falceto recently, including a classic track from one of the biggest stars, the aforementioned Mulatu Atstake: a must-hear history of the series and of modern Ethiopian history.

Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and London have large Ethiopian communities, and here in LA you can buy classic music on the many Fairfax Avenue restaurants and shops.  And, fortunately, you can get the series of 28 cd’s on Amazon.com.  The series that Francis Falceto most certainly saved from extinction. And spawned modern offshoots as well, bands like Dub Colossus, Debo Band, Bole 2 Harlem, and Invisible System.  It also paved the way for bigger stars to become popular in Europe and America, such as Aster Aweke and Ejigayehu Shibabaw, better (and more easily) known as Gigi.

Rhythm Planet Playlist: 5/17/13

1. Ali Mohammed Birra | Infedhani | Éthiopiques Vol 28 | Buda Musique
2. Alemayehui Eshete | Temeles | Éthiopiques Vol 28 | Buda Musique
3. Seyoum Gebreyes & Alim-Girma Band | Hametegnaw | Éthiopiques Vol 28 | Buda Musique
4. Frew Haylou | Almaz Men Eda | Éthiopiques Vol 28 | Buda Musique
5. Tezeta | Song Title In Amharic Only | Éthiopiques Vol 28 | Buda Musique
6. Asmarina | Song Title In Amharic Only | Éthiopiques Vol 28 | Buda Musique
7. Ali Mohammed Birra | Eshurruru | Éthiopiques Vol 28 | Buda Musique

Shamshad Begum, playback singer on many early Bollywood films, has died at the ripe old age of 94.  Too bad we’ve never heard of her.

We do know about sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle.  They hold the Guiness World Record for most recorded singers:  younger sister Asha has done 12,000 songs, older sister Lata has done over 25,000.  They hold Bollywood playback singer hegemony.

No wonder we don’t know much about Shamshad.  Her career started earlier than the famous sisters, in 1931.  In 1941, she recorded her first big film, Khazanchi, followed by Aar Paar in 1954, and C.I.D. in 1956.  After her lawyer and amateur photographer husband died in 1955, she retired from singing and lead a quiet life.

Here she sings in a 1951 film Bahar:  remember the actress singing is only lip-synching; it’s Shamshad’s voice: she’s a playback singer!

Click here to view the embedded video.

RCA Living Stereo, along with Mercury Living Presence and the Decca classical catalogue, have been and will always be some of the best vinyl ever produced.  Vinyl is special: you never quite hear the sizzle of the drum cymbals and other frequencies the same way on most digital, especially the horrendous sound of early digital, which Neil Young once compared to nails being driven into his brain.  During the mid-1980s, when engineers started remastering and reissuing lp’s on cd to sell catalogue all over again, the top end harmonics were actually chopped off to get rid of tape hiss.  What’s wrong with tape hiss anyway?

Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, and Impex Records have been producing top-quality reissues for some time.  They’re not in it for the money.  You pay more for the high quality pressings and quality remastering, but it’s worth it.  It’s also great that turntable sales are up, and curiosity about vinyl continues to rise.  It’s a pleasure to visit a good record store like Amoeba and pore through the vinyl.  For one thing, you get the visual gestalt of cover art and liner notes, something missing from most cd’s (too small, no graphic impact) or itunes files.

I thought I’d share this classic old RCA Living Stereo video, talking about the advent of early stereo in the late 1950s and the manufacturing process.  Dig the hardware!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m excited to do my first Up Close event at the beautiful Jerry and Anne Moss upstairs stage on Monday, May 20th.  We’ll do a short history of jazz piano, from New Orleans ragtime with Jelly Roll Morton, through Fats Waller,  Monk, Errol Garner to modern masters like Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, and Keith Jarrett.   It’s going to one full hour, for sure.

Alan Pasqua chairs the Jazz Studies Department at USC Thornton School of Music;  his faculty includes heavyweights like drummer Peter Erskine, saxophonist Bob Mintzer, and other stellar talents.

Alan has been an in-demand studio player with the likes of Quincy Jones, Queen Latifah, and Elton John.  But that’s not why I like him.  I started listening to his albums in the mid-1990s and immediately liked his compositions, his technique, his keyboard touch, and the company he kept on his albums.  There is a searching quality to his songs, with titles like “Grace”, “Heartland”, and “Milagro”.   His chords are delicate yet powerful, his melodic sense is inventive, and his prodigious technique helps him execute any idea.

In short, his music is beautiful.  I’ve had him in to KCRW on several occasions, and have seen him at many local clubs.  I follow his work and look forward to any new release, which are far too few.

I had the idea to do this night of jazz piano history, and I am thrilled than Alan is joining me on stage.  We have a beautiful new Yamaha C6 Grand piano and it’s a beautiful room.  It’s like a luxury living room concert.  I hope you can join us.

Monday, May 20, 2013 at 8:00 PM – More Info
New Roads School’s Moss Theater-Leadership Center
3131 Olympic Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90404
Phone: 310-314-4635

What follows is some nice tracks of Alan’s I’m laying down in the KCRW studios.  Enjoy them and feel as I do about this gifted artist and educator.

Rhythm Planet Playlist: 5/9/13

1. Alan Pasqua | You Must Believe In Spring | My New Old Friend | Cryptogramophone
2. Alan Pasqua | San Michele | Dedications | Postcards
3. Alan Pasqua | Wichita Lineman | My New Old Friend | Cryptogramophone
4. Alan Pasqua | Con Alma | Standards | Fuzzy Music
5. Alan Pasqua | Grace | Twin Bill | BFM Jazz
6. Alan Pasqua | Highway 14 | My New Old Friend | Cryptogramophone
7. Eddie Daniels | Rio Grande | Under The Influence | GRP
8. Alan Pasqua | All The Things You Are | My New Old Friend | Cryptogramophone

Hungarian cellist Janos Starker has died.  He was 88. Born in Budapest July 5, 1924, he was a child prodigy, giving his first concert at six. At just 14, he was asked to step in, on three hours notice, to perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto, one of the most difficult works in the cello repertoire.  He succeeded with aplomb.  Later in 1945, when he was 21 and the war was almost over, he was sent to a German detention camp but survived.  A year later, after coming in second in a competition, Starker went to Paris and spent a year studying and further improving an already impeccable technique.  He came to the U.S. in 1948 and remained her, teaching and performing with several major American orchestras.

I have featured his 1962 recording of the Bach Cello Suites many times on KCRW airwaves, first when I hosted Morning Becomes Eclectic 1979-1991.  Starker had a different sound than superstar Yo-Yo Ma.  But just as formidable.  It was a much earlier recording that pre-dated Ma’s rise to stardom; along with Yo-Yo’s, it’s still my favorite of the many recordings of the Bach suites.  It’s wonderful to follow the melodic line and architecture of these beautiful and timeless suites, and listening to them you hit a double jackpot: the genius of both Bach and Janos Starker.

Janos Starker plays Bach Cello Suite 1 in G BWV 1007: I. Prelude

Janos Starker plays Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G, BMV 1007: II. Allemande

Janos Starker plays Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G, BMV 1007: III. Courante

Janos Starker plays Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G, BMV 1007: IV. Sarabande

Janos Starker plays Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G, BMV 1007: V. Menuet I and II

Janos Starker plays Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G, BMV 1007: VI. Gigue

Here is a video of Starker performing Bach:

The above picture with the red window frame is from a radio concert I produced with Ausin in 2008….in the KCRW studios.

I just got a nicely-filmed video of Austin Peralta’s last performance at the Blue Whale November 20, 2012.  It’s Charlie Mingus’ tribute to Lester Young, “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”, named after the tenor saxophonist’s penchant for wearing pork pie hats (Lester also played his tenor sideways, something Charlie Haden once told me came from practicing in bed).   The brilliant lyrics were penned by Joni Mitchell, from her Mingus album.  I like the Blue Whale in Little Tokyo because people come to listen, not to talk.  And the club books many interesting bands, often great local talent  that would be overlooked by the bigger, more commercial clubs.

The coroner’s office listed the cause of death Peralta’s cause of death as viral pneumonia, exacerbated by alcohol and sleeping medication, citing the death as accidental, not a suicide.

In this swan song performance we have Natasha Agrama on vocals, Dan Lutz, bass, Nick Mancini on vibes, and Louis Cole playing drums.  It is a beautiful rendition, powerful yet dreamy.

In just a few hours after this moving performance, Austin was dead.  He had just turned 22.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaollala is best known for his soundtracks (Brokeback Mountain, Babel, Motorcycle Diaries), but his side project, Bajofondo Tango Club, now called just Bajofondo goes back to before he became a big soundtrack composer.   I first heard his music with on Ronroco, on which he plays solo charango, the Argentine folkloric instrument made from an armadillo shell.  It is a gorgeous album, one of those albums you can enjoy from start to finish.

I spoke with Gustavo the other day about Bajofondo’s new album Presente.  Although it will propel bodies on the dance floors around the world, it’s not meant for tango aficionados, nor will it invite the complicated step, the “war between legs” that individuates tango as one of the most sensual,  passionate and complex dance styles in the world.  But there is a tango element in it;  you hear the frequent cry of the bandoneón, the serpentine and very complex accordion-like instrument that is the axe par excellence of tango.

Behind Bajofondo lies the huge shadow of a tango giant, Astor Piazzolla, who reinvented the tango and saved it from extinction.  Tango had its golden age in the 1930s, when it swept Paris and London, to the 1950s, when it was a moribund regional music in Buenos Aires.  Piazzolla, back from Paris and with a huge green light from renowned and legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (among her students were Aaron Copeland, Leonard Bernstein, and Philip Glass) to take the tango to places it had never been before.

Interesting historical note:  The Vatican issued a papal bull condemning the tango as lascivious, just like it did for the waltz a few decades before.   (http://blogs.kcrw.com/rhythmplanet/the-vatican-vs-rhythm-and-specifically-tango/)

On this week’s Rhythm Planet program, we hear both Santaollala and Piazzolla talking about tango;  the former from a recent interview, Piazzolla from a 1985 Morning Becomes Eclectic interview I did, culled from the MBE archives).  Both artists have extended the boundaries of a great musical artform,  and because of them the world celebrates the fascinating musical idiom.

Rhythm Planet Playlist: 5/2/13

1. Bajofondo | Caminante | Presente | Masterworks
2. Astor Piazzolla | Milonga Loca | Love Tanguedia | Milan
3. Astor Piazzolla | Interview from 1985 MBE Archives – Not allowed to change the tango
4. Astor Piazzolla | Milonga del Angel | Tango Zero Hour | Nonesuch
5. Astor Piazzolla | Libertango | The Rough Guide to Astor Piazzolla | Rough Guides
6. Bajofondo | Codigo de Barra | Presente | Masterworks
7. Gustavo Santaollala | Live Interview 5/2/13 – Astor Piazzolla & tango
8. Bajofondo | Milongon | Presente | Masterworks
9. Astor Piazzolla | Interview from 1985 MBE Archives – Nadia Boulanger, his teacher
10. Gustavo Santaollala | Live Interview 5/2/13 – The bandoneón
11. Bajofondo | Patras | Presente | Masterworks
12. Gustavo Santaollala | Live Interview 5/2/13 – Piazzolla, Bajofondo & Tango
13. Grace Jones | I’ve Seen that Face Before | Nightclubbing | Island
14. Astor Piazzolla | Adios Nonino | The Rough Guide to Astor Piazzolla | Rough Guides