Leap In The Dark

I've never been one for sustained doses of light, ethereal music that floats around sounding pretty, but in the end has little or no substance. You know what I mean, its the kind of stuff you'll hear wafting out of stores that seem to sell primarily candles or offer some sort of spiritual renewal in exchange for a large investment of capital. Like the ideas being sold in those stores, the music is usually a co-opted, watered down version of some other culture's ideas being passed off as something original. Aside from the way it mal-treats music, the other major crime it perpetrates is the manner in which it abuses perfectly good instruments creating the impression they are somehow only good for creating this schlock.

Two of the instruments that have suffered the most at the hands of this industry have been the harp and the flute. Whether the concert variety of either instrument, or one of the many traditional types unique to various cultures around the world, they have been reduced to only pale imitations of their true capabilities. With their long association with angelic hosts harps probably have it worse than flutes, but with the "discovery" of the Native American cedar flute in recent years, both have become the instruments of choice for the vacuous and vacant.

Needless to say I was less then thrilled when I received a CD of harp and flute music in the mail, and under most circumstances I would have simply ignored the disc and gone about my business. However, a quick scan of both the press release accompanying the disc, and the disc itself, made it clear harpist Tomoko Sugawara was cut from an entirely different bolt of cloth than the perpetrators of the crimes described above, and her forthcoming disc, Along The Silk Road, being released on March 11/10 on the Motema label, offered the promise of something different and exciting.

First of all there was the instrument she was playing on the disc, a type of harp which was first known to be played in 1900BC in Mesopotamia. The kugo, or angular harp, is not only one of the earliest examples of a plucked string instrument, it was also one of the more enduring ones as it was in use up until 1700AD in some Islamic countries. Even more fascinating is the fact it was in common usage along the length of the Silk Road - the historic trading route that connected the Far East with the Near East and could be found in China, Korea, and Japan as well as Egypt and Muslim occupied Spain. However the advent of the frame harp, the instrument most of us visualize when we think of a harp, in Europe around 800AD marked the beginning of the end for the kugo, and it had passed out of use in the Far East by 1100AD and gradually vanished entirely.

The kugo Sugawara plays was created from plans she and music archaeologist Bo Lawrengren developed based on a harp of its type pictured on a reliquary box painted in the 6th or 7th century BC. The thirteen pieces on her CD are a cross section of the various cultures where the angular harp was used, thus offering listeners a musical tour of the ancient world stretching from Spain to China. However, instead of merely trying to recreate the music of those times, many of the pieces are by contemporary composers from the countries where the instrument once held sway. These are balanced by pieces from its original heyday, dating back as far as the Tang Dynasty in China and 13th century Spain and Iran. While "The Waves Of Kokonor" and "Wang Zhaojun" have been transcribed and adapted from their original to better suit the range of Sugawara's harp, "Qawl" by Quth al-Dinal-Shirazi (1236-1311) of Iran is taken from the original's vocal part, which, along with the title's percussion line, is all of the song that has survived. Sugawara is accompanied by percussionist Ozan Aksoy on this track playing the bendir, with each of them adding improvised elements to flesh out piece.

The booklet that accompanies the CD offers detailed notes on each piece of music, including the modern composers explanation of how they tried to accommodate an instrument none of them had ever heard or seen played. While their talk of scales and tunings will be lost on any but those who are musicians, what is clear is that this is brand new territory for all of them. However, listening to the pieces one can't help thinking they've done an amazing job as the first thing you notice are the amazing variety of sounds and textures the instrument is capable of producing. Sugawara creates music with her kugo I would have never associated with a harp in the past. Her duets with alto flutist Robert Dick, "Shakugo I, II, and II" by Robert Lombardo, avoided all the usual cliches one has come to expect from this type of pairing, with the composer taking full advantage of both instrument's capabilities. While there are moments which can be described as ethereal within them, they are anchored by earthier elements that utilize the lower range of both their scales.

While a flute and harp duet is pretty much what one would expect from this type of disc, harp and percussion are not what most would call a likely pairing. However, three of the selections on this disc, the previously mentioned "Qawl" from Persia (Iran) and "Cantiga de Santa Maria, No. 249 and No. 213 composed by King Alfonso X of Spain (12221- 84), show the kugo's versatility with Sugawara pairing with Aksoy on bendir and darabukka to great effect. There's nothing soft or fragile about this harp's playing, especially on the very robust Spanish tunes. In spite of their sacred sounding names they contain elements remarkably similar to those found in more contemporary secular dance music like tangos and flamenco. (It came as no surprise to learn that Alfonso's court was heavily influenced by his Moorish neighbours who ruled the South of Spain and he had both Islamic and Jewish courtiers at his court) Sugawara's phrasing in these tunes in particular sound far more like a lute, or even a guitar, than what one would normally expect from a harp, and offer a perfect counterpoint to the lively rhythms being played by Aksoy.

Along The Silk Road might feature a type of harp as its solo instrument, but this is not harp as we've come to expect it to be played based on recent examples. Everybody involved with this project, from the composers to the performers, have gone out of their way to allow Sugawara's instrument's capabilities to be explored to its fullest, thus creating a disc of music both diverse and exciting. This might be an ancient instrument that has not been heard or seen in performance for hundreds of years, but it sounds far more vital and alive than any harp recording I've heard in years.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:24 AM | Permalink

For most of us the countries of Eastern Europe, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria in particular, remain places of either mystery or romance. When we think of them we either visualize dark and mysterious forests and mountains populated by the likes of Dracula or werewolves, or dark and handsome men and women singing and dancing round campfires all night long. What we fail to realize is that for over a thousand years these countries have experienced every major cultural influence in Western history. The Danube River has long served as a migratory path for humans moving from the Near and Middle East into the West, which means that everybody from invading armies to refugees fleeing conquerors have passed through the countries surrounding it.

The early Celtic tribes, the ancestors of the people we know as the Romany (gypsies), the soldiers of the Ottoman Empire, and countless others have brought their beliefs, music, and stories to the region. While some of these travellers were only passing through, many of them stayed and settled in isolated pockets through-out the three countries. While the larger metropolitan centres may not differ too much from their Western counterparts throughout the world, in the smaller rural communities dialects that have died out elsewhere continue to be spoken and you can still hear the songs that were sung hundreds of year ago. Geographical isolation has played no small role in this, as cut off from outside influences old traditions haven't had to compete against the modern world until recently.

While there has been an upsurge of interest in some Eastern European music, it only becomes clear when you start listening to something like Hungarian singer Marta Sebestyen's, latest release, I Can See The Gates Of Heaven, on the World Village Music label, how little we've scratched the surface. Subtitled "Hungarian religious and secular songs", the disc provides the listener with an introduction to the amazing array of music that exists in Hungary today. For these aren't "museum" or "ethnic" recordings of songs only hauled out to be played as display pieces or as examples of cultural heritage, these are part of the living and breathing culture of Hungary today performers by Sebestyen in concerts all over the world.

On I Can See The Gates Of Heaven Sebestyen has put together a collection that represents a cross section of the different styles of music to be found in Hungary, or where Hungarian is spoken. (There are Hungarian speaking communities across the border in Romania's province of Transylvania) It was the Hungarian composer, Bela Bartok who first exposed the world to the joys of his county's folk music by incorporating it into his symphonic compositions. However Bartok's role in uncovering the hidden treasures that still existed through out the country is probably of equal, if not greater, importance as it was through his efforts that so much of what people like Sebestyen perform today has survived. So it's not surprising to find Bartok's name listed in the credits for the first song on the disc, "Vision" as collector of one of the tunes it incorporates.

What Sebestyen has done in putting this disc together has been to create a series of medleys representing the various regions and dialects of Hungary. Each of the eight tracks on the CD are made up of at least two, and in some cases as many as seven, different songs which when blended together give the listener a good idea of the nature of a particular region's music. So "Vision" is comprised of two pieces, both of Moldavian Csango origins, "I Have Walked On Mountains And Valleys" and "Mary's Lullaby". What's amazing is that throughout the disc, whether it's two combined as in the opening track or seven like in the sixth track, "Valiant Knight" (Rare Hungarian dance melody, "Farewell To The Reigning Prince", "Jumping Dance", "The Nationalist Soldier Is Pure", "Heyduck Dance", and "Jumping Dance") you can't tell its a medley. Each part has been so seamlessly integrated with the other, thematically and musically, if Sebestyen hadn't told us we would never know they weren't originally single pieces.

I imagine most of you, like me have some pretty set ideas on what you think you're going to hear listening to Eastern European music. Either something that sounds like gypsy music or a Cossack flavour, with violins and other stringed instruments playing a predominant role. What you're not going to be expecting to hear are bagpipes, tin whistles, and something that sounds suspiciously like pan pipes from South America (listed in the credits as a shepherd's flute). In fact the only stringed instruments you're going to hear on this disc is something listed as an oriental fretless lute and a zither. There's also two instruments listed in the credits that are unique to this part of the world. The tarogato is a clarinet like instrument and is actually quite modern having first been made in the late 19th century, while the fujara is a traditional bass flute played by shepherds in the region for centuries.

Sebestyen is an amazing singer, she also plays tin whistle and drum, who seems able to effortlessly find any note on the scale no matter how low or high it might be. While all the songs are of course in Hungarian, we're still able to have a good idea of what the song is about due to her ability to express character and emotion with her voice. Unlike some singers who are content with just sounding good, she takes the risk of taking her performance a step beyond that by imbuing it with an emotional honesty that crosses all linguistic barriers. Joining her on this disc are two splendid musicians, Balazs Szokolay Dongo who plays all the wind instruments and Matyas Bolya who handles all the plucked instruments. Both men display a virtuosity on their instruments that make them ideally suited to meet the demands of this disc as they appear to be comfortable playing any and all styles and techniques that come their way.

I Can See The Gates Of Heaven is not only a wonderful introduction to the world of Hungarian music, its a disc of great music. Vocalist Marta Sebestyen has a voice you can listen to for hours on end, and the material on the disc is equally captivating. Rid yourself of any preconceived ideas you may have had about Hungarian music because your in for a big surprise when you listen to this disc, but its one of the nicest surprises I've had in a while.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:40 PM | Permalink

The Cubist movement in painting, spearheaded primarily by Pablo Picasso in the early years of the twentieth century, attempted to represent all possible views of a person or object on a two dimensional surface. The resulting chaos of shapes and colour resulted in images that seemed to bear no resemblance to reality, yet have managed to strike a chord in viewers so that they have become some of the most famous works in modern art. Picasso's Guernico, his cubist representation of the German bombing of the Spanish city of Gurenico during that country's Civil War in the 1930's, is as now readily identifiable as many of the works of Leonardo De Vinci and other traditional painters from previous eras.

However, this does not prevent hearing the word cubist bringing images of disjointed faces, with noses in places you'd normally expect to find ears, to mind. So when I first read the title of percussionist Jerry Leake's new CD, Cubist, released through his own Rhombus Publishing imprint, I couldn't help thinking that listeners would be in for a bit of a dissonant ride. For if one were to try and literally express cubism with music, wouldn't you have to try and show all the sides of the music at once? What kind of noise would that result in? Would you have to play songs backwards and forwards at the same time in order to hear everything?

Thankfully Leake and those who have accompanied him on this new CD haven't taken it quite that literally. Instead what they have done is reached out to the world's various traditions of music to explore what each has to offer and combine them on one recording. The title of the disc refers not to the structure of each song as much as it does to its content as it presents the many faces and sides of music from around the world. Everything from classical Indian to hip hop are performed using traditional as well as modern instruments. Whether its Leake himself on tabla and balafon, or Mister Rourke spinning turntables, it seems like they've attempted to integrate as many conceivable instruments as possible into this project.

This still sounds like it could be a recipe for chaos, as the idea of following traditional music from Tibet up with a rap song doesn't really sound very appealing. However, the result, while a little frantic in places, ends up being far more coherent than you'd think. While the nearly eighty minutes of music on the disc are divided up into sixteen tracks, I seemed to always end up listening to the disc as if it were one long composition. That's not to say that the individual tracks are not distinct onto themselves, but they also have enough in common the flow from one to the next is so natural that you barely notice any transition.

Each of the songs has used one culture as its base, and then been built up around that. For instance the opening track of the CD, "Aldebaran", opens with a decidedly Far Eastern sound that continues through out the track. The gongs and bells which serve as its opening fade out to be replaced by violin playing the melody, but the theme they began is continued by the glockenspiel that punctuates the rhythm. Nearing the mid point, the gongs and bells return, and, much like the bridge in a pop song, acts as a break between the opening and concluding halves of the song.

Throughout the disc each track has one predominant theme, but underneath layers upon layers of percussion instruments from various places around the world are being played. Listen, for example to the thirteenth song on the disc, "Chrysalis", and underneath the lead percussion instrument, in this case tabla, and the guitars playing the melody, you can hear a variety of bells, shakers, bells, gongs, and other instruments punctuating the sound. While this could have become an unholy mess resulting in nothing more than noise, through careful engineering and skilful playing it ends up sounding as if the various percussion pieces are working like the voices in a barbershop quartet singing in perfect harmony.

By placing each instrument at a different point in the stereo spectrum during recording you hear each individual sound clearly. As a result you can almost visualize the instruments laid out in a line and "see" how they are working together in harmony. Even as one replaces the other, a shaker is removed and a gong is sounded, the tabla is a consistent sound in the centre of the line holding them all together. Much like a lead singer provides the melody for others to harmonize to, it provides the beat which every other instrument relates to.

Not every song is so complex, but each of them combine elements in a similar manner as the one described above with the same amount of success. In this way each of the disc's sixteen tracks not only allow the listener to experience the different ways in which rhythm and melody can be expressed, they also contribute to the overall "picture" the CD is creating of music. There's no way that one song could present all "sides" of music in the same way that a cubist painter is able to with his subject matter on canvass. The result would be a horrible cacophony. By creating a series of individual tracks that work together as a whole, Leake overcomes that obstacle and presents as true a vision of cubist music as I think possible.

Cubist is not only an interesting experiment, the music on the disc is well played and intelligent. Combining elements from various traditions and styles is not an easy task, but Leake and those he has chosen to work with on this disc have done an excellent job in finding interesting and exciting ways to do it. Not only have they found a way to ensure each style retains its own distinct qualities, but they have also found a way to ensure they work together in harmony.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:39 AM | Permalink

Well here we are again at the end of another year and its time again for everybody who critiques and reviews music to stick our necks out and name our favourite listens of the past year. Being as its the last year of a decade some are even being brave enough to try and come up with "of the last ten years" list. I've still not decided on whether or not I'll give one of those a stabs, it was difficult enough as it was choosing ten from this year's crop of releases that the prospect of sifting through ten years of music leaves me chilled.

This is by no means any sort of definitive list of the last year's best music, that would be impossible for any critic to come up with no matter what he or she might claim. First of all there's no way anybody could listen to all the music that's released over the course of a year - I alone must receive two or three press releases a day announcing some new CD, half of which are for bands and musicians I've never even heard of let alone planning on listening to. For all I know I could have missed out some brilliant piece of music without knowing it. Heck I probably don't eve listen to half the music that comes through my door, let alone the press releases that end up in my in box.

So for what it's worth, and in no particular order, here are the ten CDs of goodness knows how many I listened to over the past year, that stood out the most. It's a pretty diverse group of recordings which seemingly have very little in common. However, what they all share is an extra something that made them stand out from the pack in my mind. I've provided links back to their original reviews and what passes for the band's or individual's web site so if what you read is intriguing you can check them out in more detail. However, if you really want to understand why they meant more to me than anything else I listened to over the last three hundred odd days, I'd suggest giving them a listen and reaching your own decisions.

Songs Unrecantable by Ersatzmusika is as hard to describe in a few sentences as the disc's title is obscure. Sultry voiced lyrics roam over top of a mix of European sounding folk and the occasional jarring guitar capturing the mood of unease and uncertainty facing displaced persons everywhere. The majority of the band are Russian born and now make their home in Germany, and while they don't speak directly about that experience, the sense of loss and confusion that imbue so much of their work capture the state of mind of stateless people everywhere. This is folk music from the concrete blocks of apartments where we segregate our immigrants, of the people who have no home to go back to, but who aren't yet at home.

House Of A Thousand Guitars Willie Nile: As comfortable sitting down at the piano to play a ballad as he is searing the paint off the walls with burning guitars, Willie Nile's music marries the street smarts of New York city to a troubadour's sensibility to create intelligent, boisterous, and emotionally charged music. One of the great mysteries of pop music is why he's someone you think you might have heard of, while far lessor talents garner headlines. New York city's best kept secret for nearly thirty years - isn't it about time you heard of him?

Renegades Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Strings. Jazz flautist Nicole Mitchell is one of the foremost musicians of her generation. Band leader, innovator, composer, and superlative performer she is constantly pushing her music to the boundaries of what's been done before and beyond. However her willingness to experiment never overreaches her musical abilities so the results are as lyrical as her instrument of choice. Here she is joined by her string ensemble and her flute soars over the textures they create. Any hesitations you may have had about listening to avant-garde jazz can be put aside as Mitchell makes it as approachable as possible without watering it down.

Siwan Jon Balke The music of the Andalusian region of Spain has its earliest roots in the Sufi poetry of the ninth century. For Siwan composer Jon Balke has gathered together some of today's most innovative musicians alongside those steeped in the history of music to create a series of modern interpretations of traditional songs. Using poems and song lyrics dating back to the tenth century representing the three major cultures that thrived in the region, Islam, Sephardic Jew, and Spanish, they bring the music to life using modern instruments while retaining its traditional essence. A timely reminder of just how much Western culture owes the Islamic world when it comes to music.

If I Had A Key To The Dawn Lily Storm Lily Storm has one of those voices which bring new definition to the word haunting. Which makes it perfect for this collection of Eastern European cradle songs that evoke all the mystery and wonder of dark forests and silent mountains. Unlike North American lullabies, with their sickly sweet sentimentality, these songs range from dirges for a dead child to earnest pleas for their survival. Even without understanding the lyrics, they will pierce your heart and remind you there was a time when the birth of a child was not something to be taken for granted.

Saints And Tzadiks Susan McKeown and Lorin Sklamberg. If anyone had told me that you could combine traditional Celtic songs with old Yiddish folk songs successfully before I listened to Saints And Tzadiks I would have thought they were nuts. Yet after hearing this collection of songs sung in English, Gaelic, and Yiddish its hard not to believe they weren't written to be sung together. The interplay between McKeown's alto and Sklamberg's tenor make for some of the most beautiful harmonies you'll ever hear, and their version of "Johnny I Hardly Knew You" will give even the most fanatical war monger pause for thought.

Let It Go State Radio Every once in a while it's good to be reminded that popular music can be a tool for social change without the music's power or artistry being compromised. To do this with sincerity, and yet still create music that's honest and fun is far more difficult to do that you'd think. Not since the heyday of the Clash has a group managed to mix politics and pop music in as seamless a manner as State Radio - Listen to one song and you feel empowered, listen to a whole album and you feel anything is possible. They definitely give you hope for the future.

Estes Mundo Rupa And The April Fishes. Singing in French, Spanish, and English Rupa and The April Fishes take you on a whirlwind tour of musical influences. One moment you're listening to the sounds of a Paris cafe, the next Mexico. Infectious and inspired they not only make it impossible to sit still while listening, but stop for a moment and read the translation of their lyrics and you'll hear stories that will open your eyes to the world in a way you've not heard before.

Steve Conte And The Crazy Truth Steve Conte And The Crazy Truth. New York city is a place of excitement, creativity and dark secrets. Steve Conte And The Crazy Truth have created an album that not only brings all those aspect of life in New York city alive, they do so in a manner that doesn't gloss over the good or the bad. Not only that, it's also some of the best rock and roll music you'll hear this year.

Imidiwan: Companions Tinariwen. From the Northern Sahara desert Tinariwen are the leaders of a rebellion being conducted by electric guitars and pulsing rhythms. The Tuareg nomads of the Sahara have gradually seen their traditional territories eaten away by uranium mining and the encroachment of urban sprawl. While armed rebellion has been somewhat successful, their music has opened the world's eyes to their plight in a way no gun ever could. Compelling and irresistible, their music carries you deep into the heart of the desert and reveals the stark beauty of their lifestyle. They're not asking you to live like them, only to let them live the life they want - and they do it with such passion and love it's hard to argue their right to do so.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:35 PM | Permalink

The usual course taken by immigrants and their families when coming to North America is for the older generation to hold on their former culture while picking up enough English to get by. Children, either born over here or those who are young enough when they arrive to not have had time to become set in their ways, are far more quick to assimilate as they are immersed in the new world's culture through their educational experiences. Five days a week for most of their waking hours they live in the new environment, speaking the language and adapting their behaviour so they can fit in.

Yet what happens if they end up in a multinational city like New York in the US or Toronto in Canada, where depending on the neighbourhood you might very rarely hear English spoken on the streets? Sure they may receive their education in that language, but the children they play with in their neighbourhood might speak anything from Spanish to Russian among themselves and with their parents. Growing up in that type of environment there is going to be less pressure on them to blend in with some homogenous image of America or Canada. So not only will they not be in a hurry to forget where they came from, they stand a good chance of being influenced by what they see and hear around them.

Such was the case with Marta Topferova who was eleven years old when she and her mother and sister arrived in America from what was then Czechoslovakia. Not only was she influenced by the new dominant American society around her, she fell under the sway of Latin American music, while still retaining a desire to be connected to the land of her birth. While her musical early education was in classical music, her professional career has followed a far less conventional path. There are plenty of examples of musicians who perform in more then one ensemble or group, it's not often that each of the groups not only plays a different type of music, but performs in a different language.

Topferova not only records in her native Czech, but the two major languages of her new homeland, English and Spanish. Not having heard any of her other recordings I can't speak to her success in either of the them, however, if her newest release Trova, being released on the World Village Music label December 8th/09, and her ability to perform in Spanish and play Latin music are indications of her overall quality, she is a rare talent indeed. In fact, even if she were to perform nothing but the Latin music you hear on Trova she would have to be considered a singer, songwriter, and musician of extraordinary capabilities.

Trova is not only the root of the Spanish word for troubadour, the wandering storytelling musicians of the middle ages, but is the name of a traditional Cuban music movement. Both meanings of the word are fitting to the nature of this album as not only did Topferova set out to create songs reflecting the Caribbean influences of Latin music, there is definitely something of the troubadour about her. The material she performs on this disc, both the eight she wrote and the three traditional tunes she's interpreted, are either stories about the world around her or expressions of emotions, a repertoire similar to those wandering minstrels of old. Of course she's also a bit of a wanderer, as this disc of Latin music, featuring Spanish musicians, was recorded in a studio outside Prauge in the Czech Republic.

As for the music and the songs themselves they are wonderful to listen to and feel as they work that magic on you that only well performed Latin music seems capable of doing. Now I'm not talking about the stuff you hear on radio that passes for Latin music these days that sounds like the performers are more concerned about the smiles plastered on their faces than the emotional content of their music. Although Topferova claims this disc is more upbeat then her previous release, you can still feel the heat of the Caribbean sun making sure nobody moves too quickly. Each phrase, whether sung or performed on an instrument, is savoured and expressed to its fullest without ever being taken over the top.

With all the material being sung in Spanish, without the liner notes to hold onto while listening to the disc, one has to rely on the feel the music generates, and the expression in Topferova's voice in order to guess at song's meanings. What was most impressive for me about Trova was even though I was unable to understand specifics of individual songs, the overall feelings that they generated in me meshed with what I read after the fact in their English translations. For while the music is inherently sensual, and there is a languidness about it at times that evokes a particular atmosphere, there are enough moments in each song expressing its individual characteristics we are able to discern something of each ones nature.

While a lot of credit has to go to the musicians accompanying Topferova; Aaron Halva (tres,accordion, & background vocals), Roland Satterwhite (violin & background vocals), Pedro Giraudo (acoustic bass & background vocals) and Neil Ochoa (congas, bombo,cajon,pandeiro, bell and cymbal), its her abilities as a vocalist that push this disc beyond merely being nice to listen to. When she sings she sounds like she is expressing the very soul of the music, giving voice to the story in the notes and echoing the heart beat of the rhythm. At times as smoky as a late night spent drinking rum, at other times echoing the sound of calm waters washing ashore at sunset in a secluded bay, she is able to communicate a wider range of emotion with just the sound of her voice than most singers are capable of no matter what lyrics they are given to sing.

I've heard any number of Spanish speaking vocalists over the past few years, and while I have to admit my ear isn't the greatest, Topferova sounds as at home in that language as anybody else. Maybe this is what is meant by somebody being a "World Music Musician", that they are able to play the music of their world, whatever that world might be. With Trova it's obvious that although she was born in Eastern Europe and raised in North America, a very big part of Marta Topferova's world is Latin America.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:19 PM | Permalink

While its well known how popular music has changed throughout the years, its not often that popular music is used to document the changing of the years or figures in history. Popular music is usually considered far too frivolous a thing to deal with the weighty matters of history. History books are always about the rich and powerful and the decisions they make affecting the type of people who listen to popular music - so what kind of contribution could it make to recounting the important events of the past?

The thing is, when history is only about the wealthy and powerful, it ends up being only told from their point of view. As a result people like Carnegie and Rockefeller become heroes while the union organizers who fought them and their thugs for things we now take for granted, like the forty hour work week and child labour laws, are still depicted as villains. For the longest time it was only through the songs of those eras by people like Joe Hill, framed on a murder charge and shot by Salt Lake Police, that versions of events aside from the ones in the history books existed. Recently there have been moves towards more populist versions of history as people like Howard Zinn try to recount events from different perspectives.

So, not only is there a tradition of popular music giving us a different perspective of history, there's now also more of an interest than ever in finding out more about when on "behind the scenes", so to speak, of the big events in history. Over the last few years Stace England and his band the Salt Kings have put out two albums, Cairo Illinois and Salt Sex Slaves, which have been done just that by recounting events that you won't find a record of in most history text books. With their latest album they've moved into the twentieth century in order to give us not just a glimpse of events but a person. The Amazing Oscar Micheaux, available for download now and being released in the new year on Rankoutsider Records, introduces listeners to America's first major African-American film director.

Between the years of 1919 and 1948, Oscar Micheaux was the only black homesteader in South Dakota, published seven novels, and wrote, produced and directed forty-four movies staring and about African-Americans. His first movie, The Homesteader, was based on his experiences in South Dakota, but if a movie about a black homesteader dealing with racism wasn't bad enough, Within Our Gates his second feature, depicted whites raping black women, attempting to lynch black families, and showed the Ku Klux Klan as criminals and vigilantes. While that may sound like a pretty accurate depiction to us, you have to realize that D. W. Griffith's Birth Of A Nation released in 1919, depicted just the opposite; black men trying to ravish delicate white beauties, and the Klan heroically preserving white honour.

It wasn't only whites that Micheaux managed to upset, various black civic groups were unhappy with his rather unpleasant habit of attempting to always show the truth on screen. Some of his movies dealt with the very contentious issue of passing; where fair skinned black people attempted to "pass" as white people and not suffer the same discrimination as the darker complexioned members of their community. In fact God's Stepchildren, his 1933 movie on that subject, was picketed at its premier in Harlem by black community leaders and members of the communist party for being racist. However it was more usual for white communities to be unhappy with his work, whether from their depiction of a drunken and lecherous reverend in Body And Soul (which featured Paul Robeson's film debut), or his continuing to challenge Griffith's stereotypes by having African-Americans standing up to the Klan and running them off.

Each of the twelve tracks on England's release either deals with one of Micheaux's movies or provides us with a glimpse into the world in which these movies were released. While track one, "The Homesteader", taken from the name of both the novel and film based on Micheaux's experiences in South Dakota as the only black homesteader, talks about the struggles of settler to eke out a living, track two takes a somewhat different approach. "Vendome" was the name of the theatre in Chicago where Micheaux's film The Homesteader was shown and it brings to life the excitement African-American people must have felt about seeing themselves depicted accurately on the big screen. "Folks like us up on that silver screen/Two reels in we're going to be celebrating".

Appropriately enough the final song on the disc is taken from the final movie of Micheaux's career, The Betrayal. While the director had hoped to create one last epic to cement his legacy, the three hour plus movie made in 1948 was universally panned. For the first time he received mainstream press attention, The New York Times, only to see them cut the movie to shreds, and even papers that had been his staunch allies turned on him. The song's lyrics reflect both how the director, by sticking to his guns, burnt a lot of bridges and alienated people during his career, and the results of those actions. "What will do when they have forgotten/All is forsaken and friends you have none/You can't go home over smouldering bridges...

As is usual for England and his band, with help from friends on some tracks, they employ from a multitude of genres to help tell the story. While the music might not be from the era represented by the disc, what they've chosen for each song has the appropriate feel to deliver the emotional message they are trying for. It might not have been the music that Micheaux would have chosen as the soundtrack for his silent movies, but it sure works as an introduction to it.

Once again England has taken an overlooked piece of American history, this time a person, and opened our eyes to what we've been missing. Intelligent and musically as interesting as ever, England and the Salt Kings make another convincing argument that popular music has a role to play in helping us tell our histories. With The Amazing Oscar Micheaux they have not only done the great service of ensuring a remarkable man is not overlooked, but are doing their best to rekindle interest in the work that makes him important. Aside from the CD, the band is also doing multimedia performances featuring clips his films (Micheaux clips accompanied by tracks from the CD are on line as well) and live performances of an original score to the movie Within Our Gates - a performance which won them praise at the Rome International Film Festival in 2009.

In the future, when they go to write the history of our times, we should hope the equivalent of Stace England And The Salt Kings are around to help ensure the complete story is told. Without people like them who knows what or who might be forgotten or overlooked.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:54 PM | Permalink

When the Iron Curtain came down at the end of WWII effectively splitting Europe into East and West, in some ways it only emphasized a division that had existed long before the rise of Communism. Ever since the Roman Empire split in two with the East being ruled by an emperor in what was then Constantinople (Istanbul in present day Turkey) and the power in the West remained seated in Rome, the two halves of the same continent have moved in different directions. When the Empire in the West collapsed it descended into what we now refer to as the Dark Ages, while the Eastern Empire flourished becoming a centre of trade and culture.

To the rest of Europe there has always been something mysterious and slightly dark about the eastern countries. They have deep and dangerous forests where unknown creatures lurk and high mysterious mountains that could be home to any sort of nameless dread. It's no real coincidence that the story of Dracula was set in Romania. These were places where witches lurked in glades waiting to lure small plump children to their death and spells could cast enchanted sleeps that lasted hundreds of years. Now it may seem odd to mention all of this in connection to a recording made up of lullabies, but the CD being released by the San Francisco based women's vocal group Kitka, Cradle Songs on their own Diaphonica label, isn't what most of us would expect from songs nominly used for putting children to sleep. In fact some of them sound like they would give most children nightmares rather than sweet dreams.

Of the eighteen tracks on this CD thirteen have Eastern European roots, two are Jewish - which amounts to being about the same thing when it comes to music - one Russian/Ukrainian, one American, and one, "Nani, Nani, Kitka Mou", is made up of fragments of songs from around the world. However, and given their predominance it's not much of a surprise, it's the Eastern European songs that leave the strongest impression on the listener. While translations of the lyrics are supplied in the booklet that accompany the CD, we can't help be effected by the sound of the music and, in some cases, their almost dissonant harmonies, which give the tunes an eerie almost scary sound.

True, the lyrics to the songs when translated into English belay some of the strangeness of the music. However, the contrast between the gentle nature of the words and the offsetting sound of the music end up making the pieces sound even more alien in some ways. How can we reconcile the one with the other? Part of the problem is what we have been conditioned to expect a lullaby to sound like through our exposure to Hallmark card like expressions of sentiment that are meant to pass for emotions. In much the way the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm have been turned into the saccharine tales we see presented by the good folk at Walt Disney - try comparing the cartoon version of Cinderella with the original Brothers Grimm tale some day if you want to see what I'm talking about - lullabies and cradle songs have been diluted into sweet and airy tunes.

Here they are replete with references to Goddesses of fertility like in "Megruli Nana", the second song on the disc, where not only is Nana a Georgian word for lullaby and mother, but is also traceable to an ancient oriental Goddess of fertility and light. "Nana (sleep), my darling. The child resembles the sun and the moon". Throughout the disc variations on the word nana (nani, and nanourisma - Romanian and Albanian respectively) show up, and in each case the same multiplicity of meanings is implied. "Kakhuri Nana", the ninth song on the disc, starts off with "I'll sing nana to you. Go to sleep, little rose", where nana could mean lullaby. However it finishes with "In mother's bosom you have found your sweet home." Which could either imply being rocked to sleep in your mother's arms, or being buried in the ground in the earth Goddesses arms.

Not the most cheerful or delightful of sentiments is it? However it represents the reality of a people who would have lived with a high infant mortality rate. Lullaby's that offer comfort to both the child and the parent would have been common if they had to wish a child safe journey very often. Even today we talk about somebody being in the cradle of their saviour's arms when they die, especially in gospel songs. Therefore its not much of a leap for lullabies and cradle songs to do double duty for mourning and easing a child into sleep for the night.

The eight women of Kitka take it in turns to sing leads on the various songs while the others supply harmonies and background vocals. While some of the songs are quite straightforward in their arrangements, it's the more complex ones where they really shine. Here the distinct personalities of each voice comes clear, and instead of merely sounding like another choir singing a sweet song, they take on character that increases our interest. In some instances it appears they are each singing a different harmony, and it's those songs in which we can really feel the power of the music they are singing. These are also the songs which allow us to hear just how different the songs of Eastern Europe are from what we are used to, and the skill required to bring them to life.

Cradle Songs not only offers the listener an opportunity to experience the power and mystery of Eastern European choral music, but is a fine example of what the human voice is capable of creating. Kitka are by far one of the most exciting and challenging vocal ensembles you're going to hear in North America, and their music is always an enchanting delight to listen too. This disc is a perfect example of why they have gained a reputation for performing difficult music with grace and style. When the Iron Curtain came down at the end of WWII effectively splitting Europe into East and West, in some ways it only emphasized a division that had existed long before the rise of Communism. Ever since the Roman Empire split in two with the East being ruled by an emperor in what was then Constantinople (Istanbul in present day Turkey) and the power in the West remained seated in Rome, the two halves of the same continent have moved in different directions. When the Empire in the West collapsed it descended into what we now refer to as the Dark Ages, while the Eastern Empire flourished becoming a centre of trade and culture.

To the rest of Europe there has always been something mysterious and slightly dark about the eastern countries. They have deep and dangerous forests where unknown creatures lurk and high mysterious mountains that could be home to any sort of nameless dread. It's no real coincidence that the story of Dracula was set in Romania. These were places where witches lurked in glades waiting to lure small plump children to their death and spells could cast enchanted sleeps that lasted hundreds of years. Now it may seem odd to mention all of this in connection to a recording made up of lullabies, but the CD being released by the San Francisco based women's vocal group Kitka, Cradle Songs on their own Diaphonica label, isn't what most of us would expect from songs nominly used for putting children to sleep. In fact some of them sound like they would give most children nightmares rather than sweet dreams.

Of the eighteen tracks on this CD thirteen have Eastern European roots, two are Jewish - which amounts to being about the same thing when it comes to music - one Russian/Ukrainian, one American, and one, "Nani, Nani, Kitka Mou", is made up of fragments of songs from around the world. However, and given their predominance it's not much of a surprise, it's the Eastern European songs that leave the strongest impression on the listener. While translations of the lyrics are supplied in the booklet that accompany the CD, we can't help be effected by the sound of the music and, in some cases, their almost dissonant harmonies, which give the tunes an eerie almost scary sound.

True, the lyrics to the songs when translated into English belay some of the strangeness of the music. However, the contrast between the gentle nature of the words and the offsetting sound of the music end up making the pieces sound even more alien in some ways. How can we reconcile the one with the other? Part of the problem is what we have been conditioned to expect a lullaby to sound like through our exposure to Hallmark card like expressions of sentiment that are meant to pass for emotions. In much the way the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm have been turned into the saccharine tales we see presented by the good folk at Walt Disney - try comparing the cartoon version of Cinderella with the original Brothers Grimm tale some day if you want to see what I'm talking about - lullabies and cradle songs have been diluted into sweet and airy tunes.

Here they are replete with references to Goddesses of fertility like in "Megruli Nana", the second song on the disc, where not only is Nana a Georgian word for lullaby and mother, but is also traceable to an ancient oriental Goddess of fertility and light. "Nana (sleep), my darling. The child resembles the sun and the moon". Throughout the disc variations on the word nana (nani, and nanourisma - Romanian and Albanian respectively) show up, and in each case the same multiplicity of meanings is implied. "Kakhuri Nana", the ninth song on the disc, starts off with "I'll sing nana to you. Go to sleep, little rose", where nana could mean lullaby. However it finishes with "In mother's bosom you have found your sweet home." Which could either imply being rocked to sleep in your mother's arms, or being buried in the ground in the earth Goddesses arms.

Not the most cheerful or delightful of sentiments is it? However it represents the reality of a people who would have lived with a high infant mortality rate. Lullaby's that offer comfort to both the child and the parent would have been common if they had to wish a child safe journey very often. Even today we talk about somebody being in the cradle of their saviour's arms when they die, especially in gospel songs. Therefore its not much of a leap for lullabies and cradle songs to do double duty for mourning and easing a child into sleep for the night.

The eight women of Kitka take it in turns to sing leads on the various songs while the others supply harmonies and background vocals. While some of the songs are quite straightforward in their arrangements, it's the more complex ones where they really shine. Here the distinct personalities of each voice comes clear, and instead of merely sounding like another choir singing a sweet song, they take on character that increases our interest. In some instances it appears they are each singing a different harmony, and it's those songs in which we can really feel the power of the music they are singing. These are also the songs which allow us to hear just how different the songs of Eastern Europe are from what we are used to, and the skill required to bring them to life.

Cradle Songs not only offers the listener an opportunity to experience the power and mystery of Eastern European choral music, but is a fine example of what the human voice is capable of creating. Kitka are by far one of the most exciting and challenging vocal ensembles you're going to hear in North America, and their music is always an enchanting delight to listen too. This disc is a perfect example of why they have gained a reputation for performing difficult music with grace and style.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:47 PM | Permalink

Once upon a time there was no such thing as cable, satellites, or the Internet - not even dial up let alone DSL. In those days televisions and radio stations relied on individuals owning antennas on their houses that would reach up into the sky and pick off signals as they'd pass by. Thirty years ago I still used to be able to lay in bed on cold clear night in Toronto Ontario and pick up radio stations in Chicago and Detroit that managed to punch through the crisp air with blues and R&B we never heard up north.

Now a days you can't turn a radio dial without hitting noise of some sort at every point on either the FM or the AM band. Yet at one time there used to be such a thing as dead air on the radio - when all there would be is silence. In rural communities in the States, especially in the South, a housewife's day would be well underway before the first programming of the day started up. At around 7:00 am every morning with the husband headed out the door to start work on the back forty, or tending the livestock in the barns, and the kids off to school, she'd be over the sink up to her elbows in soap suds when the voice of Cousin Louis Buck would come over the radio. That was the signal for the start of fifteen minutes of Hank Williams on Nashville's WSM radio station - home station of the Grand Ole Oprey - brought to her by Mother's Best flour and feed.

In 1951 when Hank Williams wasn't on the road, and had a spare moment or two, he'd be in a studio in Nashville pre-recording fifteen minute morning shows that would be broadcast Monday to Friday across the South. Seventy-two of these tapes have managed to survive over the years and Time Life is now ready to release its second set of recordings culled from these shows. Hank Williams Revealed: The Unreleased Recordings will go on sale as a three disc set on Tuesday November 3rd/09, while individual discs from the set are being released as independent recordings at selected retailers in the United States.

The three discs each represent a different facet of Hank's character and his music. Disc one are his hits; "Cold, Cold Heart", "Move It On Over", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", and many more old favourites. Disc two is called "Southern Harmony", but it could just as easily been called Old Time Gospel, as its an entire side of old gospel tunes, with some having roots as old as 17th century England. The final disc is a collection of homilies and stories that Hank recorded under the name of Luke The Drifter. Either spoken word or recited verses, to our ears they might come across as being corny and hackneyed, but they were aimed at his unsophisticated and very religious audience of farmers and their wives who would have appreciated the story's simple axioms.

Each of the discs not only contains a collection of material taken from various broadcasts, but includes as an added bonus a complete Mother's Best broadcast built around the disc's theme. Regardless of whether or not he's doing a gospel show, telling tales, or singing some of his hits, each of Hank's shows start off with him and the boys doing the opening of "Lovesick Blues" from which he segues into introducing the show, its sponsor, and its host, Cousin Louis Buck. There's only enough time for a couple of tunes as well as fitting in the necessary mentions of Mother's Best Flour And Feed in the fifteen minutes allotted for each show, but Hank and the Drifting Cowboys deliver the goods each time. It might sound funny to us selling house wives flour for baking and feed for their livestock all at once, but the majority of the show's audiences are going to be a farmer's wife who not only has to feed her family, but think about the care of the livestock as well.

The real treat about these recordings, especially disc one, is that you get to here Hank completely relaxed. Some of the songs he's not performed outside of the recording studio before, and he and the guys are just winging it, with Hank calling out the solos for each member of the band as their turns come up. "Cold, Cold Heart" for instance was only released on record in February 1951, while the recording for the show it was featured in was probably made in January of that year. This means that Hank and the boys hadn't played it outside of the recording studio before this, and you can hear in his delivery just how fresh the tune still is for him.

The same relaxed atmosphere permeates all three discs, with the boys in The Drifting Cowboys, making interjections between the songs, and Hank and "Cousin" Louis trading banter and conversation throughout. Although I can't agree with their comments about the beauty of the gospel tunes, some of them with their talk of Christ's bleeding wounds while on the cross, "How Can You Refuse Him Now", made my blood run a bit cold. However it gives you a look into some of the darker recesses of William's brain where guilt and fear sit holding hands. "At The Cross", the ninth song on the disc, shows how deep the roots of Southern Christianity go, as its a reworking of a 17th century Passion hymn, "Alas! And Did My Saviour Bleed" by English churchman Isaac Watts. The Puritan themes of blood and suffering run throughout most of these songs, and in Hank's performances we can see the roots of today's Christian conservative movement.

The final disc contains the work of Luke The Drifter, the pseudonym that Hank's record label, MGM, forced him to use to record collections of his spoken word pieces. While they're not quite as bad as the gospel tunes when it comes to their subject matter, to our ears they're not exactly heartening or inspiring. Ironically most of the advice Luke The Drifter dispensed Hank himself ignored. Like his gospel music, I think these pieces represented his yearning to be something other than who he was, and signified some of the guilt he felt about his lifestyle. Remember by this time he was living on pain medication and booze because of deterioration to his spinal column. At one point on the second disc you can hear him mention about having to sit down in order to sing, and there are times throughout all three discs when the pain you hear in his voice has nothing to do with the song he's singing.

The series of radio shows Hank Williams Revealed: The Unreleased Recordings was drawn from recordings made in the last year of Williams' life. They were a friendly voice to lonely housewives across the South on many a morning. When your closest neighbour is miles away, and your life doesn't extend much beyond the confines of your house and church, hearing Hank Williams' voice weekday mornings was one of the only things you had to remind you that a bigger world existed beyond your yard and kitchen.

Listening to Williams on these discs you get the feeling that he understands exactly what and who he represents to his listeners as he tries to entertain and inspire where he can. We may not be able to relate to some of the material he sings, but that in no way stops us from appreciating what he's doing. These recordings are close to the last stuff that Hank ever put down on tape, and they're a fitting testimony to what makes him such a beloved figure in the annals of music.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:34 PM | Permalink

It was while watching the DVD documentary Palace Of The Winds that I first really started to see the similarities between the situation facing the Tuareg of the Sahara, indigenous peoples in North and South America, and Australia. While all of them are dealing with poverty, institutionalized racism, and the gradual erosion of traditional territories in the face of encroaching civilization and the exploitation of natural resources, the biggest cause of friction between them and the rest of the world, is their desire to be left alone to live their lives as they have for longer then many of our so called societies have even existed.

Unfortunately there's always some reason why it's vitally important to interfere with a people's lives and the Tuareg of North Africa, especially in Niger, have been learning about that the hard way in recent years. When uranium was discovered in the Agadez region of the country the usual promises were made guaranteeing them economic benefits from the mining operations and the protection of their traditional way of life. As detailed in the film Ishumar, les Rockers Oublies du Desert (Ishumar, The Forgotten Rockers Of The Desert) by French director Francois Bergeron, all the people of the region have seen so far is an increase in cancer and birth defects among those living close to the mining operation. None of the economic benefits promised have been fulfilled, and even jobs in the mines are being filled by outsiders. In 2007 the situation came to a head again with uprisings in both Mali and Niger, with Agadez and uranium being the hot spot in Niger. Peace talks brokered by Libya in May of 2009 appear to have brought a level of calm to the area again, but the government is also going ahead with the construction of what is being billed as the largest uranium mine in the world and there is no word on whether or not the conditions that gave rise to the rebellion in the first place have been addressed.

What, you might be wondering does all of this have to do with a review of a CD? Well since the uprisings of the 1980's, music has played a major role in the Tuareg rebellions through the messages of hope and resistance it spread throughout the region. A sign of how effective they were is that the first cassettes issued by the now internationally renowned band Tinariwen were banned by the Niger and Malian governments and owning them was a criminal offence. In 2007 when the next wave of rebellion started up, new voices were singing out for justice for their people, and at the forefront were Group Bombino and their recording Guitars From Agadez Vol.2.

Originally released as an LP, its now been re-issued as a CD on the Sublime Frequencies label. The music on this release was recorded in 2007 just as the rebellion was taking hold. A year later the leader of the group Omara Mochtar (Bombino) was in exile in places unknown, Agadez was cut off from the rest of Niger by land mines and the only way in and out of the town was by military escort. Like many of Sublime Frequencies recordings, Guitars From Agadez Vol. 2 was not recorded in a studio, but on location with the performers in various locales. In this case the first four tracks of the CD are from the bands archives, while the last five were recorded live in the desert in 2007 by field recorder Hisham Mayet.

Mochtar, who was born in 1981, like other Tuareg musicians of his generation, makes no secret of the influence bands like Tinariwen and the others from the first musical uprising have had on him. Listening to the songs on this disc you'll hear the familiar hypnotic guitar work that has come to be emblematic of the Tuareg sound. However, it's how Mochtar and Group Bombino use that as a foundation for their own creations that makes them so riveting. The first four tracks are much what we've come to expect from the music of the desert, with the voices and the guitars creating an almost trance like state while the rhythm seductively sways like solitary trees caught in a desert wind.

It's when we hit the live recordings though that Mochtar starts to show his distinctive style as he seems to feed off the energy of the desert. His guitar seems to take on a life of its own, unloading bursts of energy that sear the night air and shoot up like sparks from an exploding log in a fire. While there aren't any accompanying lyric sheets for this disc, let alone translations into English, there's an unmistakable message being delivered by the music. There's a raw, almost primal energy being unleashed during these five tracks that speaks of freedom and independence in a way that doesn't need to be translated. This isn't music that's going to make you feel particularly safe, but than again there's nothing safe about true freedom. Never the less the chills this music sends up your spine aren't from fright, their caused by the excitement of knowing there are still those out there pushing to live on their own terms, not what's dictated to them by others.

If there's anything that scares oppressive regimes it's people who dare to defy them by advocating truth and freedom. In 2007 when the Tuareg were taking up arms against the Niger government newspapers reporting on the rebels were being shut down by the police and the military. While a peace accord signed in May of this year ended open hostilities and a journalist imprisoned for over a year on charges of sedition for reporting on the Tuareg rebellion has been released, the Niger government has been cracking down on civil protest against corruption through arrests and intimidation.

The environment in Niger doesn't look like it's going to be getting any healthier for the Tuareg anytime soon, and bands like Group Bombino face real danger as long they continue to speak out on behalf of their people. As the liner notes for the CD say - this is the music of the rebellion, and you can hear that in every note they play and every word they sing.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:54 PM | Permalink

I'm not a religious person, but I've always understood how a person's faith can inspire them to produce great art. One only needs look at the religious paintings produced throughout the centuries by artists of all faiths for proof of just how many have looked to the divine as their muse. However, no matter how beautiful a painting or inspiring a sculpture might be, it never seems to be able to match the way music is able to communicate an artist's beliefs. Perhaps it's because we experience music on a much more visceral level than the visual arts, its a living, breathing, thing after all while the visual arts are static, its able to elicit the greater emotional reaction. As a test, compare the way you feel while listening to Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" from his Ninth Symphony to the way you react while looking at pictures of Micelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel, there's sure to be quite a difference.

Even non-religious people like me can't be failed to move while listening to faith based music. As I have the same reaction listening to traditional Sufi poetry from the middle ages as I do listening to European classical work, Native American pow-wow singers, and Jewish cantors, in my case it has nothing to do with being moved by the power of the message that the artist is delivering, but the way in which they are making the delivery. While there are some, there aren't many contemporary musicians who are able to bring that level of passion to their music.

So when I learned that the gospel group The Blind Boys Of Alabama were releasing a collection of recordings they had made with contemporary musicians, I was intrigued. What kind of impact would playing with a gospel group, singing gospel songs, have on popular musicians? Would they be able to rise to the occasion, or would the music sound forced, or, even worse, insincere? I don't know if it's the power of the music, the passion of The Blind Boys, the talent of the performers who have joined them, or a combination of all of the above, but each of the fourteen tracks on the CD Duets, on Saguaro Road Records is not only a pleasure to listen to, but far more sincere than just about anything you're liable to hear on pop radio these days.

Now, on the whole the performers who join The Blind Boys on this disc are pretty much the type you'd expect to have the ability to make a success of playing gospel music. However there are a couple of real surprises on this disc, performers who I know I considered the least likely ever to perform a gospel tune. I mean it's no surprise to hear blues players like Charlie Musselwhite ("I Had Trouble"), Bonnie Raitt ("When The Spell Is Broken"), Susan Tedeschi ("Magnificent Sanctuary Band"), and John Hammond ("One Kind Favour") sound just as at home singing gospel tunes as they do their normal fare. Blues, especially traditional acoustic blues, is only a small step removed from the church in the first place. When performed by players as steeped in the blues and its history as those four are, who feel each and every note they play or sing as if its being wrung from their hearts, that step is almost non-existent.

Although country gospel doesn't normally move me in the same way as other forms, there's no denying the relationship between the two genres either. So folk like Randy Travis and bands like Asleep At The Wheel ("The Devil Ain't Lazy"), are just as at home playing gospel tunes as blues players. Of all the mainstream country singers that sprung up in the 1980's, Travis was one of the few whose sincerity you could never question. Maybe it was just because his voice poured out like molasses, but it always sounded like he was singing directly from his heart. So there's no real surprise that his contribution ("Up Above My Head (I Hear Music In The Air)") is just as impressive as anyone else.

Although Ben Harper is best known for his rock playing, anybody who saw his contribution to the benefit for New Orleans, From The Big Apple To The Big Easy, a few years back won't be surprised at his soulful performance of "Take My Hand". There will be a similar lack of surprise I'm sure that both Marva Wright ("How I Got Over") and Solomon Burke ("None Of Us Are Free") do equally magnificent jobs on their contributions. However there were two names in the credits that might raise some eyebrows. Both are men whose work I admire, but who I really never would have associated with gospel music: Lou Reed and Toots Hibbert.

Toots Hibbert, lead singer of Toots And The Maytals, first came to international attention with the song "Sweet And Dandy" when it was included in the soundtrack for the movie The Harder They Come starring Jimmy Cliff. Hibbert's long association with reggae, his 1968 recording "Do The Reggay" is credited with being the originator of the genre's name, makes him seem an unlikely candidate for singing gospel. However listening to him singing "Perfect Peace" along with the Blind Boys, reminds you that reggae was more than just another form of pop music. It too was born out of the passion of belief, either for the Rastafarian faith or for the fight for civil rights in Jamaica. His voice cracks with soulful energy and you can't help but feel his passion for the material.

However hard it might be to picture the man who gave the world "Walk On The Wild Side", "Heroin", "Sweet Jane", and other classics of the seamier side of life in New York City, signing a tune called "Jesus", it's a far better fit than you'd expect. His almost matter of fact delivery when he sings has always belied the passion in his music and that swirls beneath the cool exterior of his stage persona. You can't sing about AIDS ("Halloween Parade") or any of the other social and political issues Reed has tackled in recent years with the amount of intensity he's shown without there being a well of passion to draw upon. Don't look for any histrionics, or anything else out of character for him in his performance of "Jesus", but listen to the subtle changes in his voice and you'll hear the depths beneath that still exterior.

While the performances on Duets are uniformly excellent, even better is the fact that the songs included in the collection aren't the typical ones you'd expect to hear under the circumstances. To be honest I don't remember hearing any of them before. Perhaps to people more familiar with gospel music than me these titles are well known, but I was pleased to be hearing material that was new to me. While the majority of the performances on this disc are much like you'd expect, there are also a couple of excellent surprises as well. It just goes to prove that passion comes in all shapes and forms, but it ends up sounding just about the same no matter what fuels it. This is great music sung by great performers, what more could you want.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:19 AM | Permalink

When 600,000 people showed up for the third annual Isle of Wight music festival in 1970, things quickly got out of hand. The tiny island off the east coast of Great Britain in the English Channel was overwhelmed by this invading army. Compounding matters were the huge number of people who showed up at the concert without tickets in the hopes of a repeat of what happened at Woodstock the year prior. Organizers there had thrown open the gates and declared it a free concert when countless numbers showed up without tickets ensuring that trouble was kept to a minimum.

Unfortunately those behind the Isle of Wight festival were less understanding and the event disintegrated into an ongoing battle between the people outside the fence squatting on the hill they called Desolation Row after the Dylan song of the same name, and those running the show. Acts who they had supposedly come to see were booed off the stage, Kris Kristofferson can be heard saying they look like they're going to shoot us. It was into this seemingly unsalvageable mess, after five days of insanity, that Leonard Cohen made his way onto stage. During the set that preceded him, Jimi Hendrix, someone had set the stage on fire, (not Hendrix), and although the fire didn't faze Cohen, the fact that the keyboards had been destroyed did. He refused to go on stage unless another piano could be found so his producer and band leader Bob Johnson could accompany him and the rest of the band.

In the end, it wasn't until something like two in the morning when he made his way onto stage, and in spite of the crowd's ire and impatience he didn't rush. Watching him stare out into the darkness, unshaven, and baggy eyed from lack of sleep at the beginning of Murray Lerner's film of the event, part of the two disc DVD/CD package Leonard Cohen Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970 being released on October 20th/09 by Legacy Recordings and Columbia Records, you feel a moment of fear that the crowd will tear him to pieces. Then he launches into "Bird On The Wire" and you can almost hear them settling into the palm of his hand.

The DVD is an amazing record of the power of Leonard Cohen as a performer. The cameras never leave the stage, except for a couple of moments when they shoot the darkness to show people lighting matches at Cohen's request -"Can everyone light a match so I can see where your are"? - and that makes you feel as if Cohen and his band are a pocket of light and power within a sea of darkness. If you didn't know about the events leading up to his performance you wouldn't be able to guess that any of it had occurred as you can barely even tell that the crowd is out there. It's only after each song is played and the cheering begins that we are even aware of them. Even when Cohen is simply speaking there's not a sound to be heard, as if no one dares to interrupt him.

Interspersed through out the original film are present day interviews with Kristofferson, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, and Bob Johnson, offering their perspective on both the festival and Cohen. Often times I find interjections like that to be annoying and tend to distract from the original film, but on this occasion the producers have done a very clean job of interjecting the present day material into the original footage. They serve as interesting footnotes to what is happening on stage, and help us develop a clearer picture of what we're on the screen.

Musically Cohen is at the peak of his prowess, he was about thirty-five years old, and his record. Songs From A Romm, had just hit number two on the British pop charts. The concert at Isle of Wight was just one stop on his very successful European tour that year and he was accompanied by a band that included Charlie Daniels on fiddle and bass. In spite of the fact that they are all obviously feeling the strain of the weekend's events and the lateness of the hour, the band never once flagged and played beautifully. There's a great moment during "Tonight Will Be Fine" when Charlie Daniels gets up from his chair and joins Cohen centre stage for a fiddle solo. The juxtaposition of the two men is extraordinary and has to be seen to be believed, as Daniels looks like a hulking bear next to Cohen and far too big to be playing anything so small as a violin. Yet there they are sharing a microphone playing and singing their hearts out respectively.

While the DVD doesn't include all the music from the concert Leonard gave that night, in fact it doesn't even present the songs in their right order, it's still one of the best concert recordings I've seen for how it captures the spirit and intensity of a Cohen performance. The CD half of this two disc set contains the complete concert performed in the exact order as Cohen played that night in August of 1970. Here again the producers have done a great job in capturing the energy of the live performance by not attempting to make the sound quality perfect. By leaving in a great many of the glitches that used to be standard in the days of analog recording of live concerts they have made it possible for the listener to gain a more complete experience of what it must have been like to be at that concert.

While a lot of fuss has been made about Cohen's current tour and what an amazing performer he is today, the slick and sophisticated performance captured on the Leonard Cohen Live In London DVD pales in comparison to the raw passion and intensity revealed on both the CD and DVD parts of Live At The Isle Of Wight 1970. This is a raw and intense vision of a poet at work wooing his audience with words, music, passion, and intellect. Like those in attendance that night you're pulled into Cohen's vision of the world from his first word and only as the music fades away over the credits of the DVD or the last track on the CD do you find yourself re-surfacing. This is an opportunity to experience Leonard Cohen in a way that you've never experienced him before and its not to be missed.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:54 AM | Permalink

I don't know when my fascination with Moorish Spain began but it has been ongoing for a while now. At a time when the rest of Europe was clouded over by superstition and disease it was a bastion of civilization and relative tolerance. For although ruled by Muslims, Christians and Jews were both allowed relative freedom of religion. Both did have to pay an additional tax for the privilege of being allowed to practice their own religion and the more fanatical members of the Islamic community spoke out against them, however compared to the way Muslims and Jews were treated in Christian communities, it was a bastion of tolerance.

In our history books we talk of the period known as the renaissance as if it were a miracle that sprang up out of the earth. When in actual fact it was the influence of Moorish Spain that provided both the knowledge and the impetus for the great re-birth of art and learning. That influence continues through to this day primarily through the music of Andalusia. When the Christian armies marched on Spain, with the Inquisition in tail, Muslims, Jews, and Gypsies (Roma) were faced with the choice of fleeing, conversion, or burning at the stake. While the Jews and Gypsies seem to have mainly chosen more tolerant European destinations, the Muslim population took ship across the Mediterranean to Algeria in North Africa. Its there that they have kept alive the words and music of the songs that were created in Andalusia.

While there are some who continue to perform and create music much as it was made more then five hundred years ago, there are others who draw upon the traditional sounds and combine it with modern influences. Trio Ifriquiya, Didier Freboeuf (piano), Faycal El Mezouar (vocals, violin, ud (oud), and percussion), and Emile Biayenba (percussion) use the music of Andalusia as the core for the eleven pieces on their latest release, World Village Music label, and broaden its scope by incorporating traditional and contemporary jazz, and each performer's musical influences.

Of the eleven tracks on Petite Planete five are from the traditional Arab/Andalusian repertoire, according to the liner notes specifically from the Granada region of Spain, while the balance are one original composition by Mezouar and five by Biayenba. Mezouar is the impetus behind the trio, as he was deeply steeped in the traditions of Andalusia during his schooling where he not only learned the instruments he plays, but the Sufi poems that were the music's original inspiration. Freboeuf brings a modern jazz sensibility to the group with his piano, while Biayenba, founder of the drum group Les Tambours De Brazza from the Congo in central Africa, opens the door rhythmically to the rest of Africa and the world.

Yet no matter if they are playing one of Bizyenba's or Mezouar's originals, or if the jazz piano of Freboeuf is taking the lead, Andalusia is never far from the surface. Whether it's the interjection of the ud, the sound of Mezouar's vocals, a trill in the melody evoking the older music, or something about the quality of sound generated by a hand drum, there's always something that will pull us back to that centre again. What I found most intriguing about the more modern compositions was that instead the songs building upon a foundation of the Andalusian music, they start from the contemporary and build to old. It's almost as if they were showing us how, no matter where you start, or with what, you will always come back to this point of origin.

While both Frebouef and Bizyenba play key roles in the music, Mezouar is the heart around which this trio beats. As the one with the direct connection to the source of their inspiration if he falters, or strikes anything resembling a false note, the whole ensemble will fail. However one only has to listen to him sing a few notes to have any doubts about his sincerity or his skill dispelled. His voice brings to life songs whose lyrics could have been penned centuries ago and makes them sound as alive and inspiring as if he wrote them himself. Listening to him you can visualize in your mind's eye the open courtyards and minarets of Moorish Spain with their whitewashed walls and the elaborate mosaic pattern of their tiled floors.

Yet this is not just some journey into the past but rather an exploration of the past and the present meeting in harmony and the music of one culture working with others while maintaining its distinctive flavour. With each man bringing his own particular influences into the mix the music becomes a meeting place for styles and traditions. As a result, while we never lose track of the Andalusian core, we are almost always aware of a much wider world existing outside of that particular time and place. At times the sum of the three parts; jazz piano, the rhythms of central Africa, and centuries old Arabic music, becomes a whole that is unique to the moment it was recorded. Even more intriguing is the fact that although you can hear the distinct parts, simultaneously you hear them blending into one.

The music of Andalusia influenced the musicians of Medieval Europe both in style and content. Minstrels and troubadours alike, with their songs about love and devotion accompanied by a lute or harp, wouldn't have taken the form they did if it hadn't been for the music of the Ottoman Empire. Now, more then a thousand years later, that same music is still providing a blueprint for musicians. Trio Ifriqiya have drawn upon the same source material that so many others down through history have and not only brought new life to an ancient tradition but have created new sounds of their own. Petite Planete is a perfect example of how looking to the past is sometimes the best way to find something new.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Somewhere near the Hungarian border in Romania lies a town so small that it doesn't even show up on the country's roadmaps. The trains don't stop at Zece Prajini, you have to tell the conductor which piece of farmland, indistinguishable from all the rest, is the one you want to be let off at, if you plan on travelling there. According to those who live there, a hundred years ago their families asked permission of the area's landowner if they could move their village from a desolate hilltop where they had been forced to travel miles each day for water and fire wood, to this valley where life would be somewhat easier. Easy is a relative term when you're Romany living in Eastern Europe, and they were grateful for any kindness.

The one way the inhabitants had of supplementing their incomes was the fact the village was famous for its brass band.They would be booked to play weddings and other events requiring music by neighbouring communities for miles around and over the years their reputation continued to spread and grow throughout the region. It was their reputation which drew a young German music enthusiast, Henry Ernst, to come and seek out this tiny village and its brass bands. He had been travelling through Eastern Europe searching out, and recording if possible, Romany musicians where ever he went, and he eventually heard of these amazing brass musicians who lived somewhere in Moldavia at the eastern edge of Romania.

The miracle is that he ever found the musicians the world has come to know as Fanfare Ciocarlia, let alone launched them on an international career. Yet now instead of playing weddings for Romanian farmers who were just as likely to stiff them as pay them because they were gypsies, and who was going to believe their complaints of being ripped off, they now play concerts on stages the world over and are fast becoming international stars. If you've seen the movie Borat than you know their music as they were the brass band who tore through "Born To Be Wild" for its soundtrack. Realizing that there are plenty out there who might not have had the opportunity of experiencing Fanfare Ciocarlia, their German record label, Asphalt-Tango, is releasing Fanfare Ciocarlia Live, a two disc CD/DVD package, and Best Of Gypsy Brass, a greatest hits package on a high quality 180 gram vinyl LP.

The title Fanfare Ciocarlia Live is slightly deceptive, because aside from containing a recording (the CD) and a film of a 2004 concert they gave in Berlin, the DVD includes; the hour long documentary on the band, Iag Bari (Brass On Fire), an interview with the late elder statesman of the band Ioan Ivancea relating a history of the village and the music that has grown to define it, super 8 film the band members shot of themselves, and a variety of video clips of the band. The concert, both the film and the CD, are wonderful as they give listeners a chance to hear and see what happens when the band's intoxicating music meets a live audience. It's a wonder the roof doesn't blow off the concert hall with the amount of energy being generated by the combination of the band performing and the fervour with which the audience throws themselves into dancing to the music.

Yet, what's equally amazing about Fanfare Ciocarlia are the nuances and subtleties that you hear in their music. I don't know about anybody else, but normally when I think of a twelve piece brass band made up of tubas, trumpets, saxophones, percussion, drum, and a clarinet, noise is the first thing that comes to mind and music second. However, these guys do things with brass instruments that I've never heard from anyone. Even when they're playing at breakneck speed, so the music is pouring out fast and furious, every note is distinct and the music speaks to something inside of you on an emotional level that conventional bands can't hope to match. It's hard to describe the experience, except to say the music manages to capture the full range of the human emotional experience while blowing the doors out.

In Iag Bari we travel back to the early days of the band when Henry Ernst was still skidding his car through unpaved roads, where the mud and icy slush came halfway up his hub caps, in order to rehearse the band for their third CD. We attend the wedding of a band member's daughter, meet the people in the village, and are taken inside their homes. Most are still heated by stoves, electricity is rudimentary at best, and pony carts are the predominant form of transportation. It's only when flash to shots of them on tour, with Henry steering their bus across Europe, that we remember it's 2004 when this movie was shot. This isn't the world of I-pods, cell phones, and personal computers that you and I take for granted.

One of the most telling scenes in the movie for me was the band members meeting with a Eastern Orthodox priest, and going over their plans for restoring the church in the village. They have pooled their earnings from touring and record sales so the village can have the first officially recognized "gypsy" church in Romania. The smiles that crease their faces when the priest tells them the project has been approved, and it will be consecrated are wonderful to behold. They may be on the verge of international success and becoming the darlings of the World Music scene, but that doesn't change who they are and what's important to them. Perhaps it's that sense of community that they carry with them onto stage when they perform that makes their music so special, They aren't just Fanfare Ciocarlia when they climb on stage, they carry with them the history of their village and the stories of all the people who live there.

While the CD/DVD package takes us only up to 2005 in telling the story of Fanfare Ciocarlia, the LP Best Of Gypsy Brass takes you right back to the earliest recordings the band made and then carries you to their most recent triumphs including their infamous recording of "Born To Be Wild". I'm not sure what motivated Asphalt Tango to release this on LP instead of CD, but the music is still the music no matter how you present it, and this greatest hit's package is a perfect introduction to their music for someone who hasn't heard them before. Not only do the songs cover the entirety of their career but they also give you a good idea of just how diverse their sound is.

In the interview with Ioan Ivancea on the DVD where he talks about the history of Zece Prajini and the music they play, he makes a very telling remark. The people of this village he says have always had to toil in the fields, do hard physical labour, and work with their hands. As a result they've developed great lung capacity and have calloused and misshapen fingers. You couldn't imagine any of them even trying to play a violin or other instrument which requires delicate fingering, so it was only natural they gravitated to brass instruments. He also recounts how in the days when the Ottoman Empire ruled over this part of the world, the Turkish armies were always accompanied by brass bands, which would either lead them into battle in an effort to frighten their enemies or blow the fanfares that marked the coming of dignitaries. So not only were they suited to the instruments because of the nature of their existence, these were also the instruments the people of the area were most familiar with.

Fanfare Ciocarlia have gained the reputation as one of the supergroups among Romany musicians and are justifiably respected and appreciated where ever they play. With roots that are not only planted firmly in the soil of their home village, but the history of Eastern Europe, their music resonates with the sound of the human experience in a way few other bands can ever hope to emulate.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:55 AM | Permalink

About a month ago I reviewed a DVD, Footsteps In Africa: A Nomadic Journey, which was purportedly a documentary about the Tuareg people of the Northern Sahara desert. However, Kiahkeya, the group responsible for producing the film, didn't just set up cameras and film their subjects like most documentarians as they had an agenda to promote. The group of "artists" who were responsible for shooting the movie weren't there to report on the living conditions of the Tuareg, or their struggles to hold on to their traditional way of life in the face of encroaching civilization. No they were there to try and capture the "experience" of being a nomad, and to show how the nomadic way of life has something to teach all of us.

The movie was as annoying as it sounds, in that you didn't learn anything about the Tuareg, except a couple of simplistic aphorisms spoken by a couple of members of the older generation about water being power in the desert and the necessity of sharing. Since those responsible for the movie also believed that part of the "secret" of being a nomad was passed down from generation to generation in the music they decided to experience that as well. However instead of merely listening and recording any performances given by the Tuareg and others, they had to participate and instigate what they called "jams". While there was some footage taken at The Festival In The Dessert of Tuareg musicians and dancers, it was hard to tell what was staged for the film and what wasn't.

Now, with the release of the movie's soundtrack, Footsteps In Africa, available as a download through I-Tunes, it's made clear how much of the music in the movie was actually created by Tuareg, and how much was instigated by the movie makers. Aside from two songs by the Tuareg band Tinariwen and a recording of Habib Koite, a Malian musician who is neither a Tuareg nor a nomad, performing at the Festival In The Desert, the rest of the music on the soundtrack disc was either made by a member of movie's crew, Jamshied Sharifi, a new age musician and film score composer or the result of "jams" between members of the production company and various groups of Tuareg.

While the two cuts by Tinariwen, "Assoul" and "Alkhar Dessouf" are as good as usual, and can be heard on the band's own recordings, Koite's recording doesn't do him justice as the sound quality is not very good and his vocals distort. Unfortunately those are the highlights of the disc as the rest of the music is really not that interesting. Sharifi's incidental music for the film was much what you'd expect as it was merely filler and not really that interesting. Even when listening to it on the soundtrack I couldn't remember hearing it in the film.

I suppose the film makers wanted to create the impression that they were gathering field recordings of the Tuareg when they recorded the music they refer to as "Jams". Field recordings are just what they imply, recordings of people playing their indigenous music made on location using portable recording equipment. Normally these are made by music historians or anthropologists in order to create an authentic as possible recording for posterity and study. Normally those recording the session do not participate or instigate the performances, but act as passive observers so they can be sure of creating the most accurate record possible.

However that's not the case here as in each of these "jams" musicians from the folk at Kiahkeya are involved as at least participants, if they didn't instigate them. While there is no doubt that some of what you hear is traditional Tuareg music, there's no proper context for it to tell us what significance the music could have for the people, nor is their any attempt made by those recording it to interpret what, if anything, is the meaning of what is being sung. For instance, what is the significance of the "Red Ladies Tent Jam", why is this music important to them. Is there any significance to the fact that the women are playing music together at this location, or is it just where everybody happened to be hanging out when the film makers instigated a performance?

One of the things the people behind the film claim is that within the music of the Tuareg there are messages about humanity's relationship with the earth. The film, and hence the soundtrack as well, are vehicles to allow the message of their music to be heard. Unfortunately neither the film nor the soundtrack give that argument any credence as they don't allow the music of the Tuareg to speak with an unadulterated voice. Aside from the two songs by Tinariwn, there isn't any music in either the movie or the soundtrack which speaks with the voice of the Tuareg alone. While it is true that most cultures create music which gives insight into their lives and their history, the soundtrack to the movie Footsteps In Africa, like the movie, speaks with the voice of the film makers, and what they have to say isn't really that interesting.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:57 PM | Permalink

I've never seen a desert, save for on film, let alone set foot in one, so have no understanding at all of what life in that environment would be like. Sure, I have a vivid imagination, and looking at the endless vistas of sand under an unremitting sun I get the general idea. However, I seriously doubt anybody who hasn't lived with those conditions for an extended period of time can ever fully appreciate or understand what it's really all about. Even if I were ever to spend any time in the desert it would only be as a tourist not someone who lives there without the escape clause of coming back to a life where sand isn't everywhere and water is usually no further away than the nearest faucet.

The Tuareg people of the Northern Sahara desert have been there for as long as anybody can remember - which means dating back to at least prior to Mohammed and the coming of Islam. Their traditional territory spanned the caravan routes from the Mediterranean Sea in the north which carried trade goods and produce from the port to countries in land.. Mainly herds people, they would move with their flocks of goats and camels from water source to water source in a perpetual cycle of the seasons. However with the discovery of Africa and the eventual break up of the land into countries - primarily Algeria, Mali, and Niger - their mobility and land have been restricted. Since the 1960's there have been three armed uprisings among the Tuareg because of persecution and loss of territory, with the most recent still simmering in Mali.

It was the second generation of rebels, those who fought in the uprisings in the middle of the 1980's, who began the musical rebellion which brought the Tuareg and their music into the public eye. The most famous of these groups is Tinariwen who were formed in 1982 but spent the first seventeen years of their existence underground as their music was banned by the Algerian and Malian authorities because of its political nature. Two of the original members of Tinariwen, Kedou ag Ossad (guitar and vocals) and Liya Ag Ablil (guitar, and vocals), have joined forces with Sanou Ag Ahmed (guitar and vocals) and Rhissa Ag Ogham (bass and vocals) to form Terakaft, which gave its first concert in 2007 at the now famous Festival Au Desert in Mali, and recorded their first album, Bismilla (The Bko Sessions) later that year.

Having been a fan of Tinariwen for a few years now, I was very excited to stumble upon Terakaft's second release, Akh Issudar, at their label's, World Village Music, web site while preparing another review. Released almost a year ago in October of 2008, this disc will come as something of a surprise to those expecting all Tuareg music to sound alike. While there are some similarities in sound between Tinariwen and Terakaft (Tinariwen's leader Ibrahim Ag Alhabib contributed a song - "Islegh Teghram" - to Akh Issudar), and their songs share the same concerns and address the same themes, you're not liable to mistake one for the other any time soon. The potency and the power are the same, as is the obvious urgency of their message, it's the manner of its delivery that's different.

If Tinariwen are the rallying cry that travels across the desert like a wind, than Terakaft are the whisper spoken around a campfire passed by word of mouth from encampment to encampment. For those of us who don't speak Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg, we might not understand the specifics of the messages being given in each song, but that doesn't prevent us from forming an overall impression. Listening to the songs you can't help but form images in your head of the desert they and their people have walked through for centuries. You may not be able to understand what they are singing about, but you can't help but feel how important it is to them.

Listening to Terakaft I hear a sound that echoes with the resonance of the wide open spaces around them and the high vault of the sky above them. It's not necessarily a pretty or pleasant sound either, for there's nothing particularly attractive about emptiness. Sure it implies freedom and quiet, but it also suggests a barren and stark environment where life is harsh and difficult. That they love their land and take pride in who they are is obvious through the sounds of their voice ringing in harmony, yet they don't project any illusions about their reality either.

While each of the fourteen songs comes with a brief description of its theme, the lyrics supplied in the booklet accompanying the CD are all in their original Tamashek. For example the title song of the disc, "Akh Issudar" has a brief statement telling us the Tuareg have a saying; "Aman iman, akh issudar": Water is life, milk is survival". Other songs are accompanied by what I can only assume are quotes from their lyrics like: "The desert is my country, I love it and I will never divide it" ("Tenere Wer Tat Zinchegh"), or, "The roads are cut off, and the borders closed. It's forbidden to travel" ("Haran Bardan"), and "My soul burns while my people are under the yoke." ("Arghane Manine"), which tell you all you need to know in order to understand what they are about.

Terakaft were supposed to be touring the Unites States in the next little while, but have unexpectedly cancelled. When I heard that piece of news I didn't think twice, stuff like that happens all the time in the music industry. However after listening to this disc, and knowing that the Tuareg rose up again this year in Mali and Niger and some fighting is still ongoing in Mali , I have to wonder what's become of the band members. Francois Bereron, the French director of the film Desert Rebels, a documentary about Tuareg and French musicians playing together, was arrested and jailed for six month when he went to Niger in 2007, as was one of the people interviewed in his movie on suspicion that they were sympathetic to the rebels. Terakaft are not only sympathetic with the rebels, but two of its members took part in the armed uprisings in the 1980's and their music is overtly political in a way that Tinariwen's isn't. There's also the fact that they aren't as well known on the world stage as their compatriots, so could possibly disappear without there being too much fuss made about it internationally.

I hope I'm wrong and nothing has happened to any of these men who make such glorious music. However, when you love something as much as they love their people and their land, and are as obvious about it as these men are, there are those who will see you as a threat and act accordingly. When you listen to the music of Terakaft on their CD Akh Issudar the depth of their passion for their subject is obvious. Unfortunately for them what they sing about is a land without borders and a people who aren't defined by a state, and that's not welcomed in the twenty-first century.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:41 AM | Permalink

There's always been a fine line between what's interesting and what's tedious when it comes to acoustic music. For while some performers seem to have the knack for imbuing a song with the heart or soul necessary for bringing it to life, others can sing the exact same song and it will just lay there like a wet dish rag. It doesn't even seem to matter how skilled or unskilled the performer is either, for their fingers could skip and skim over the fret board of their chosen instrument and sing with the voice of the angels, and still bore you to tears. Yet the person whose voice sounds like gravel and who can only strum the few basic chords making up the bare bones of a tune, can break your heart or bring a smile to your face that will light up the darkest night.

People who have listened to folk music, acoustic blues. or country for any length of time will be familiar with this phenomenon as they have will undoubtedly heard plenty of examples of each over the years. While undoubtedly a listener's individual tastes and preferences in music have hand in deciding whether a song has emotional depth or not, the musicians can't escape being responsible for the quality of their music. Perhaps the most disappointing are those who you start off liking because what they do is interesting enough to hold your attention. However, over the course of a few CDs their music doesn't seem to change, or the novelty of their style begins to wear thin, and you begin to notice deficiencies in their sound.

About five years ago a friend of mine introduced me to the music of Harry Manx, who played an interesting mixture of Western and Indian music. He had studied for twelve years under an Indian master on an instrument known as the Mohan Veena. Shaped like an oversized guitar and equipped with an additional set of "sympathetic" strings that give its sound a quality similar to a sitar, its played in the same manner as a lap slide instrument. Taking advantage of these properties, Manx has married traditional Delta blues with the sound of India. While one can't help but admire the skill that's gone into playing and creating the music, and there is something undeniably captivating about the elegant, almost ethereal, sound he can produce at times, after listening to his forthcoming release, Bread And Buddha, coming out on September 15th on his Dog My Cat Records label, I can't help but feeling there's something missing in his music.

Don't get me wrong, the music is still expertly played as Manx is as skilled as ever and those who are accompanying him are equally adept. However, there's also been no change in what's being presented either, and after four CDs of hearing elegantly played blues and acoustic music, I find myself wishing for a little more rawness, or a hiccough of some sort or another to break the monotony. I like my blues music, and my country, to be a whole lot rawer and earthier than Manx seems willing to play. The lack of emotion and passion, that to me are the hallmark of those genres, can only be ignored for so long before the music starts to wear thin.

With its complicated, intricate, and intertwining rhythms, and the way it piles layer upon layer of themes on top of each other, Manx's style is ideally suited to classic Indian ragas. There the musician almost approaches his subject sideways, gradually building the picture he or she is trying to create until the audience can feel it on many levels. However the music he is playing on this disc, and his other releases, needs a more direct approach and requires a performer to commit him or herself to a song immediately. Whether it's the vocals or the instruments, the audience has to believe the performer right from the outset for the songs to have the emotional impact they require to be effective, and that's not happening on this disc.

It's especially obvious on his cover of the song "Long Black Veil". An old melodramatic, tear jerker of a country song, it tells the story of a guy who let's himself be hung instead of admitting he was in bed with his best friend's wife at the time the murder he's charged with was being committed. There's two ways you can ruin this song, one being by chewing the scenery and really overplaying it, but also by going to far in the opposite direction and not giving it enough. While there's no way Manx will ever be accused of being guilty of the former, although maybe that's what he needs to start shooting for, he definitely makes the song way too bloodless.

Ironically he has chosen to reduce the use of his trademark Mohan Veena on this disc, for instead of its absence giving his music more emotional oomph, those deficiencies have become even more obvious. On the two songs where it is employed we are given beautiful demonstrations of its haunting qualities and how adept he is with the style of music the instrument was initially created to play. So when he switches to playing more conventional Western instruments and genres, but retains many of Indian music's sensibilities, the problem stands out in very sharp relief. The mellowness and subtlety he employs on the former, don't have what's needed for the latter.

Harry Manx is a highly skilled musician who plays any instrument he get his hands on with elegance and style. Vocally he has a decent range and his delivery is as smooth and graceful as his playing. Unfortunately a great deal of the music he plays calls for rough edges that he doesn't seem to be able to deliver. When he picks up his Mohan Veena, and plays music that is Indian influenced the difference is immediately obvious, and those songs transport you in a way the other songs don't. While Manx is able to accomplish his version of fusing East and West technically, stylistically and thematically it doesn't quite work as there is an emotional void that leaves you feeling the songs are incomplete.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:01 AM | Permalink

I'm not a musician, but I don't see how anybody can play the same type of music day in and day out for years on end without getting bored. Surely after a couple of decades of playing blues based rock and roll a guitar player would want to explore something else, if for no other reason than to open their minds to new ideas that could be incorporated into their genre of choice. However that doesn't seem to be the case with the majority of popular musicians out there, as they appear quite content to keep doing the same thing over and over again with only a few minor variations along the way.

All of which only serves to make the work of Les Triaboliques on their soon to be released, September 8th/09, disc rivermudtwilight, on the World Village label, all the more impressive. Les Triaboliques are Ben Mandelson, Lu Edmonds, and Justin Adams, guitar players who began their popular music careers during the British punk era playing with bands like Magazine and The Dammed, or in the case of Adams, as sideman for people like Sinead O'Conner. They are the first to admit that American music of the twentieth century was the first and major influence on their music, but unlike others their musical voyage didn't stop there.

Perhaps it's only fitting that Justin Adams has become well known for his work with the Tuareg nomad band Tinariwen, as he, Edmonds, and Mandelson, have been musical and literal nomads. Wandering the world, from Siberia to North Africa and stops in between, each of them has absorbed a variety of influences that has broadened their musical horizons far beyond what we normally find in popular music. It seems only natural these three wanderers would eventually end up together when the winds blew them back home to Great Britain, where they all originally hail from, pooling their talents and experiences to make this recording.

The eleven tracks on the disc not only represent their multiple influences but also the huge variety of instruments that each of them have taken up. Brilliantly, what they've decided to do is not wed an instrument to its country of origin - ie have an oud only play Turkish music - but have used them where they fit best and feel most appropriate no matter what an individual piece of music's background might be. Naturally some of the results might sound a little startling to your ears, especially until you get used to the sounds of the various instruments, but if you can put aside any preconceived notions on how a song is supposed to sound you're in for some delightful surprises.

For, while Adams sticks mainly with the instrument he's mot familiar with, guitar, Mandelson and Edmonds get to show off their versatility on instruments like things called a thee planktone, cumbus, bow bus, or khomuz. Now I doubt if I could have told you those names before listening to this disc, and even now I doubt I could recognize them by their sound (the only thing lacking in this disc is the fact that they don't break down which instruments are used with which song), I do know they are being played extraordinarily well. For it becomes abundantly clear that this is not just some affectation or dalliance on the part of these guys to pick up other instruments because they sound "cool". You can't do the things they've done on this disc without having spent a serious amount of time studying, practising, and playing. This isn't a group of guys simply hacking around for the fun of it or to make themselves look good. They are three musicians who are so passionate about what they do that they've exerted a lot of time and energy into how to make it h more interesting for themselves and of course those who listen to it.

One of the best examples of this is probably the medley of "Hora Anticuta Draga" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". You haven't lived until you've heard the latter played on what sounds like it must be the barizouki. Aside from the version sung by Michael Burdon and the Animals, I can't begin to count the number of times I've heard this song performed by an endless succession of bar bands, and yet hearing these guys play the song it's like I was hearing it again for the first time. Instead of it being almost the challenge that it usually sounds like, they've managed to capture its more plaintive nature and turn it into a genuine plea for understanding.

Each song on this disc has been given the same careful consideration that they've shown towards "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" when it comes to choosing the instruments to be played and its arrangement. As a result, even on songs that you're most familiar with you'll hear something new. Yet at the same time they haven't gone out of their way to change songs just for the sake of changing them. It's extremely difficult to play a song written by somebody else and retain its core while giving it your own interpretation, but that's exactly what Les Triaboliques have done.

What's even more impressive is the fact that they've taken on the extremely difficult task of performing songs from other cultures as well as their own and not sounding awkward. Too often you'll hear somebody playing a song from another country, or singing in a language other than their own, and it sounding affected or false. Yet listen to Edmonds singing "Gulaguajira" ("I The Dissolute Prisoner) in it's original Russian, you don't think about the fact that he's singing in another language - in fact I didn't even notice he was until the second time I listened to the song - because he is so completely involved in the story of the song that you can't help but believing in it.

When you're an established popular musician it's very easy, and acceptable, to keep doing much the same thing over and over again. However there are those who aren't satisfied with just playing variations on the same theme endlessly and so push themselves and their music in new directions. Justin Adams, Ben Mandelson, and Lu Edmonds have pushed further than most on their new album rivermudtwilight and the results are remarkable for not only their integrity, but for their quality as well. It's not often you get the chance to hear music as well played and lovingly presented as the material on this disc so don't miss out on it.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:18 AM | Permalink

After the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City in September of 2001 the unfortunate but unhappily expected backlash against Islamic people and all things Muslim took place. It didn't matter that those responsible for the act were no more representative of Muslims worldwide then right wing extremist Christians trying to bring about Armageddon represent the majority of their faith, if you looked Arabic you became the enemy. (Believe me I know - I'm dark skinned of Jewish descent and "look" Muslim enough for the red necks that I had my share of "towel heads" thrown my way, which would have been laughable if it wasn't so sad and scary).

Thankfully there are some saner heads in this world and though it took a while to get off the ground individuals and organizations around the Western world began work geared at countering the image of all Muslims as fanatical terrorists. MENA Music (ME - Middle Eastern and NA - North African) was set up in New York City in 2006 by Kazko Kawai a Japanese American who has lived in the US since 1985. Her thought was that through music she could enhance mutual understanding between the Arab world and her new country. MENA are committed to bringing the best musicians of the Middle East and North Africa to North America in order to develop audiences for the music from those regions. Ironically the orchestras which have been brought to North America to date have predominately been ones playing music that originated in the west. Andalusia was once one of the cultural capitals of the Ottoman Empire which stretched from Istanbul through the Middle East, North Africa, across the Mediterranean into Spain, parts of Austria, Bulgaria, to the former Yugoslavia and most of the Balkans.

While under the Ottoman rule Christians and Jews were allowed the freedom to practice their religions and in some cases hold positions of real authority. (In Cordoba the principal advisor to the Caliph was Jewish) After the Reconquista, when the Spanish retook their former territories, there was no reciprocation of tolerance. Under the Inquisition Muslims, Jews, and gypsies were forced to flee, convert or burn. It is the descendants of refugees in North Africa, primarily Jewish and Muslim, from this era who have preserved and developed the musical and poetic traditions from the Middle ages that from the basis for today's Andalusian Music.

The Orchestra Of Tetouan were formed in 1944 in Morocco and is now into its third generation of musicians playing the music of their ancestors and are about to embark on a tour of the American Mid-West sponsored by MENA. So far dates have been announced in Madison, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Bloomington with tickets for the Boston and New York concerts , September 23rd and 24th respectively, currently on sale and available for purchase by following the links at the MENA home page However those wishing a preview of what's in store can search out a recording the Orchestra made a few years back on the Pneuma label called Escuela de Tetuan Tanger - Musique Andalouse (The School of Tetuan Tangiers - Music of Andalusia)

While there have been recent recordings made that have featured music from that period re-interpreted for modern and Western instruments, they don't really prepare you for listening to the real thing. Although a recording like Siwan by contemporary musicians and singers is based on the same traditions, and is beautiful in its own right, in reality it has little in common with the original music. For while there might be some similarities in arrangements, there's not much else in the original for a Western listener to hold onto that's familiar.

Everything, from the strings to the vocals, are higher on the scale than what most of us are comfortable listening to. In fact, I have to admit that it initially set my teeth on edge. However I encourage you to persevere, for although it might be work to listen to for the first little while, once you become accustomed to the difference you begin to feel it's power. While the lyrics are of course incomprehensible if you don't speak Arabic the music is not without it's power. Gradually what was annoying becomes enthralling and you're swept up in the swirl of sounds and the hypnotic rhythm tapped out on the goblet drums and tambourine of the percussionists. Of course it's not too surprising that we find the music initially alien to out ears as the instruments used aren't ones we're liable to hear everyday, and the ones we are familiar with are tuned to different keys and played in ways we're not used to.

The lute, violin, and viola might all have been used at one time or another in Western music, and some of you might have heard a zither, but the rebab a one to three stringed bowed instrument, one of the central instruments in the traditional orchestra, will be unknown to most. The music relies heavily on periods of improvisation on the part of the players called taksim or taqsim which literally translates as division, interspersed with vocals. Each taqsim is based on a complex system of modes or melodies and rhythms, with each melody being a combination of twenty-four different quarter notes and each combination having its own mood associated with particular feelings. There are one hundred and eleven distinct rhythmic patterns that a musician can use, the simplest being the rajaz based on the rhythm a camel's hooves make on the sand. Obviously the taqsim chosen will reflect the mood of the vocals in order to provide the proper atmosphere for their theme.

The majority of the vocals seem to have been taken from Sufi poetry which used human love as a metaphor for divine love. As a result this music has the distinction of being secular and divine simultaneously. While a true appreciation of this music would only come with a better understanding of which combination of notes is associated with which feelings, it is still possible to listen to this music and appreciate it for the magnificence of the spectacle and the way it manages to hold your attention. There is something about the combination of the sound and the beat that is enticing, and gradually, almost without noticing, you'll find yourself held by the plaintive keening of the vocals, the shifting sands of the rhythms, and the mysteries of the melodies.

The music of Andalusia was known as the music of love, and while we may not completely understand the message being delivered by the Orchestra of Tetouan, we can't help but be fascinated by it. If you have the opportunity to catch one of their concerts when they are in the US this fall, check them out - it will be an experience unlike any you've had before.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:26 PM | Permalink

People are always surprised to hear that I like country music. I'm not sure what a country music fan is supposed to look like, but whatever it is I'd hazard a guess that I don't fit the image. On the other hand the country music I tend to like isn't the stuff one hears on the radio on a regular basis, so maybe that explains a good deal of people's confusion. For as far as I'm concerned the stuff that gets passed off as country music on the radio these days is just so much sentimental twaddle which shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as music written by Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Graham Parsons, and Emmylou Harris.

I don't seem to the only one dissatisfied with the rhinestone and Stetson crowd either as in recent years there's been a resurgence of interest in, for lack of a better word, traditional country music. Whether it's people rediscovering the joys of an old Hank Williams tune, or new performers recording songs that harken back to the older sound, it appears people are finally getting sick of the plastic heart that beats at the centre of mainstream country. Oh they've created all sorts of new categories within which to slot this new stuff; Americana, alt-country, or even roots music; so they can keep calling the shlock on the radio country, but when you hear an album like Watermelon Slim's new release, Escape From The Chicken Coop, on the Northern Blues label, there's no disguising who or what it really is.

Now most of you probably know Watermelon Slim as a blues artist, one of the most well respected and awarded blues artists in recent memory as he's won almost every award offered to a contemporary blues performer at the Blues Music Awards for the last three years. However Bill Homans had a life before he became Watermelon Slim that included serving a stint in Viet Nam, being the only veteran of the Viet Nam war to release an album of protest music against the war, driving eighteen wheelers, picking watermelons (hence the stage name) and even some petty larceny for a while. It was the truck driving though that sounds like it was the worst and meanest of all those jobs at least in terms of the wear and tear it took on Slim.

Now looking back at his history the real surprise is that he hasn't recorded a country album before this. It may sound like a bit of cliche, but there's not many other genres that lend themselves to stories about the lonely life of an eighteen wheeler driver than country music. The problem is of course how much of a joke the country song about a trucker has become. However I'm betting that ninety per cent of the songs that fed the joke weren't written by guys who ever sat behind the wheel of one of those behemoths, let alone drove loads of industrial waste for crooked bosses like Slim did.

Those of you who have heard Watermelon Slim before knows his music comes from his heart and he's not one to gloss over real emotions with sentimentality or pretty words, and this disc isn't any different from his other recordings in that regard. In fact there's really not much difference between this disc and any of his previous ones. For when you come right down to it good country music sings the blues as well as any blues song ever has. Anyway, Slim is still the same compassionate and honest person he was before, so the lyrics, and the stories they tell, of his new material is as real and sincere as ever.

There's a couple of songs on Chicken Coop whose titles might make you wonder a little bit, and if it were anyone else songs like "American Wives" and "Should Have Done More" might have ended up being maudlin tear jerkers. However Slim is able to take the subject matter of how difficult it is for the wife of a long distance trucker to make ends meet and the regret felt by somebody for not being willing to help out a panhandler and create songs that touch you in a real way. Part of that is his ability to bring a scene to life with his words so you can see what he's talking about in your mind's eye as he's singing. You see the harried and worried woman in her kitchen and can imagine the cracked tile flooring and her furrowed brow as she tries to work out how she's going to feed her kids, pay the rent, and the bills with the little money her husband was able to leave her with while he's out on the road.

There's nothing romantic about that image anymore than there is anything romantic about the image he creates of the man feeling remorse over refusing to give someone a handout. These are both real people whose thought processes we can identify with even if we may not have been in their exact circumstances. Like a good story teller Slim brings situations and circumstances to life so anybody listening can find a way to relate to them even if they've never actually experienced it themselves. I have the feeling it wouldn't matter what genre of music he was singing and he could still write a song that everybody could take to their hearts.

Slim isn't a complicated guy, he's not out to change the world with his music or anything silly like that. Yet what he does with his music is nothing short of miraculous. Everybody talks about the little guy, the average American out there slaving away to try and make ends meet, but the reality is that hardly anyone ever gives these people a second thought or cares enough to tell their stories. Slim hasn't forgotten what it's like to have a thankless job whose only reward is to keep the devil at bay by providing shelter and food for the family. There's no glamour or glory in this life and what dreams there might have been have long since flown away. Where others might make some sentimental palaver about these folk being the backbone of America, Slim doesn't try and disguise the hardships and difficulties that's their daily bread.

Escape From The Chicken Coop proves that not only is Watermelon Slim a great blues artist, but he's a great song writer. There hasn't been a songwriter whose been able to capture the lives of Americans in quite the same way Slim does since Woody Guthrie stopped writing. While others may try and write these types of songs they just don't have the understanding or the life experience to do them justice. Like Woody before him, Slim has been down the same roads as the people he sings about, and he sings about them honestly and sincerely. Call this disc what you like, country, folk, or blues, but in the end its a collection of great songs and that's what really matters.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:53 AM | Permalink

Being the son of one of the most revered folk singers in the United States hasn't always been easy for Arlo Guthrie. It's not every child who has to come home from school and ask his dad to teach him the lyrics to a song he wrote because everybody else in his class knows the words to "This Land Is Your Land". It sounded funny at the time, hearing Arlo recount that story during a documentary television special about his famous father, Woody Guthrie. Some people never overcome the shadows cast on their lives by the deeds of their parents, and an incident like the one described above could have been a disaster. However, in this case it didn't take long for the son to establish himself as a singer and songwriter in his own right.

It was in 1966 that he wrote the song that would make him famous the world over, "Alice's Restaurant", and later released an album and stared in a movie of the same name. For those of you who somehow might have missed hearing about it, the song recounts - in detail - the story of how Arlo and some friends of his were arrested for littering Thanksgiving Day and his subsequent visit to the draft board and how his criminal record from the incident impacted on that visit. Of course "Alice's Restaurant" was only one song in Arlo's arsenal, and by 1969 songs like "Coming Into Los Angeles" and "The Motorcycle Song" had further cemented his reputation by the time he appeared at the Woodstock Muisic Festival in Bethal New York in 1969.

Now that big concert in 1969 wasn't the only gig Arlo had that year, and the folk at Rising Son Records, the label Arlo put together for his family and friends, have uncovered some old tapes in the basement from another concert he gave just before he went down to Woodstock. They've done all the usual magical stuff that can be done with digital re-mastering, and the result is Tales Of '69 which is scheduled for an August 18th/09 release, pretty much forty years to the day that Arlo would have been saying "New York State Freeway is closed man" before singing "Coming Into Los Angeles" for 500,000 people.

As anybody who has ever seen Arlo in concert knows half the fun are the stories he uses to introduce the songs. So aside from the fact that three tracks on this disc are songs that have never been released before, if you were wondering about the attraction of buying a forty year old collection of live songs, it's for the way Arlo performs them and introduces them. Sure we've all heard "Coming Into Los Angles", his cautionary tale of trying to bring controlled substances through LA Ex, but you've never heard it introduced with Arlo giving the audience real estate advice in advance of the quake that's supposed to move the West Coast further east. Suffice to say he's talking about buying beach front property somewhere in the Mid-West.

The disc kicks off with "The Unbelievable Motorcycle Tale", probably better known to most as simply "The Motorcycle Song", and its presented in all its gory original details here; including the audience cheering when he and his bass player (who was in the side car) go off the cliff and are saved from certain death because they land on a cop car whose occupant doesn't survive. This version also includes the startling story of the undercover pickle who is working as a police informer. Something that you'll notice quite quickly when listening to this disc, is that this younger version of Arlo Guthrie is one heck of a lot more militant then the current model, and a lot more frank in his talk about drug use then what you'll hear from folk now a days.

The little asides that he gives out during some of introductions, and the content of a couple of the previously unreleased tracks, makes this pretty obvious, but it's the version of "Alice's Restaurant" he performs on this night that really brings it home. Having just seen Arlo performing the song during its fortieth anniversary tour I had assumed I knew the song intimately - heck I even used to have the whole damn thing memorized. However, aside from the tune and the chorus, I didn't recognize a thing about the version of the song he sang on this night back in 1969. First of all there was no mention of any garbage, officer Obie, or of the boys sitting on the Group "W" bench at the draft board. The story he spun on this night was all about the intrigue involving a new secret weapon - a rainbow coloured roach. (For those unfamiliar with drug parlance roach is the term given to the butt end of a marijuana cigarette, or joint as they say).

It's a hilarious story involving spies from Russia and China discovering the secret rainbow coloured roach in Alice's Restaurant and sneaking off with it back to their countries in the hopes of creating the ultimate secret weapon - a bomb that will get the populace of the United States "bombed". Of course when American security services find out about this they send a group of agents down to the restaurant to see if they too can get their own roach - they need to devise a means of defending the red, white, and blue from this horrible threat. They not only discover their own roach, but one that's the biggest roach ever seen, some four foot long and a foot around.

Well the story goes on from there to include both the Russians and Chinese making use of tape to adhere roaches to missiles. Lydon Johnson and Hubert Humphry, (President and Vice President respectively of the United States as the incident took place prior to the 1968 election of Nixon) and everybody else running the government licking and sucking on that giant roach and getting high and devising literally blanket protection for continental United States. That image alone, of LBJ and Hubert Humphry getting stoned, makes this song worth listening to, but for those of you like me who have heard the "traditional" version countless times, it's a treat to hear a version unlike any I've ever heard before.

Tales Of '69 is not only great because of the different versions of old favourites it includes alongside songs that have never been released before, its also a chance to take a glimpse back in time to when things were a whole lot different then they are now. Hearing a young Arlo Guthrie singing some of the songs that we've all come to identify with him when they were newly written makes you appreciate even more how he's able to still keep them sounding fresh forty years later. Young or old Arlo is a delight to listen to and this disc is no exception.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:14 AM | Permalink

Although the diaspora of Jews from Israel began as early as 8th century BCE, it was the destruction of the Second Temple and the razing of Jerusalem in CE 70 by the Roman Empire that finally succeeded in scattering their population throughout the known world. Over the next century or so communities of Jews were established from India to Great Britain, and a period of mourning was declared which included a Rabbinical edict banning secular music.

The ban lasted to the middle ages, and the music that developed after was much like the language, Yiddish, that was used in daily life, a hybrid of the various cultures and people they found themselves living among. So you can hear Slavic and German influences in both the music they played and the language the lyrics they sung. Therefore it's not difficult to see Jewish music easily adapting itself to work with most other cultures. However, the idea of mixing Irish and Jewish music together still seems at first blush as maybe pushing that envelope a little too far. Can Gaelic and Yiddish have enough in common for such an effort to be possible? Yet that's exactly what Susan McKown and Lorin Sklamberg have done on Saints & Tzadiks, a new release on the World Village Music label.

This is nothing new for this duo, they won a Grammy award three years ago for their first collaboration, Wonder Wheel, so there are plenty of expectations for them to live up to with this recording. Well I haven't heard the previous work, but all I can say is if anybody finds Saints & Tzadiks a disappointment they need to consider having their ears checked for hearing loss. Each of the twelve tracks on this disc are a wonder and a joy that tap into the wide range of emotions both traditions are famous for. What's really wonderful is that for two cultures with plenty of reasons for music to be replete with sadness, the collection on this disc does more than just break your heart as they have uncovered treasures to lift the heart and well as making it ache.

While the majority of the tracks are sang either in Yiddish, Old Irish, (Gaelic) or English, some are actually a mix of all three. "Prayer For The Dead" starts off by blending together the old anti-war song, "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ya", with the Yiddish song "kh'bin Osygeforn felder,velder, oy'vey!" (I've travelled across fields and forests, Oh woe), sung in alternating verses by McKown and Sklamberg respectively, and then concludes with the singing in Gaelic and Latin of "Deus Meus Adiuva Me" (My God come to my aid). While McKown sings the part of the young woman not recognizing her beloved come home from the war for all the body parts he's missing in "Johnny", Sklamberg sings of finding the corpse of a soldier in a field and wondering who will do the funeral rites for him. Finally they conclude with the haunting prayer, written in the 11th century, asking God to fill the soul with love and sunlight.

The effect of the three songs blended together in this manner changes what are nominally anti-war songs, and songs about misfortune, into a prayer for something better. For, after hearing the litany of sufferings brought about by war, the beseeching a God to be filled with light and love is made much more powerful and turns the song into something more than the sum of its parts. The two principle tunes blend sufficiently well together they don't sound out of place being alternating verses of the same song, while the contrast between the two, ensures they become more than just one culture's lament by emphasizing the universality of suffering.

Like I said earlier this is more than just a disc about how horrible it is to be either Irish or Jewish as the two also have some fun. " My Little Belly" is an old Yiddish children's rhyming song that lists off various ailments by running through the various body parts with the two vocalists alternating verses. Sklamberg in particular has fun with making himself sound as plaintive and suffering as possible. "The Hag With The Money" is another combination of three songs, this time three Irish tunes; "I'm In Arrears", "The Hag With The Money", and the instrumental "I Buried My Wife And Danced On Her Grave". This time the two alternate singing the Gaelic verses of the first song, and then McKeown sings her verses of "The Hag" in Gaelic and Sklamberg sings it in English and Gaelic. The story that's told by stringing the three together is a warning to all women of means - don't be marrying a guy in debt or you just might find him dancing a jig on your grave.

While the material is equally wonderful throughout the disc, listening to how McKeown's and Sklamberg's voice mix and contrast is the real marvel. Sklamberg has a beautiful tenor with which he communicates a wide range of emotions in all of his singing, while McKewon is a husky voiced alto with a rich sound. While it initially sounds like her voice will overpower his as they're not competing with each other that's not a problem, and the way in which their voices compliment each other is a marvel. If you can imagine two voices dancing and alternating who is leading as the music behind them shifts, you'll have a good idea of how well they work in tandem. Each of them serve as a perfect conduit for the meaning of their songs, so even though much of the material isn't sung in English listeners, should have no problem drawing a general idea of each song's emotional tenor.

Even if you need to acclimatize yourself to the idea of Yiddish and Gaelic material being sung together, you can't help but be moved and impressed - even awed - by what Susan McKeown and Lorin Sklamberg create on Saints & Tzadiks. The combination of their voices and the material being sung is as powerful as any music I've listened to in the past. It's not often that secular music is able to obtain the heights of beauty one would normally associate with religious music, but this recording iss as full of passion and wonder as any oratorio to a god.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:58 PM | Permalink

Normally trips down memory lane are exercises in sentimentality that have little or no interest to anybody save for those directly involved in the events being rehashed. When such excursions are married to popular music the results are as varied as people's individual tastes and how they choose to remember their own past. It's difficult to generate enthusiasm for these exercises in nostalgia if you actually lived through the era in question, especially when the music designated as being representative of the times doesn't appeal to you now anymore then it did when it first polluted the air waves. Duran Duran don't appeal to me now anymore then they did back in the 1980's and I really can't see how anybody can look back on music like that with anything other than nausea. However, there's a difference between those sordid attempts at pretending there was anything worth remembering about bad pop music and embarrassing clothing trends and celebrating a specific genre of popular music.

In Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae the musicians who were at the forefront of performing this precursor of reggae reunited in Kingston Jamaica to record and perform some forty years after the genre's heyday. The documentary movie made of the reunion follows them around the city checking out their old haunts and into the studio as they re-record their rocksteady hits. While the movie has only received limited release, it opened on July 24th/09 in four cities in Canada, the soundtrack, Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae was being released on the Moll-Selekta label.

A joint Canadian and Swiss co-production the movie probably won't get much distribution action south of the border, so the CD might just be Americans only opportunity to check out the greats of the rocksteady era coming together to play their music one more time. Judy Mowatt, Leroy Sibbles, Rita Marley, Sly Dunbar, Marcia Griffiths, and Hopeton Lewis might not be familiar names to most of today's audiences. Reggae fans might recognize the names of the three women from their time as the "I-Threes" singing harmonies for Bob Marely (and in Rita's case, as Bob's wife); Sly Dunbar as the drumming half of the ubiquitous reggae rhythm section Taxi Squad; and Leroy Sibbles from his days as the lead singer of the Heptones and his subsequent successful solo career. However, most of the other people involved in this won't be known to many people outside of Jamaica, as rocksteady didn't seem to travel off the island.

Before any of them made names as reggae stars, they were playing and recording rocksteady. In a lot of ways it seems like the main difference between rocksteady and reggae was the amount of recognition and money the performers received as compensation for their efforts. The music, at least what's been recorded on this disc, doesn't sound much different from reggae, save perhaps that it's lighter on the bass and a bit more up tempo. What makes these songs so important is they represented the beginning of the move away from ska music, which had dominated the Kingston music scene until the mid 1960's, that would eventually lead to reggae.

It was rocksteady that slowed the music's tempo and added the heavy bass that has become such a distinctive part of the reggae sound. It was also these new performers who first started to write lyrics about love and conflict. Listen to a song like "Sounds & Pressure" by Hopeton Lewis and you hear elements of both ska and reggae. The peppy horns have always been a feature of ska, but here the music is at a slower tempo and is propelled with the slower, almost insistent beat, that distinguishes reggae. Unlike reggae though there is a definite lightness to the music. While they might be talking about subjects like needing to find work or your love leaving on the next train like in U-Roy's classic "Stop That Train", the music just doesn't seem anywhere near as dense as reggae.

Listen to Ken Boothe singing "Freedom Street", with it's exhortation to walk down freedom street in order to rid the world of war and injustice. The message might be heavy but the music is a lot brighter than what you'd hear if it was sung by someone like Marley or Tosh. There is a pop element to the songs that is lacking in reggae, and you get the feeling that it doesn't take itself anywhere near as seriously as reggae does. Of course there's another big difference, you're not going to hear anybody mention Jah, or any talk of Rastafarianism for that matter, in these songs.

Now listening to these songs there's something else you have to keep in mind, the average mean age of the people recording them has to be at least somewhere in the sixties. These songs were all recorded in 2008 at the old Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston where many of the songs were recorded the first time - forty years ago. I can remember when Leroy Sibbles came to live in Canada in the late 1970's to escape the political violence that was tearing the slums of Kingston apart, and he wasn't a young man then. Yet hearing him on disc now, he sounds no different then he did all those years ago.

The same goes for all of the performers on this disc. Judy Mowat's voice is as strong and powerful as it was when she first recorded "Silent River Runs Deep" or when she Rita, and Marcia were singing harmonies for Bob Marley. These folk are ageless wonders, and they are superbly backed by musicians just as capable as they are. The rhythm section, anchored by the incomparable Sly Dunbar on drums, is so tight that you can drop a penny on it and it will bounce in perfect time. Songs like "Shanty Town (007)" sound as good now, if not better, thanks to improved recording techniques and technology, then they did when I first heard them on the soundtrack for the movie The Harder They Come, The Harder They Fall from the early seventies.

Rocksteady: The Roots Of Reggae is a wonderful collection of music from an amazing group of musicians who made history forty years ago by paving the way for people who went on to become far more famous than most of them ever did. It amazes me that rocksteady never caught on in the wide world in the same way ska and reggae did outside of Jamaica. It's far more infectious than reggae and much more accessible than ska, meaning there's no reason why it shouldn't catch on with a wider audience even now. According to Sly Dunbar a lot of Jamaicans would say they prefer rocksteady to reggae because it had better sound, singing, playing, and better instrumentation. Well, while some might argue with some of those specifics, it's easy to see how somebody could prefer rocksteady over reggae. If you've never heard this music before this is the perfect opportunity as your not going to find anybody who can perform it better than the people on this disc. One warning - there's over sixty minutes of music on this disc so be prepared as once you put it on you're not going to be able to sit still until the last note fades away.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:44 AM | Permalink

Anyone who has listened to any amount of music from Africa will quickly notice the different flavours it acquires dependant on the region it's from. Once you have become familiar with the characteristics of a region's music, it becomes easy to identify where a performer hails from simply by listening to them play. Although that has to be qualified with the proviso that the person plays music that has at least been influenced by the music from that region. If they've succumbed to becoming a part of the great melting pot that is popular culture that's a different story, but for the most part, no matter what genre they're ostensibly supposed to be playing, you can usually pick up some clues as to which part of the continent they come from.

While a great deal of the music we're hearing these days is coming from the North West of Africa and the Sub Saharan region, the region which has been most consistent over the years in producing music that has reached beyond its borders has been Southern Africa, and specifically South Africa. Even during the days when the country was an international pariah due to minority rule and apartheid, the music of South Africa was making itself heard. Either through the efforts of ex-patriots like Hugh Masekela or foreigners like Paul Simon recording with local performers, we became familiar with many of the different traditions that colour South African music.

Ironically it seems like since the end of minority rule the amount of new music coming out of South Africa has slowed to a trickle. In the past few years, judging by the items I've been offered for review by most of the "world music" labels, all anybody seems to be interested in is what's happening up north. However that doesn't mean there isn't anything happening musically in South Africa, or that there isn't musical territory in that country yet to be discovered. A fact that's brought home by Lapeng Laka, the latest release from jazz guitarist Selaelo Selota now available on the Sony label.

This isn't the first recording that Selota has made that bears the influences of his home province of Limpopo or to be sung in the language of the sePedi people who live there. However for nearly the past decade he has been dedicating himself to establishing his reputation as a jazz player through study and performance. That Lapeng Laka is a return to the roots of his music is made clear through its meaning in the sePedi language -"in my house". However, like many other musicians who have begun to explore other genres of music, he's not simply content to play old tribal melodies on traditional instruments. Instead he's reached back to incorporate the traditional folk-tales of the region and its music into what he's been doing for the last number of years.

While it's all very well and good to play traditional tribal music on traditional instruments, by not allowing a culture to grow and expand it becomes stagnant. However it takes a delicate touch to manage something like this without completely ruining the original music. There have been some horrible examples of people merely sampling traditional music and welding it onto electobeat technology and making a mockery of what was once beautiful and sacred. However with a musician of the calibre and creativity of Selota, it's clear from the moment you listen to the first song on the disc that's not something you have to worry about in this case.

It's only fitting that the disc opens with the title song, "Lapeng Laka", as it opens the door to the "house" of music that Selota has built for us to listen to. His guitar is the foundation for the rest of the house, and it has all the smoothness and elegance that one has come to expect from the great jazz players. At the same time he's incorporated what are obviously rhythmic elements of the traditional music into his playing as it traces patterns you don't normally hear from jazz players. As the focal point of the music the guitar could come to dominate what we're listening to, instead it serves as the core around which everything else coalesces to form each song.

Surprisingly Selota also supplies the vocals on this disc, it's not often a jazz guitarist can sing as well as play, and his voice is more than up to the task of blending the vocal lines in with the rest of the music. With the lyrics in sePedi we obviously can't hope to understand what he's singing about specifically, but the music and the tone of his voice do manage to convey a general sense of hopefulness to all the music. According to the notes at Selota's web site a great many of the songs are derived from the folk tales of his home province, but without being able to understand the lyrics the specifics of each of those will be lost on listeners.

However, that doesn't mean that you won't take away an appreciation for the music and the culture of the Limpopo province. For Selota has worked very hard to ensure that musically the disc is as strongly flavoured as possible by traditional sePedi music while at the same time making it accessible to those who won't be familiar with its sounds or the language the songs are being sung in. It's hard to describe what the music sounds like, but there's a gentle flow to it that evoked images of rolling grasslands and horizon lines that stretch off far into the distance. The little I do know about the geography of South Africa is that there are such vistas to be found in the country and its easy to picture Limpopo as one such area.

Selaelo Selota has done the remarkable job of finding just the right balance between the traditional and the new to bring the music of his native province in South Africa to life. What makes this recording special is that he has managed to do this without seeming to sacrifice any of the music's unique regional qualities while making it accessible to a wider audience. It's been a while since we've heard a new voice from South Africa, but as this recording tells us there's still plenty that's new left to be heard from that country. With people like Selota leading the way there's reason to hope that this is just first of many new recordings that we'll hear from South Africa in the near future.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:45 PM | Permalink

When you mention Jewish music to most people they will most likely either think of Fiddler On The Roof, groups of Kibbutzim dancing Israeli folk songs, or maybe even Klezmer. However most people don't associate Judaism with religious music, and for the longest time music was forbidden to Jews by Rabbinical edict as a symbol of their mourning the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD. Yet, by the middle ages those strictures were relaxed and instruments were once again to being used to help celebrate religious feasts and secular events.

Of course with such a huge break in their own musical tradition, and the fact that most Jews were now living in Eastern Europe instead of Jerusalem, their music was heavily influenced by the folk music of their gentile neighbours. Like Yiddish, the language spoken by the Jews of Eastern Europe for day to day usage, you can hear traces of everything from German, Polish, Czech, to the Romani (gypsies) in Klezmer and Jewish religious music. While Klezmer music has obtained a level of popularity recently and there are any number of recordings available, the same can't be said for the religious music. However two musicians who were instrumental in creating the interest in Klezmer music through helping found the band The Klezmatics have now begun making recordings of Jewish religious music as well.

Frank London and Lorin Sklamberg have just released Tsuker-zis on the Tzadik label, a collection of fourteen songs celebrating various holidays and aspects of Jewish religious life. The title is Yiddish for sugar sweet, and according to notes accompanying the release Jewish imagery often uses sugar metaphorically to describe the divine sweetness of our lives. That doesn't mean the songs on the album are sickeningly sweet, rather they are expressions of the joy the various holidays bring to people. For even a holiday as intimating sounding as Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, can be considered joyous as its a part of the overall sweetness of the divine in a Jewish person's life

However, you'd be forgiven for wondering what kind of disc of Jewish religious music features an Armenian oud player, Ara Dinkjian, a tabla player from North India, Deep Singh, and an electric guitar player, Knox Chandler, whose credits include Cyndi Lauper, the Psychedelic Furs, and Siouxie & The Banshees. Well, when you consider that trumpeter and keyboard player London has worked with everyone from Itzhak Perlman to LL Cool J and vocalist and accordion player Sklamberg has taught Yiddish singing from Maui to Kiev, the fact that they have elected to work with three musicians from such diverse backgrounds makes a little more sense. Anyway, remember the Jewish musical tradition that has inspired this recording drew upon a wide variety of musical influences to begin with. It only follows that modern day adaptations of these songs should follow in their footsteps by drawing upon the world around them as well.

Right from the opening track, "A Sukkah Of Branches", you realize you're in for something completely different from what you're used to if you've heard any Jewish music before. While I have to admit that swirling, atmospheric keyboard music was the last thing I expected to hear when I hit the play button, it not only suited what they were doing with that song in particular, it served as an overture to the whole recording by giving you fair warning of what was to come. This isn't another "ethnic" recording that would look good on stage in "authentic" clothes accompanied by "traditional"cuisine for those looking to take a Disney world tour of cultures.

Instead of merely being content with recreating music as it would have been played five hundred to six hundred years ago, the musicians have found new ways to turn music into a celebration of the presence of the divine in people's lives. While four of the tracks either are composed by, or include text written by, others, the remaining songs are either originals or new arrangements of traditional songs. Not only does this make the music more relevant to a modern audience, it also has the added benefit of allowing them to make the music accessible by including instruments not normally associated with the Jewish tradition.

Now that doesn't mean they have done anything stupid like disguise what it is they are singing about by hiding the fact that the songs are about religious celebrations. With titles like "Our Parent, Our Sovereign", "The Lord Sent His Servant", and "Elijah The Prophet Bought A Red Cow" it's pretty hard to miss the fact that the songs aren't just pretty little tunes or interesting music to listen to. In fact even just listening to the music without knowing the titles, or understanding every word being sung should be enough to let you know what's going on.

For somehow these five musicians have created music that no matter what your belief system communicates the joy and sweetness that's to be found in the act of believing. However, even if you should somehow miss the point from the music, once you hear Lorin Sklamberg start to sing you can't help but understand what the music is about. I'm not one to use the term divine inspiration lightly, but when you listen to Sklamberg sing you can't help but feel like he's been inspired by something beyond the mundane. It's hard to describe, because he's not doing anything overt like engaging in histrionics or any of the other melodramatic things some singers do to indicate their "sincerity" and "passion". Yet, there can be no doubting the depth of his passion or the level of his sincerity. He has integrated himself into the ensemble as another instrument to the point where he sounds like he's giving voice to their feelings letting you know its the message that's important, not the messenger.

Taken as a whole Tsuker-zis celebrates the belief in the divine on a universal level even though its content is specific to one religion. For even if you're not Jewish, you can't help but be moved by the what the musicians involved have created in the name of that belief. If you're Jewish you will definitely be moved by this disc, but if you're willing to listen with your heart as well as your ears, you can't help but be moved no matter who or what you believe in.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:27 PM | Permalink

Country music sure has changed since the days the people of the Appalachians were singing the songs their Scottish and Irish ancestors brought over with them from across the water. Not only does the majority of so-called country we hear today bear no relationship to any of those traditional songs, listening to it you'd be hard pressed to understand why the heck it is even called country as it has nothing to do with country life or the people who live it. What far too many of these groups, or performers, have done is use the sentimental nature of the old folk songs as inspiration for their material and wrap the result in the tinsel of pop music.

That they still seem to think they're qualified to sing songs about farmers, long distance truckers, and the beauty of trains is a bit of a joke, especially when you consider the closest most of them have come to any of the above has been passing them in their converted tour buses. It's no wonder that the majority of what you hear on the "country charts" sounds about as sincere as a politician caught with his hand in the cookie jar or an evangelical preacher with a prostitute. While recent years has seen something of a revival of interest in the traditional style of music, the chances of you getting to hear it on the radio on a regular basis remain slim to none.

However, if you're willing to stray away from the radio dial and venture off into un"charted" territory you'll have a far better chance of hearing music with a whole lot more substance. One of the bands off the map are J B Beverlry &The Wayward Drifters. They've just released their second recording, Watch America Roll By on their own, Helltrain Records label.

Nowhere on any of the twelve tracks on Watching America Roll By are you going to hear a voice catch in order to simulate emotion as the lead singer, J B Beverley, doesn't need to resort to such fakery. He sings with a voice that sounds like its been scarred not only by what he's experienced personally, but by the empathy he feels for others and their stories. While it's important for a singer/songwriter to have been around the block a few times and had his or her share of what life can throw at you, what's just as important is how they express that in song. You can sing about yourself and be full of self pity, or you can sing about yourself in such a manner that everybody can identify with what you're talking about as you've taken the personal and made it universal.

Beverley is one of the latter, so even when he's singing a song about how he's always been alone in "Me And My Blues", anybody whose ever felt like they're destined to spend their life by themselves will feel like he's singing about them. Of course there's some songs that you're not going to identify with directly, but even on a track like "Interstate Blues" where he sings about the band travelling around paying their dues, we're drawn into the song in such a way that we can understand what he's talking about.

It doesn't hurt of course that the band plays some of the most infectious honky-tonk style of country that I've heard in ages. They swing through every song with a joie de vivre that at the least will set you toes to tapping or get you up dancing. Yet at the same time the music doesn't prevent you from listening to what he has to say either. Which is a good thing because you wouldn't want to miss some of the song's lyrics no matter how much fun you're having with the music. In particular I like "They'll Only Play My Music When I'm Dead" where he takes a few pokes at the Nashville establishment and how they regulate the music that gets played. However he's not really bitter or angry about it, as he turns the song into a bit of a joke with stuff along the lines of if he wants to support his dear old mom he needs to eat some lead, because they'll only play his songs when he's dead.

Of course it doesn't hurt that all the members of the band can handle their instruments as well as anybody you've ever heard pick up a banjo, mandolin, guitar, or acoustic bass. While Beverley handles the lead vocals and acoustic guitar, Dan "BanjerDan" Mazer burns up leads on banjo, mandolin, and dobro, and Johnny Lawless lays down the rhythm with his double bass. As the core of the band these three are the old time equivalent of the rock and roll power trio in the way they can lay down honky-tonk country blues. While their sound is augmented by some friends on this disc, you can tell that even on their own these three would put on a great show. In fact they're so good that you don't even realize until the album's finished that they don't use a drum kit or any sort of percussion at all.

There are very few bands who call themselves country that I can stand listening to anymore, so coming across a band like J B Beverley & The Wayward Drifters is like finding a pocket of clean air in the middle of a rush hour traffic jam. What makes them so damn refreshing is the fact they aren't trying to imitate old time music by singing songs written hundreds of years ago, or singing about subjects they know nothing about like farming or hard rock mining. They sing about the world today set to music that's timeless and in voices that we can all relate to. Some of the edges might be rough enough for you shave yourself with, but that's part of what makes their sound so honest and their songs so real.

If you don't think that country music has to be accompanied by rhinestones and big hair and your sick and tired of songs written about a country you don't recognize, than you need to be listening to J B Beverley & The Wayward Drifters. This is country music that speaks to everybody, not just pretend cowboys who've never had to get their boots dirty.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:49 AM | Permalink

I always find it very funny when someone says to me they really like "African Music" and then become almost insulted when I ask them which country's music they're talking about. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and hope they're only stupid and not being deliberately insulting by implying that a continent filled with more countries, cultures, and peoples than North and South America combined could possibly be represented by one style of music. Still it's hard not to laugh at them when they become indignant when asked for specifics.

Of course that's being a little unfair as most types of music played in Africa, with the exception of popular genres, aren't specific to one country but to a region of the continent. Of course that's only because the borders of so many countries bear no relation to traditional tribal boundaries. As a result some people have found that they now live across the border from other members of their own tribe. While others, like the nomadic Tuareg, have found that travelling across their territory now involves crossing four or even five borders. Looking at a map of Africa, it's easy to understand why you wouldn't know the location of Guinea-Bissau. The tiny former Portuguese colony is crammed between Senegal to the north, Guinea to the south, Mali to the east, and the Atlantic ocean on the west. It's one of the most impoverished countries in the world as the majority of its people survive through subsistence farming.

Still, like other West African nations, they have their own musical history, and Kimi Djabate, is one of the contemporary links in a chain that extends back in time hundreds of years. Centuries ago his ancestors had been travelling musicians from Mali. The king, of what was then Guinea, loved their songs so much that he invited them to stay and offered them the territory of Tabato, where Djabate was born. Born into a family of Griots - musicians who are keep track of their tribe's history and tell the stories of the people through song - Djabate started playing music when he was three years old. His first instrument, the balafon (a type of xylophone), remains his primary instrument to this day. However as his forthcoming release, Karam July 28th, on the Cumbancha label shows, he's expanded his repertoire of instruments to include guitar and various types of percussion.

At the age of nineteen, in 1994, while touring Europe as part of the national musical and dance ensemble of Guinea-Bissau, Djabate decided to settle in Europe and has based himself out of Lisbon in Portugal ever since. Listening to the fifteen tracks on Karam, all of which he wrote, one can hear that while he has stayed attached to his musical roots, he has also reached out to graft on some new branches to create his own sound. While still at home he had been sent off to neighbouring territories to learn some of the regional differences available close at hand, but he also took it upon himself to learn about music that was from even further afield. Since landing in Europe he's continued that musical education and now you can hear traces of everything from Nigerian Afrobeat, blues, jazz, to Cuban being used when appropriate to the material at hand.

Of course like all Griots, first and foremost Djabate is a vocalist. As it was their responsibility to be able to sing a family's or tribe's history, Griots by necessity have voices that make you want to listen to them. However this doesn't mean being loud or overpowering, it means having a voice that draws you into a song. Djabate isn't going to overpower anyone with voice, but there's something about his melodic tone that captivates the ear and holds your attention. What makes this even more impressive is the fact that the majority of the material on Karam isn't sung in English. Yet, in spite of that, you find yourself wanting to try and hang on to every word he sings.

Perhaps it's the subtle power of his music that ensnares the listener. With the balafon and acoustic guitar switching as lead instruments the overall sound of this record is far less rhythm heavy than one would probably expect. In fact, there are occasions that the music comes close to being too understated, but is saved from being trance or sleep inducing by Djabate's precise playing of the balafon. Unlike a drum the sound of this instrument is very mellow and instead of propelling a song, it moves with it, emphasizing and breaking up the flow like punctuation does a sentence. Grown accustomed to popular music that's pushed forward by a full drum kit supported by electric bass it takes a while for our ears to get used to the type of interplay of rhythm and melody employed by Djabte's, but once you do you'll find it just as effective as any other style.

Although living in Europe Djabate's focus remains firmly fixed on Africa. He sings about the social and political realities facing his people including the rights of women, the fight against poverty, and about freedom. The last is particularly important to his homeland as its history has been checkered with civil wars and military coups since their independence in 1963. With one of lowest per capita mean incomes, around seven hundred American dollars per year, and an average life expectancy of around forty-five, Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world. What little infrastructure it had was destroyed during a civil war in 1998-99, and a military coup in 2003 has only increase its instability. As a Griot Djabate tells the story of his people in his music, and right now its not a pretty picture.

This goes a long way towards explaining the subdued tone of this disc. It would be hard to be too exuberant when singing about those topics. Yet even so the music isn't depressing to listen too. While we may not be able to understand the exact words that he's singing, the tone of his voice communicates that he has hope that things can improve. In spite of what I referred to as the subdued tone, there is an infectious quality to the music that gradually encourages you to move to the music. Normally you're not going to want to dance to songs that only bemoan fate, as the music can't help but reflect the spirit of the lyrics, so the fact Djabte's can inspire you to move tells you while things might not be so good right now there's no reason to give up hope for the future.

Kimi Djabate, like so many other West African singers we're hearing today, comes from a long line of singer/storytellers, and he carries on that role with his own music. However, instead of merely speaking for one village, or even one family he speaks for his country and his continent. His use of music from traditions other than his own and his softly insistent voice combine to ensure that while we may not understand what he is saying, we are not only compelled to listen but take away a good sense of what he is talking about with each song. Don't worry if you've never heard of Guinea-Bissau, or know next to nothing about the north-west of Africa, with people like Kimi Djabate around as long as you're willing to listen you'll learn quickly enough.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:42 AM | Permalink

It's probably a hangover from watching too many Hollywood movies. but when I think of Eastern Europe I can't help seeing in my mind's eye a dark and mysterious landscape. Gloomy forests climbing the sides of sharp mountains suddenly give way to deep lakes under whose surface lie mysteries better left undisturbed. It's hard to imagine the sun ever shining in this environment, let alone it ever being daytime, as if it exists in a state of permanent twilight. It's in woods like these you'll find the gingerbread cottage of "Hansel and Gretel", or perhaps chance upon a girl in a red cloak making her way to her grandmother's house.

However, in spite of the darkness, there's also a haunting beauty which can take your breath away in the same way that plunging into an icy mountain stream will leave you gasping for air and in pleasure at the same time. Yet it's a beauty that seems tinged with sorrow, like a heartbreaking poem or song. Perhaps it's an overly romantic view of something I know very little about, but it's also based on knowing some of the history of the region and the hardships faced by a great many of those who have lived there. Subsistence farms carved out of available land, continual invasions by one army or another, and the twentieth century's contribution to horror - ethnic cleansing after the fall of Yugoslavia and the death camps of WWll.

A new release by vocalist Lily Storm, If I Had A Key To The Dawn on her own Songbat Records label, of primarily traditional songs from that region shows, no matter the country or language, the music does nothing to dispel those impressions. Whether Russian, Armenian, Albanian, Romanian, Bulgarian or Hungarian each of the songs she performs on this disc are beautiful but hint at sorrow in their music and lyrics. Yet for some reason there is nothing depressing about them either, as the honesty of emotion exhibited by each song is beautiful onto itself.

One of the hardest things about singing in a language, or as in this cases languages, that your audience is not going to understand is to communicate with them the nature of the song. Although Storm has included translations for all the lyrics they aren't really needed to make these songs work for us as she shows herself capable of expressing their overall feeling with her voice. What I really appreciated about her singing is this is the type of situation where a singer could very easily give in to the temptation to over emote in order to get their message across. Storm not only refrains from doing that, she is also able to imbue her voice with character that gives the listener an idea of the story behind the song as well as the emotional content.

As for the material itself they remind you that folk music can be in the right hands a genuine expression of a people's experience. Whether a lullaby or a love song these tracks are devoid of the sentimentality that are the hallmark of so many contemporary songs that deal with similar themes. First of all they employ poetic imagery to convey their ideas that you would never find in even the best folk songs in North America let along most popular music today. Not only does this give the material greater emotional depth, it also allows for an ambiguity of meaning that makes you have to think about the song's real meaning.

The opening song of the disc for instance, a traditional Ukrainian lullaby called simply "Sleep Child" is only two verses long, but contains a world of meaning. A mother tells her child to sleep and she will cover it with leafs and leave it by the water. From Moses on down there's a long history of hero legends where the baby is set adrift by its mother and goes on to become a great leader after being rescued. However, the same lyrics could also express a young mother's frustration and resentment at being tied down to a squalling baby and her desire to be free of the noisy and demanding thing. Listening to the way that Storm sings the song you notice a certain amount of ambiguity in her voice, and a definite lack of anything that can be construed as heroic. While you wouldn't be able to discern the alternative meaning from just hearing her performance, you can tell that this isn't your typical lullaby.

Of course having the translations also makes a world of difference when it comes to appreciating some of the nuances of material. The sixth song on the recording, a Hungarian piece whose title is translated as simply "Love, Love" is both an ode to the pain of love in general and a long ago love in particular. "And for my love of long ago/what I wouldn't do/the water of the sea/I'd scoop out with a spoon/and from the bottom of the sea/I'd gather small pearls/and for my love of long ago/I'd make a pearl wreath".

What starts out sounding like one of those poems that are describing the lengths somebody would go to in order to express their devotion for their lover, is quickly turned into something else by the last word in the song. The singer isn't going to drain the ocean one spoonful at a time to make a necklace celebrating love, no, it's to make a wreath to place on its grave. Of course that the music accompanying the lyrics sounds like a dirge, and Storm sounds like she's just lost her best friend, gives you a good idea of the singer's mood and their opinion of love even without understanding what she's saying.

Probably when most of us think of the music of Eastern Europe we either think of the colourful and exuberant folk dances of the Ukraine, the fiery music of the Romani, or perhaps even polkas. If I Had A Key To The Dawn, from the atmospheric photographs included in the accompanying booklet and on the cover, to Lily Storm's magnificent singing, brings a different side of that part of the world to life. Listening to the music on this disc reminds you that just as there is beauty to be found in the darkest part of a forest, it can also be found in the expression of some of our darkest feelings. A song from the heart is a beautiful thing no matter what language its in or what its about. You may not have thought that a broken heart could be as beautiful as a lover's kiss before, but after listening to this disc you'll see how it's possible, and you'll understand how tears are just as special as a smile.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:37 AM | Permalink

It was in the 1950's that the United States of America began to pay the price for the years of treating African Americans like second class citizens. Refusing to be segregated and denied a voice in the selection of their government any longer, African Americans began campaigns of protest and education in an attempt to be treated equally. It wasn't only the Southern States where segregation and other forms of discrimination were practised, but it was states like Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi where they were most enshrined either by law or custom, or both.

Therefore it was these states that became literally the main battlegrounds of the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950's and early 1960's. People from all over North America congregated in the South to show their support for the movement by taking an active role in their protests. Sit in's were staged by black people in white only dining facilities, bus seats in the front, white only sections, of municipal vehicles were occupied, voter registration drives that ensured black people previously shut out from the polls were able to vote, and people marched in the thousands demanding equal rights. The battle they faced wasn't an easy one as they were routinely attacked and beaten by both the police and mobs, and there were deaths among both the white and black protesters.

Now as the churches were key in galvanizing the people in the South, it should come as no surprise that when the protesters turned to song in order to comfort themselves and keep up their spirits, their first thought was the spirituals that were sung in church. It was easy to identify with songs taken from the stories of Moses leading his people to freedom, and it was those songs that were first sung and even adapted to suit the needs of the movement. However, as the recently released DVD of the documentary Let Freedom Sing: How Music Inspired The Civil Rights Movement shows, spirituals weren't the first or only music that were part of the movement. It also shows how the music of the African American community grew to reflect the changing moods of the people as the needs have changed.

Narrated by Louis Gosset Jr. Let Freedom Sing traces the history of music protesting the situation of African Americans from Billie Holiday's performance of "Strange Fruit" with it's graphic descriptions of black people hanging from trees as the result of lynching, to Public Enemy's songs about life in today's urban core. However, as befits its title the majority of the movie's focus is on the relationship between the music and the quest for equality. Interviews with musicians and former freedom riders are interspersed with footage of protests of the era helping to both recreate the era for the viewer, and providing first hand accounts of what the music meant to those involved with the events depicted.

As was mentioned earlier, spirituals were the backbone of the movement to begin with, but gradually songs from both outside the church and the black community became just as important to the people on the ground and in getting the movement's message out to the world at large. Young white musicians like Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez were key in ensuring that young educated white audiences in the northern states at least were aware of the issues, if not inspiring them to take an active role in protesting. Perhaps the most famous song associated with the civil rights movement of the early 1960's was "We Shall Overcome" and there's a nice little bit with Pete Seeger, where he makes sure to stress that all he did was introduce the song to people, and they were responsible for its genesis into the powerful protest song it became.

While some of the conversations with the musicians were interesting enough, some of them have bore a striking familiarity to ones that I'd seen in other documentaries before. The interviews that were most fascinating were those with individuals who had been active in the movement. Not only were they each articulate about their experiences, they were also able to tell us just what music had meant to them and how it had helped them through difficult times while protesting. Music not only has the power to inspire crowds, as it did in one man's memories of spending the whole night in jail singing, it also could give individuals the strength to stand up to the abuse heaped upon them by the counter demonstrators.
Time Life

While there's no denying the veracity of the history that's being presented in Let Freedom Ring, and on the whole the music is a decent cross representation of the era as it related to the civil rights movement, there was a little too much emphasis on the music that had crossover appeal for white audiences in the 1970's. While there was acknowledgement of the rise of black power, that whole aspect of the history was skirted over aside from a brief speech given by Stokely Carmichael and some pictures of various Black Panther members like Angela Davies. Perhaps most annoying was there was almost no mention of Malcom X, any references to Huey Newton and his false arrest on manslaughter charges or any of the various efforts made by the FBI to discredit not only the Panthers but even mainstream leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.

The other problem I had with the movie is although it refers to itself as being about music and the civil rights movement, in actual fact it's about music and the history of African Americans struggle for equality. If you're going to use a title as inclusive as civil rights, you have to include all those groups who are striving for acceptance; Hispanics, Gays & Lesbians, Native Americans, women, illegal immigrants, and the disabled. While it's true that in the 1950's and 1960's the focus of civil rights activists was on the African American community, the latter part of the twentieth century saw other groups struggling for acceptance as well. While it was good that the movie included events that happened beyond the borders of North America by talking about South Africa and Nelson Mandela, if they're calling themselves a movie about the civil rights movement they need to be more inclusive.

While the movie Let Freedom Sing: How Music Inspired The Civil Rights Movement does a good job showing the connection between the fight for equal rights for African Americans and the popular music of the community, it's an incomplete and slightly misleading history as it leaves out references to key figures and events. Even if we accept it's title at face value, that the civil rights movement was only concerned with African Americans, it's still an inadequate job of telling that history.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:22 PM | Permalink

The common perception most of us have of European history from the fall of the Roman Empire until the fifteenth century is one personified by the title the period is designated as; The Dark Ages. Its depicted in our histories as being marked by the spread of the Black Plague, ignorance, and superstition. It wasn't until the miracle of the Renaissance, which literally means re-birth, that Europeans began to drag themselves out of the mud and filth and started to create beautiful art and rediscover the teachings of the ancients. Reading most standard histories of the time you could get the impression this awakening was somehow spontaneous; one morning people just woke up and looked at the world differently.

The reality is that the knowledge was never really lost and not all of Europe had descended to the same depths of ignorance, only Christian Europe. Al Andalus was the area of Spain ruled by Muslims until 1492, and during those dark ages all the so-called lost knowledge and arts were alive and kicking. Everything from the concept of zero in mathematics, philosophical concepts of the self which would have seen you burnt at the stake in Christian Europe, to the arts and music, thrived in the city states of Cordoba and others through out the region. Muslims, Christians, and Sephardic Jews lived in relative harmony and there was a free exchange of ideas and learning between scholars of all three faiths. It was from here that the knowledge which fuelled the so called Renaissance trickled into Italy, France, and other countries.

How much of this beauty and knowledge was lost when the Spanish Inquisition purged the region of heretics and non-believers by forcing Muslims and Jews to either convert, flee, or burn, will never be known. However much of the great poetry and ideas on music were preserved and passed on. The music was probably the easiest to spread as wandering minstrels and troubadours would have carried tunes and lyrics across borders and passed their ideas on. It's this music, and the poetry that sometimes supplied the lyrics for it, that forms the basis for a collection of music being released on ECM Records under the guidance of Norwegian pianist Jon Balke on June 30th in North America.

Siwan, the title of the disc, is the word for balance in Aljamiado, the Latin-Arabic hybrid language spoken in medieval Andalusia, is a collection of eleven tracks, nine of which feature the work of poets from that region married to music inspired by the era. The earliest song, "Thulathiyat" was written by the Suffi mystic Husayn Mansour Al Hallaj who lived between 857 -922 AD while Lope de Vega's "A la dina dana" demonstrates how the influences of the era lived on after the re-conquest as he lived from 1562 - 1635 and is considered one of the major voices of the golden age of Spanish literature for his plays and prose. The booklet accompanying the CD not only gives a history of each song and the poet who wrote it, but their lyrics in the language they are sung in, either Spanish or Arabic, and an English translation.

Jon Balke has an extensive background in both jazz and world music with credits including compositions for theatre, dance, and chamber orchestras. The three other main musicians, vocalist Amina Alaoui, trumpeter Jon Hassell, and violinist Kheir Eddine M'Kachiche each have experience and talent relevant to the work at hand. Alaoui and M'Kachiche are Moroccan and Algerian respectively and both have extensive backgrounds in the history and playing of the music of Al Andalus. Jon Hassell's musical experiences have seen him studying from Europe to India and he has created what he calls "fourth world" music - music without borders that combines classical,pop, secular, and sacred elements from all over the world. With these four serving as the nexus, and the rest of the musicians drawn from traditions and cultures ranging from traditional Persian to early European music like baroque and renaissance, everybody involved has had their musical experiences influenced by what was born on the Iberian peninsula.

As for the music itself, I'm struggling to find the words to describe it. If you're familiar with any of music from North Africa, Spain, Persia (modern Iran), or renaissance Europe, than you're bound to recognize elements in each song no matter what language they are sung in. In fact there are times while listening to various songs that you'll swear you've heard it before as patterns that you've heard in another context will tug at your memory. However, all of the compositions have been created for this recording. What Balke and his fellow musicians have done is compose music which reflects the depth and breadth of the influence Muslim Spain has on us to this day. It shows, no matter what anybody would have us believe, that Islam is one of the cornerstones of Western culture, as the philosophy and thought that went into the creation of the music from that region continues to strike chords of recognition with us today.

One of the great wonders of Siwan aside from the beauty of the music, is the singing of Amina Alaoui. While all the musicians are wonderful, it's around her voice that the nine tracks with lyrics live or die. The more I hear female vocalists from traditions other than North American pop or European opera, the more I realize why I've always felt there has been something lacking in our music. There's nothing forced or controlled about Alaoui's voice like what were used to. While I've always been able to admire the technical prowess of an opera voice, its lack of human warmth has always left me cold. Alaoui's voice is every bit as technically proficient as any I've heard sing opera, but she has the humanity they lack. Rich like velvet her voice also retains the rawness of human emotion that allows us to identify with her song even though we may not speak or understand the language she's singing in.

Carl Jung talked about the idea of race memory wherein we remember things that date back thousands of years through a type of collective unconscious. While some of that has been formed by specific associations like religion and language, some of it we share in common with all humans. In some ways the music on Siwan is like that as you recognize it without actually knowing any of the songs on the disc. However, what's important is the music on this disc is beautifully sung and wonderfully played. It doesn't matter what you know or don't know about history, or even if you give a damn about who influenced who. Listening to this disc is an experience that transcends any of those concerns, proving once again that regardless of what anyone thinks or does, great art exists in a world of its own.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:57 AM | Permalink

It's not a sight you're liable to see that often anymore, at least not in big cities in the northern United States and Canada. A congregation of people gathered by a river, stream, or other body of water deep enough to submerge a person in. Ritual, mass public baptisms in a natural setting, like the banks of a river, are as foreign to most of us these days as the rites carried out by distant cultures in far off lands. Aside from practical matters like finding a body of water clean enough near a major population centre that you'd want to be immersed in it, the whole deal seems like a relic from the past.

Now I'm not saying that full immersion baptism isn't still practised today, there are too many Christian denominations and sects that see it as an integral part of their practice. However, I can't see the practice being as wide spread now as it was in the earlier parts of the twentieth century and before simply because people in general don't have the time for such elaborate rituals when it comes to their religion. Now I'm no expert on the matter, but I'd say as the practice was always limited to the Protestant denominations, specifically the various Baptist churches, that the actual number of people who participated in these rituals was always a minority. As times, and people's attitudes towards religion, have changed, I'd think that minority has gradually been reduced.

All of which make Take Me To The Water, a CD of baptismal music and sermons from the first half of the twentieth century released by the Dust To Digital label, as important as it is intriguing. As their name implies Dust to Digital specializes in rescuing pieces of Americana from the dust of history and restoring them as much as possible. In this case they have gathered together old recordings of sermons and music associated with full immersion baptismal celebrations on a CD and reproduced a collection of seventy-five photographs of+ baptisms from the same time period.

While listening to the music and the various sermons on their own gives you some indication of what these ceremonies meant to those who participated in them, listening to them while looking at pictures of people gathered for, and participating in, baptisms gives you an even deeper appreciation of just how significant these events used to be. While the posed images with everyone standing solemnly facing the camera are an indication of how important these occasions were to people, it's the images of the actual baptisms that communicate the joy experienced by those taking part.

Let your eye wander away from the focal point of those shots, the minister and the person being baptized, and look at the faces of those observing. Their eyes are glued to the action in mid-stream as if it were the centre of the universe. In some of the photos you can even spot those caught up in the throes of ecstasy as they have thrown themselves into the passion of witnessing a loved ones affirmation of faith. Perhaps this is one of the reasons these ceremonies are uncomfortable for us, as we aren't used to open displays of passion when it comes to our religious practices. Compare that scene to the average Christening held in a church in front of the font where the priest or minister sprinkles a few drops of water on an infants forehead. Aside from the involvement of water, the two ceremonies have almost nothing in common.

While the pictures tell one part of the story the twenty-five songs and sermons on the CD give us an even better idea of the passions generated by participating in an outdoor baptism ceremony. It begins right from the opening track with Rev, J. M, Gates, recorded in 1926, leading his congregation in singing "Baptize Me" and introducing it with a sermon about how anyone who is born again needs to be baptized. Aside from the fact that the good reverend is a powerful speaker, it's the sound of those listening to him shouting out their agreement that drives home the intensity of the feelings that are generated during one of those events.

While a great many of the tunes and groups performing them are liable to be unknown to anybody but an avid collector of Americana, there are still some recognizable names among the performers and song titles gathered together on this collection. What collection of early twentieth century gospel music would be complete without a contribution from the Carter Family? This is no exception as they perform "On My Way To Canaan's Land". While they don't match some of the African American choirs in terms of passion, there can be no doubt at the depth of their sincerity when they sing about being "Baptized in Jesus' name"

Both the musical recordings and the pictures in the book show the effects of age as the former are full of hisses and pops, while the latter are stained or even ripped in places. Not only does their condition do nothing to reduce their impact upon us, it gives them an air of authenticity that makes them all the more powerful. Original source material of this nature allows us to experience events without anyone's opinion or viewpoint obstructing our view. It's the difference between reading a history of an event written long after it took place, and reading an eyewitness account of the same incident. What you lose by having a slightly narrower focus is more than compensated for by the vividness of detail generated by its immediacy.

The Dust to Digital label has done a magnificent job of putting together packages that bring very specific periods of the past to life. Take Me To The Water lives up to the high standards they have established with their previous releases. It offers the opportunity to experience, as much as possible without actually being there, the old time public baptisms that were once an integral part of the fabric of life for a great many North Americans. This package gives us all an opportunity to appreciate just what a wonderful thing faith can be, and the joy and pleasure it can bring. That's a lesson we could all stand to learn, as we have somehow managed to twist faith into being weapon these days instead of the celebration it once was. Who says we can't learn anything from the past?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:04 AM | Permalink

From the moment he ran onto the stage of Kingston's K-Rock Centre to the moment the last echoes of the sound of the band, crew, and him singing from the "Book Of Ruth" faded into applause and bows, Leonard Cohen held our hearts and souls in the palm of his hand last night (May 22nd/09). Normally I wouldn't feel either comfortable or safe surrendering that much of myself to anybody, but not only wasn't there much I could do about it in this instance, I doubt any of us gathered together last night could have been in safer or better hands. As a poet, singer, novelist and song writer, Cohen has always delved into deep emotional waters, but when you see him in concert he not only tells you about those experiences, he becomes your guide through them.

Cohen's first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies was published in 1956 and his first recording,Songs Of Leonard Cohen, was released in 1967, and since then has released twelve books, fourteen albums, and been in front of audiences almost continually either reading or singing his work. At seventy-five the one time enfant-terrible of Canadian poetry has evolved into a grand master/guru to whom people around the world now turn for their heart's easing and their soul's comfort. For where he was once perceived as dark and brooding, cut from the same cloth as Lord Byron and the Romantics of the nineteenth century, as his locks have greyed people have allowed themselves to see past the image they tried to create for him, and let his words and voice reach them instead.

Which is exactly what happened last night as Cohen performed songs from nearly his entire repertoire of recordings for an audience that clung to each word he said and every note that he and his band sang or played. Eager as a child and humble as a supplicant, Cohen stood before us with hat in hand (literally and figuratively) asking us to join him in celebrating something most of the world would have us deny - our emotions. He coaxed, teased, joked, and cajoled us into breaking down the walls the world builds around our hearts, while simultaneously providing the reassurance required to allow us to do so in public. Unlike those who would manipulate you with their music in order to make you react in a specific way, Cohen offered the audience the opportunity to feel whatever it was we needed in whatever amount we required.

Having just recently reviewed the DVD Leonard Cohen Live In London, a recording made earlier during this current tour, I was slightly worried that I would have spoiled the experience of seeing Cohen in concert for myself as he would most likely perform the same show here in Kingston as was recorded in London. While it's true that the majority of the material was the same, including the sequence in which they were performed and the patter between songs, the difference between even the best that modern technology has to offer and seeing Cohen perform live is immeasurable.

Aside from the fact that the experience of being amongst a crowd of people sharing the same excitement and pleasure of witnessing the performance can never be re-created, there were nuances of his performance that didn't show up on the DVD. No matter how good your sound system is, it will never be able to match hearing him sing or recite in person. I had no idea just how rich and deep his voice has become until I saw him last night. At times when he descended to the bottom of his register you could swear his voice was rising from the floor through the soles of your feet to make its way up into your body. Now I've been to concerts where the base has been so heavy that it's made your chest hurt from the pressure, but this wasn't the case as it was more like a caress than an assault like on other occasions.

Another difference is the fact that a camera is selective and you only see what it wants you to see, so on a recording you miss what's happening outside of its singular focus. I've no idea if they did this during the Live In London concert, but on this night during the singing of the lines "White girls dancing", his back up singers, The Webb Sisters, performed simultaneous backwards cartwheels, something which definitely didn't show up in the DVD footage. That was just one of many asides or moments that can only be experienced by seeing a live performance.

However, what it comes down to in the end is the music, and Cohen and his band on stage are even more impressive in person than they are on tape. You'd think that after months on the road performing the same songs over and over again they would reach the stage where the material becomes somewhat stale. Well, if it was the case, you couldn't tell it by the performance I saw last night as they attacked each song with a joy and enthusiasm that brought the audience to their feet time and time again. Songs like "Suzanne", "Bird On A Wire", "Famous Blue Raincoat", "Closing Time", and "Dance Me To The End Of Love", which audience members must have heard many a time before, sounded as fresh as if we were hearing them for the first time again.

Some concerts that you attend you may remember a song or two in particular as highlights, while others are just a blur of excitement and noise. However once in a while you are fortunate enough to be part of an experience. Last night watching Leonard Cohen was one of those occasions. There were moments when the impulse to surrender to the wash of emotions being generated by listening to the music was so great that it was impossible not to just sit back and close my eyes and let myself go. I haven't done drugs in over fifteen years, but nothing I ever took in the hopes of expanding my consciousness ever came close to matching the experience of riding on the waves generated by what was happening on stage last night.

Leonard Cohen is seventy-five now, so who knows how many more times he's going to be motivated to tour again. It's been fifteen years since his last tour, so there might not even be another. Don't miss the opportunity to see and experience him in concert as it will be unlike anything you've ever enjoyed before. Last night, May 22nd/2009, he was in Kingston Ontario changing a few thousands lives for the better, and his tour is continuing across North America and Europe for the rest of the year so you've still plenty of opportunities to see and hear him sing before this tour wraps up. In a world filled with mass produced and sterile products, a Leonard Cohen concert is a very unique and human experience that shouldn't be missed.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:33 PM | Permalink

It's not often that we think of popular music and the Old Testament in the same breath. Heck even the majority of today's gospel music looks to the New Testament for its inspiration. However, when you consider the source of the new release Song Of Songs on the Electrofone Records label, the Old Testament connection makes a lot of sense. Inbar Bakal was born in Israel and is a descendant of Yemenite Jews whose traditions have long included putting their belief to music.

Like all young Israelites Bakal did her years of national service, as part of an anti-aircraft battalion, before embarking on the career of her choice. While that choice was always destined to be music, (her grandfather, a famous kabbalist thought by some to be able to predict the future, told her when she was sixteen that she had a big star in the sky that said she was going to be a singer) it was only after she gave up a career in the armed forces and moved to Los Angeles that it came to fruition. It was the same grandfather who inspired Bakal's version of the traditional psalm that is her release's title track, Song Of Songs. For while many consider the sensuality of that particular psalm to be an allegory for the love between man and God, her grandfather believed it was about love fro a woman, because it is truly divine.

That should give you a clue as to the fact that although this disc might look to the Old Testament and traditional Jewish music and culture for its inspiration, its not what you would call religious music. Bakal is very careful to enunciate that while she takes great pride in her Yemenite heritage and has a very traditional sense of her culture, she is not especially religious. Nor, at least judging by her approach to the music on Song Of Songs, is she so wedded to her traditions that she's unwilling to tamper and experiment with the music using the technology available to today's musical performers.

While listening to the disc you'll also notice she's done a little more than just add a few technical advances to the music. She's put together a band that's comfortable with the instruments and musical styles of a great many different cultures through-out the Middle East and the Mediterranean. This means that intermingled with the sound of instruments like the oud which is native to the region, you'll also hear the strains of a bouzouki and piano mixed in. Of course the most obvious additions are those that were added in the production room; electronic sounds and rhythms.

There has been a noticeable trend among younger international musicians towards modernizing the sound of their parent's and grandparent's music with decidedly mixed results. While some have been able to strike a delicate balance between the old and the new, others have shown themselves to be far to eager to discard what it was that made their music special in the first place. Thankfully that's not the case with Inbar Bakal as she and her producer Carmen Rizzo have demonstrated they share an awareness of just how far they can push a song in that direction before it loses the distinctiveness that gave it character in the first place.

While Bakal sings in a mixture of Hebrew and English, the lyrics of her songs are another way in which she brings the material into the modern world. The song "The Bride" is a great example of this as its actually two songs in one that deals with the difficult subject of an arranged marriage. In the first song we are given the bride's perspective. She begs her family not to marry her off to this man whom she abhors and their answer is a resounding no. The "second" part of the song deals with the wedding itself and serves as a contrast to the bride's misgivings and reluctance.

What I appreciated most about Song Of Songs was the ability that Bakal and her producer showed in finding the balance between the modern and the new and the traditional and the innovative. Neither the use of instruments from the other cultures nor the manner in which they used production values interfered with the inherent beauty of the original music. You can not only feel the power and the passion of music that's been handed down from generation to generation, but Bakal's love and respect for what she's doing as well.

Listen to the title track, "Song Of Songs", and you'll hear just how well she's able to blend the modern and the traditional. She has taken the words of the psalm and turned them into not only a wonderful love song, but a song that also celebrates the wonders of love. You can hear within the litany of praises for the lover's attributes her belief in what her grandfather called the divinity of love between people. Instead of the usual sentimental tripe normally heard in contemporary love songs, she has created a piece of music celebrating the awe and wonder that such feelings can exist between two people. After listening to "Song Of Songs", you can't help believing those emotions are so rarified they have to be a gift from some higher power or another.

Of course it doesn't really matter what the music is like if the person at the centre of the band can't deliver the goods. Thankfully Inbar Bakal delivers on the promise that her grandfather predicted for her when she was a teenager. Not only can she write wonderful songs, she has the vocal abilities to bring them to life. The two most obvious are her range and the amount of expression she's able to project no matter where on the scale she is singing. Some singers are able to climb and descend the scales at will, but lose their ability to project emotion at certain points. That's not the case with Bakal, as she is equally capable of letting you know what's being felt by the subject of her material whether she's singing in a low throaty growl or whispering at the upper end of the register.

The only complaint I have to make about Song Of Songs is that at six songs it ends far too quickly. In fact this disc is so short its really more an EP release than a full length disc. Than again, I suppose that's better than having to listen to a full length disc of really bad music, and never wanting to hear a performer again. For, there's one thing for certain, after listening to this disc you're definitely going to want to hear more. This is a collection of wonderfully crafted songs performed with passion and skill by a talented and expressive singer that successfully melds modern technology and ages old traditions.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:29 PM | Permalink

When you're told that someone plays the violin, or even the fiddle, you would be forgiven for thinking a recording of theirs would most likely either be of classical, country, or bluegrass music. Sure there're occasional recordings of jazz music done by violinists and you'll sometimes hear a violin as a featured instrument on a popular music CD, but those are exceptions to the rule. Therefore, when I was sent the newest Casey Driessen CD, Ogg I wasn't expecting anything much different from what I had heard from other musicians.

However, nothing you have heard before can quite prepare you for the experience of Casey Driessen. For although he's playing the same instrument, more or less, that other violinists have played in the past, what he does with it, and the music he records, is altogether unique to him. Listening to Oog the first time was like stepping into a maelstrom; at first the music pushes you one way, and the next moment it's pulling you another, so you don't ever quite get your bearings. He even denies you the comfort of anything like a discernible genre which would help you get your bearings.

However, a quick read of the extended liner notes provided at his web-site goes a long way towards helping you find your bearings. "I wander and wonder with open eyes and ears..." he writes, and then continues to explain how he finds his inspiration in the work of other artists, both visual and musical, the forces of nature, and "that difficult to pinpoint personal inner well where emotions and experience become one." Listening to Oog (the Dutch word for eye by the way) with this in mind at least gives us a context within which we can place the material, while the notes for each song give specifics as to what inspired him to create it.

"Hummingbirds Vs. Yellowjackets", the third track on the disc, would appear at first glance to be one of the more obvious examples of how Driessen has turned his observations into music. For in the note about the song he tells us how he spent time one afternoon observing a gang of yellowjackets and hummingbirds competing for the nectar contained in a hummingbird feeder. However he cautions us not to expect to hear something literally representing the two creatures, for the majority of the tune had been written prior to him having witnessed the conflict, he merely finished writing the tune while watching them.

Well so much for the liner notes being of any help in deciphering the music, I don't think he could have been any more obscure if he tried. What the heck is he doing calling a song "Hummingbirds Vs. Yellowjackets" if its not about the creatures in question? However, he does say is that it was written in harmony with them, which means the music should at least reflect something about the experience in general. The funny thing is, that when I listened to the track again keeping what he had written about it in mind, I immediately visualized myself sitting outside in a backyard on a brilliantly lit sunny day, the type of day where both hummingbirds and yellowjackets would be out and about.

While there's none of the angry buzzing that one might expect from a conflict between angry insects and other creatures, the atmosphere Driessen creates with the music brought to mind the environment where the situation could exist. If you've ever stretched out in a backyard on a lazy afternoon where trees cast pockets of shade that contrast with bright patches of sun, and bumblebees float from flower to flower getting drunk on pollen, you'll begin to understand what he's talking about when he says the music is in harmony with the activities of the title creatures.

Of course this is only one piece of fourteen on the disc, and only begins to tell the story of Casey Driessen and Oog. He's also an avid experimenter in both form and style as can be seen with what he does on track seven, his rendering of Bill Monroe's bluegrass tune "Ashland Breakdown", and the approach he took for recording the ninth track "Lunar Cages". Instead of being merely satisfied with covering another's tune, Driessen takes "Ashland Breakdown" apart and literally puts it back together backwards. He learned the melody of the tune backwards and after recording it flipped it around and played it back "forwards".

What he ended up doing was recording both backwards and forwards melodies and rhythms for the song and then playing them back together. It had to be one of the weirdest listening experiences I've ever had, hearing the same bit of music being played backwards and forwards at the same time. It felt like you were standing on a train track listening to the sound of two trains approaching, as you could actually hear the music moving in two directions at once. You can't help but be impressed by the mind that came up with that idea, and like he says, "everybody likes a backwards solo". Although you're not going to hear any hidden messages in this one.

"Lunar Cages" uses an old cajun fiddle technique known as "fiddlesticks" where the instrument is set to an open tuning and a rhythm is tapped out on the strings using small sticks. While his percussionist, Matt Chamberlain, established the initial beat on one fiddle Driessen wrote a melody that would float on top. The song itself was inspired by watching the lunar eclipse of February 2008, while the "Cages" of the title is a nod to John Cage and the pieces he created by rapping on the strings of pianos with a hammer. This time the piece is not only inventive in form, but the quality of the music is equally impressive. The thrum of the violin strings as they are being tapped by Chamberlain creates a beautiful harmonic sound that forms a backdrop for the other instruments to gradually build over while they simulate the slow eclipsing of the moon.

Casey Driessen is not what anyone would call your average fiddle player, and by no stretch of the imagination is Oog your average collection of fiddle tunes. On the other hand, if you come to the disc with an open mind and a willing imagination, I can guarantee you an experience unlike any you've ever had before listening to someone play the violin. While you may not like everything he does, you can't help but admire Driessen's intelligence and the spirit of creativity that drives him to explore his instrument's potential to its fullest. Music would certainly be a lot more interesting in general if there were more musicians as willing to take risks like Driessen.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:12 AM | Permalink

In North America, the gospel music that originated in the African American churches of the American South provided the foundation for the majority of our popular music today. So it's not too surprising that its popularity has spread far beyond the confines of the church and is appreciated by audiences of all faiths. In fact, these days you're just as liable to hear gospel music performed in a bar on Friday night as church on Sunday morning. Of course there's more to gospel's appeal than the fact that it sounds like some of our popular music. There's also the fact you're not likely to hear any other genre of music played with the amount of passion and the depth of feeling that you're liable to hear at your average gospel concert.

Therefore, you just have to know a concert featuring The Blind Boys Of Alabama and special guests like Dr. John, Susan Tedeschi, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band among others, is going to be something a little extra special. How special though, you don't quite realize until you've seen it, and thanks to a new DVD, The Blind Boys Of Alabama Live In New Orleans on Saguaro Road Records, everybody can see just what an amazing concert it was.

The concert took place in the spring of 2008 at the Tipitina club in New Orleans, and the DVD contains all sixteen songs that were played that night, plus a feature on the making of the Blind Boys' CD, Down In New Orleans. That CD represented the first time the group had ever recorded in New Orleans, and it had featured a number of musicians from the city. The concert at the Tipitina was a means of celebrating that release and a chance to play some of the material from the disc live with people involved in the recording and a few of the band's close friends. Now I've heard plenty of gospel music over the years, and seen quite a few concerts both live and taped, but I don't think I've quite seen one as potent as the concert recorded on this DVD.

When you look over the track listing for this concert you're going to see a lot of familiar song titles; "Amazing Grace", "Down By The Riverside", "People Get Ready", "Free At Last", and others you know equally well. However don't let that lead you into thinking that you can give this a pass because you've heard the tunes before. I can honestly say that if you haven't heard the Blind Boys of Alabama play them, you'll not have heard them sung quite like they are sung here. "Amazing Grace" has to be one of the most well known gospel tunes ever written, and the one even people who don't like gospel can identify almost from the opening notes. Well, all I have to say is, boy are you going to be surprised when you hear the Blind Boys sing that one.

They've changed it into a deep and slow blues number that sounds for all the world like the Animals singing "House Of The Rising Sun". At first I was really taken aback because not only didn't it sound like any version of the song I'd heard sung before, but also because it sounded unusually dark and brooding for a gospel song. However, once I got over the initial shock and began listening to it carefully, I was able to appreciate what an amazing job they done with it. Instead of being a joyful celebration of faith, they had turned it into a song that reflected the mood of struggle the song's lyrics depict. For the first time I was able to understand what it meant to be lost, and just how hard the struggle to be found really could be.

The first guest to join the Blind Boys on stage was blues guitarist Susan Tedeschi. Now, I've always thought of Tedeschi as a guitarist first and a vocalist second, but after hearing her on this disc I've changed my mind. When she first joined them it was to sing and play guitar on "Free At Last" and "People Get Ready". While she didn't have much opportunity to cut loose on her guitar like she would normally, she did have the opportunity to sing a verse or two on each of these songs, and then again during the grand finale of "I'll Fly Away" that closed the show. Each time she opened her mouth to sing, she absolutely blew me away with her power and the quality of her voice. She has one of those wonderful throaty voices that sound raw with passion without sounding affected. You could tell by her performance that she was just loving every second she got to spend on stage with the Blind Boys and enjoying the opportunity to sing these songs.

That was a universal among all the guests, and you couldn't help but be carried away by everybody's enthusiasm. While Dr. John, Marva Wright, and Henry Butler were all equally as good as Tedeschi in their own rights, none of them were able to match what the Preservation Hall Jazz Band brought to the proceedings. "Down By The Riverside" is probably as old a chestnut as you're going to find when it comes to gospel songs, having been played to death by everybody from folk groups to school choirs. So it's quite some feat to make that song sound like you've never heard it before, but that's exactly what the combination of the Blind Boys and Preservation Hall manage to do. They imbue it with so much life and style that every other version I've ever heard before paled in comparison. You felt that if you could only get everybody singing along on "I ain't going study war no more" we'd have peace in our time before you knew it.

Listening and watching the The Blind Boys Of Alabama Live In New Orleans is to truly understand the strength and glory of gospel music. While the members of the group might see it as their mission to be spreading the "good news" of the gospel, even those who aren't of their faith can't help but feel uplifted and joyful by what they hear and see. Passion and faith of that magnitude cross all boundaries of religion and creed, so it's not a matter of what you believe in, but of sharing in the joy of believing. There can never be enough joy in this world, but with people like The Blind Boys Of Alabama around we're always guaranteed permanent pockets of joy and hope.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:03 PM | Permalink

Descendants of nomadic people from the northern Indian province of Rajasthan, the Romani, commonly and erroneously referred to as Gypsies (the word gypsy comes from the Greek word Aigyptoi and comes from the story given out by the Romani that they were exiled from Egypt for sheltering the baby Jesus), began their western migration into Europe around 1100AD. In spite of being predominantly Christian, some are Islamic, they have been persecuted to an extent only equal to that suffered by Jews, since their arrival.

While a good deal of the prejudice against the Romani stems from their nomadic lifestyle marking them as notably different from the majority population, the darker complexion of their heritage is also a contributing factor. However, in spite of, and maybe because of, this persecution, a sentimental and romantic image of "The Gypsy" has developed in the West. Somehow Romani men are all passionate, and slightly dangerous, lovers, while the women are fiery and gorgeous seductresses. All of them, no matter what their gender, dance the Flamenco to the sounds of a wild violin around a roaring fire.

Now while it is true that the Romani from Spain, specifically Seville and the Catalonia region, were responsible for the development of flamenco music, that represents only one segment of their population. Music and culture changes from country to country, and even from region to region within a country, and as the Romani have travelled throughout Asia and Europe, their music has come to reflect the variety of cultural influences they have brushed against. Like everyone else they too have felt the impact of technology upon their lives, and new generations of Romani musicians, like their contemporaries the world over, are making use of it to help generate their music.

A new release from the World Music Network, The Rough Guide To Gypsy Music (Second Edition) , attempts to show the diversity of music played by the Romani people as the fourteen tracks range from the expected flamenco guitar, brass band ensembles, and the sounds of northern India. While a couple of the groups represented on this disc have managed to reach international audiences in the past, Fanfare Ciocarlia and Taraf de Haidouks are probably the best known, very few of the other names will be familiar to many people.

If there is one complaint to make about the disc, aside from the title - isn't it about time labels stopped using Gypsy and began using Romani - it's the fact that its focus is a little too narrow. Sure they have an adequate representation of the various styles of music, but there is a tendency to lean towards horn dominated groups with some of the other styles not as adequately represented. That's not to say to say you won't hear violins, guitars, and the other instruments that are traditionally associated with Romani music, but on a causal listen those tracks where there isn't a horn playing stand out in sharp relief. I can understand their desire to get away from the stereotypical "gypsy violin", but there's more to the music than horns as well.

Two of the groups that do stand out because of their noticeable differences from the rest represent on the one hand the easternmost area of the Romani's range and on the other nearly their westernmost point in Europe. Son De La Frontera are from the birthplace of Flamenco, Seville Spain, while Musafir are a group of musicians playing the music of Rajasthan, India. Both groups have built upon the traditional music of their predecessors to develop a sound that is both familiar and new at the same time.

Listening to Son De La Frontera play "Un Compromiso" one hears not only the expected sounds of vibrant flamenco, but the sounds of Cuba mixed in as well. All that is stirring and inspiring about flamenco is still there, but they've also added the element of the Cuban steel string tres that gives the sound a harder edge than you'd normally expect. While the additional guitar might give it some extra spice, it's still the power of flamenco that makes this track so moving. These five performers are as powerful as any I've heard before as their voices soar in stirring harmonies and the music stomps fire into your veins; you hear this one song and you're going to want to hear more.

While the performers in Musafir aren't actually members of the tribal group who are the ancestors of today's European Romani, and wouldn't probably play together if they lived in Rajasthan, they do play music that is representative of the region. While some of the influences on their music - Indian film music and Arabic pop music - wouldn't have been around to influence those who migrated into the west, they would have been hearing the classical music of Northern India and the Islamic devotional music that also makes up Musafir's sound. Listening to their song, "Barish" you hear elements of classical Indian music; the steady beat of the tabla, the buzzing sound of a string instruments sympathetic strings resonating as it's strummed, and the familiar vocalizations, blending seamlessly with the more modern influences. It's an ear catching sound that at first attracts your attention because of its novelty, and then successfully holds it because of its energy and beauty.

The Rough Guide To Gypsy Music Vol. 2 contains music by obviously skilled performers who share a passion and a love for the music they play. While it goes a long way to dispelling the myth that Romani music consists solely of wild violins, and includes music representing many of the geographical regions they inhabit, it still felt like they hadn't cast their net wide enough. There are just a few too many songs by bands that sound too much alike for it to be an excellent disc instead of merely a good one. As a bonus, World Music Net is throwing in a previously released disc Introducing Bela Lakatos & The Gypsy Youth Project, a dynamic collection of Hungarian Romani music originally released in 2006.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:56 PM | Permalink

In the late 1960's a new type of band appeared on the British pop music scene that combined elements of traditional British Isle folk music with modern instruments and psychedelic rock. Groups like Fairport Convention, Renaissance, and individuals like Bert Jansch, were famous for their wonderful instrumental work and breath taking vocal harmonies. While incarnations of each of the two bands are still active today and keeping that sound alive, the current crop of musicians interested in the same field are prone to tinkering with the old formula.

Judging by their debut album, Carbeth released on Honest Jon's Records, the four person band Trembling Bells have a similar affection for the music as their predecessors. Yet instead of being merely content to emulate them, they've also added some distinctly unique flavouring of their own into the mix. For while some elements of their sound; distinctive vocals, acoustic instruments, and a passion for early music stylings, are common to both generations of folk groups, Trembling Bells has spread their net somewhat further afield than Great Britain.

Your first indication that this isn't going to be quite like anything else you've heard comes right from the opening track on the disc, "I Listed All Of The Velvet Lessons". For although there's the expected soaring soprano female lead vocal singing what sounds like a tune written when central heating meant a fire pit in the middle of the room, the horn that sounds like it sprang from a parade through the streets of New Orleans is something new. On top of that, throughout the disc there are moments of discordance verging on cacophony which prevents the music from becoming overly precious and introduces an element of darkness absent from those earlier bands.

The core of Trembling Bells are percussionist/drummer Alex Neilson, the above mentioned female soprano, Lavinia Blackwall, also handles the keyboard chores, Ben Reynolds plays guitar, harmonica, and chips in on vocals, and Simon Shaw is on bass. The sound on Carbeth is rounded out with the inclusion of trombonist George Murray and viola player Aby Vuillamy. While the former helps push the band into uncharted territory for a traditional folk group, the latter keeps them firmly rooted in the early music sound expected of them. If you think of them as the two extremes of the band's sound, you begin to get an idea of just how different they're from what's come before.

For although the titles of their songs sound appropriately medieval; "I Took To You (Like Christ To Wood)", "Willows Of Carbeth", and "Garlands Of Stars", the majority of them aren't about to inspire anybody to start Morris dancing on the village green. In fact most of them have a definite split personality when it comes to the music. This is especially noticeable on those songs where Blackwall takes the lead vocals as her beautiful soprano is a sharp contrast to the music playing behind her. Whether it's the keyboards swirling dervish like or the trombone playing blues tinged jazz, her voice is made to stand out so much it's purity plays against itself to the point where it almost jars against the ear. Like a sharpened knife her voice cuts and wounds and is one of the clearest indications that Trembling Bells aren't sentimental in their approach to traditional music.

While some might find this approach disconcerting when they compare it to what they're used to, it seems to me a far more honest approach to the music than the overly romantic, and rather cloying sounds, of others. There was nothing easy about life during Medieval times when for the majority it was a struggle merely to survive. If you didn't die of disease or starvation, the back breaking work of merely staying alive would ensure you didn't live past forty. Trembling Bells may not sing songs about pestilence and famine, but the qualities they've imbued their music with dispels any notions of this era being some sort of rustic paradise.

Lest I've given you the impression that Trembling Bells are simply a discordant bunch of noisemakers, let me reassure you that nothing could be further from the truth. Their songs are all marvellously crafted and superbly played pieces of music performed by extremely talented individuals. It takes an incredible amount of talent and skill to push music to the very edge of dissonance without ever falling over into discordance and they show a fine ear and a deft touch by never allowing that to happen. Like the best avant-garde jazz they might give the impression of chaos, but the reality is they always know exactly what they're doing.

Trembling Bells may have deconstructed the traditional folk music genre, but that doesn't mean they are without affection for it. In fact, I think their efforts to breath new life into this style of music, their desire to give it a more authentic feel, shows the depth of their appreciation. Certainly the music on Carbeth is not easy to listen to, and requires a certain amount of effort on the part of the listener, but the result is something far more rewarding than anything previously attempted in this field. If you come to this album simply hoping to hear a rehashing of what's been done before you will be disappointed. However if you're willing to listen carefully and allow the music to work its magic on you - you'll be amazed by what they have to offer.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:38 AM | Permalink

It's been difficult for me to take the ukulele seriously as an instrument ever since I saw Tiny Tim squeak his way through "Tip Toe Through The Tulips" in his annoying falsetto. To be perfectly honest up until a few years ago I did my best to avoid anything remotely connected to the instrument because of the association. I first started to overcome my prejudice while listening to the multi-instrumentalist virtuoso Bob Brozman and learnt the instrument was capable of doing much more than I had originally thought.

However, it's only now that I've listened to Jake Shimabukuro's forth coming release, Jake Shimabukuro Live (April 14th/09 on Hitchhike Records), that I've truly come to appreciate the ukulele. After listening to Jake play you can't believe that he's playing something with only four strings. There's plenty of guitar players out there who would be hard pressed to do what's he's capable of doing with four strings with their six strings.

The nearly twenty tracks on Live range from Shimabukuro's interpretation of classical pieces, to his renditions of such pop classics like "Thriller" and George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps. What's truly amazing about the show he puts on is he holds your attention as a completely solo act; there's no band, nor orchestra, and nothing on tape backing him up. It's just Jake and his ukulele.

The ukulele is a four string, two octave instrument, making you think that it must be extremely limited in the the sounds that produces. Not if you're a performer like Shimabukuro as he's able to squeeze sounds out of his instrument that will have you swearing he's playing a regular guitar. There's none of the "plink-plink" sound one would normally expect from a high pitched instrument like it, nor does he use it simply to keep rhythm by strumming a few chords. Instead he's turned it into a lead instrument that rivals the mandolin for its intricacy, and the guitar for its diversity of sound.

Although the first thing you're bound to notice when listening to Jake Shimabukuro is the speed at which he plays, what impressed me the most was that unlike other technically proficient players he also plays with a lot of emotion. Even though it seems like his fingers are flying almost all the time, either up and down the fret board or picking, he doesn't neglect the emotional content of his material either. Certainly his cover of something like "Thriller" is primarily an example of technical prowess. However his performance of "Bach Two Part Invention In D-Minor" makes you forget what instrument he is playing as the beauty of the music is the focus, not his talent or his technique.

Listen carefully to the song that made him famous, his cover of George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and you'll soon find that you're again forgetting about the instrument he's playing and becoming wrapped up in the music instead. While it's a little strange at first to hear the song being played as an instrumental, eventually you begin to hear the lyrics being "sung" in his playing. As the notes are picked to form the tune that is so very familiar, the melody comes to life with such passion and love that you soon forget its not being sung. I've heard many attempts to play instrumental version of pop songs, especially ones by the Beatles, but this is the first time I've heard one that manages to capture the spirit of the original song.

It's not just classical music and pop songs that he brings his remarkable talents to bear on either, for one of the earlier tracks on the disc is a cover of the Chick Corea tune "Spain". Now I was never much of a fan of Chick Corea's music when played by him, as they ran far more in the direction of pop music than jazz for my taste. Hearing Shimabukuro playing the piece gave it a dimension that it lacked before and I found myself appreciating the song more than I ever did when it was performed by the composer.

Part of that might have been the novelty of hearing the song being played on ukulele, but if that were all there was to it, I would have lost interest after only a short while. While it might have been the instrument that captured my attention in the first place, it was Shimabukuro's ability to breath life into the music that held it for the entire length of the piece. There's something about how he plays, perhaps it has to do with a deftness of touch or the precision with which he plays each note, that allows you to hear and feel each note no matter how fast he's playing, which pulls you into the piece and holds you fast until its completed.

Listening to track fourteen, "Sakura Sakura", a traditional Japanese folk song that's normally played on the thirteen string Japanese instrument know as a Koto, you really appreciate that ability. This is one of the slower songs on the disc and somehow he makes each note ring as if far more strings were involved than just the four at his disposal. Each note is allowed to resonate to maximum effect before he strikes the next one, allowing the listener to feel it completely. There's an intensity to the performance that almost makes it unbearable, so in some ways you're relieved when the song ends because each note is so beautiful that you quickly become overwhelmed by them.

To many people the ukulele is a novelty instrument and not to be taken seriously. However, when you hear Jake Shimabukuro play you're quickly disabused of that notion. In his hands it's comparable to any stringed instrument, whether bowed or plucked, and capable of playing any genre of music. Jake Shimabukuro is an amazing musician who is not only technically skilled, but able to plumb the emotional depths of any piece of music he attempts. This is a magnificent recording by an amazing performer that shouldn't be missed by anybody who genuinely appreciates great music.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:03 PM | Permalink

I have to admit the first time I head Leonard Cohen I didn't get it. Of course I was all of thirteen years old at the time and was much more into electric guitars and noise than the quiet introspection Leonard had to offer. Thankfully I matured and learned there was more to life than I had previously thought and his music and poetry started to make much sense to me. Since then I have dipped into his work periodically, and like a warm bath that eases aching muscles its always been a much needed balm to my soul.

So when I heard that Sony Music was releasing a DVD of Cohen's most recent tour I was thrilled, for even though I'll be seeing him in concert next month (May 2009), having a permanent record of the event that I can access whenever I need rejuvenation was just too good an opportunity to pass up. If Leonard Cohen Live In London managed to capture a small percentage of what the man has to offer as a poet and a performer I would have been content. As it is, I don't think I've ever seen a concert movie capture the essence of a performer and their material as completely as this one did with Leonard Cohen.

From the moment Cohen bounded on stage (it's hard to believe he's seventy-five years old) to the closing notes of the finale twenty-five songs later, I've never felt closer to a performer while watching him or her on film as I did during this DVD. With the improvements in technology it's nothing new for cameras to be up on stage with the performers capturing the most intimate details of their performance as was the case with this recording. However, whereas in the past it's always felt as if there was a barrier between me and the performers no matter how close the cameras were able to shoot, this time it felt like Cohen and his band members would turn and address you personally at any moment.

Of course a great deal of that sensation was created by Cohen himself. Not once did I have the feeling that he was performing with a capital "P", or was anybody but who he is all the time. How often have you seen someone screw up their face or contort their body while performing as an indication that they are in the throws of some emotional turmoil? There's no such histrionics in Cohen's performance. Instead, we are treated to the sight of someone allowing their material to speak for itself. If a song's tempo increased, or his voice rose in volume, it always felt as though there was no other way for it to be presented. It was if he and his band were merely the conduit which allowed the needs of the material to be met, and they were secondary to the performance.

The concert has something for every generation of Cohen fans as it includes songs dating back as far as "Suzanne" from 1967's Songs Of Leonard Cohen through to "In My Secret Life" from 2001's Ten New Songs and stops in every decade in between. While of course there will be some disappointment at favourite songs being left out of the set list ("Famous Blue Raincoat" and "Joan of Arc" are two I missed most), its a remarkably satisfying retrospective of Cohen's career. Even better was the fact that Cohen and his band found ways to bring new life to the old material, like "So Long Marianne" and "Sisters Of Mercy", but without sacrificing anything of what made them special to begin with. As a result this isn't an attempt by an old performer to capture some of his former glory by cashing in on people's nostalgia for his former hits. Instead its like an art exhibit that gives viewers the opportunity to appreciate the body of work that an artist produced during his lifetime. The only difference being this artist is still alive and able to go back and touch up any of his masterpieces that otherwise might not have stood the test of time.

Cohen's work has always seemed more sophisticated than your average folk song and called out for more than just simple guitar accompaniment. On the other hand there has to be a delicate balance struck in order to ensure the music never overwhelms either the lyrics or Cohen's voice. Under the direction of musical director and basest Roscoe Beck the band featuring; Rafael Bernardo Gayol (drums & percussion), Neil Larsen (keyboards), Javier Mas (banduria, laud, archilaud, & twelve string guitar), Bob Metzger (lead guitar & pedal steel), Dino Soldo (wind instruments, harmonica, & keyboard), and background vocalists Sharon Robinson, Charley Webb, and Hattie Webb, couldn't have done a better job. Not only were each of them capable of individual virtuosity when called upon (Javier Mas' playing will make you weep), even when they soloed it never felt like they were putting themselves ahead of the material.

As for the man himself, he still has more personality and charisma in his little finger than any of the twenty-something pop stars on the charts could ever dream of. Not only did he bound on stage at the opening, but he came running back on for his second encore nearly three hours later. Cohen simply standing centre stage holding his microphone and singing exudes more energy than most others at their most frenetic, while his elegance and style redefine the word dapper.

Cohen's voice, that some call limited, is revealed as the perfect instrument for his material. Eloquent, without being grandiose or flashy, each word and phrase is carefully enunciated so the listener doesn't miss anything. Anyone who might have thought of Cohen's voice as monotone will be quickly disabused of that notion after seeing this performance as he shows an amazing ability to communicate emotions with only the slightest vocal inflection. Perhaps that's where any misconceptions about his voice arose in the past, as he doesn't need to resort to the cheap melodrama that others do in order to express himself.

Needless to say the sound and visuals on the disc are superlative with the camera work in specific being remarkable for the way it's able to create a sense of intimacy in spite of the size of the space where the performance was filmed and the number of people on stage. While there aren't any special features included with disc, they have included the lyrics to every song sung during the show.

Leonard Cohen Live In London is a brilliant concert film featuring one of the most erudite and intelligent performers to ever grace a pop music stage. This is Leonard Cohen at his best, and Leonard Cohen at his best is miles beyond anything that anyone else can even dream of accomplishing.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:52 PM | Permalink

I suppose that most people in North America if they think of Russian music at all will either think of the Red Army Chorus extolling the virtues of the "Workers Paradise" by singing "The International", or groups of Cossack dancers doing improbable steps to the sound of balalaikas. Well the "Worker's Paradise" hasn't existed, if it ever really did, since the late 1980's, and Cossacks haven't had much to dance about in years, so you need to throw all those old expectations away and be prepared for anything when you listen to what contemporary Russian musicians are creating.

Germany and Russia haven't what you call a history of amicable relationships down through the years, and the twentieth century was a particularly bad time as each took turns in occupying the other for extended periods. However, this hasn't stopped Russian musicians being welcomed when they've gone searching for greener pastures in the West as they look to make a living from their craft. Which explains how the Russian group Ersatzmusika comes to be based out of Berlin Germany and is about to release their second CD, Songs Unrecatable, on the German label Asphalt-Tango. (While April 10th/2009 is the release date for the physical disc, you can download, and preview, the CD at the Asphalt-Tango site above as well as a songbook illustrated by the band's lead singer, Irina Doubrovskaja.)

If you download the songbook one of the first things you'll notice is the lyrics are in English, and that's not because they've been translated, it's because almost all the songs on Songs Unrecantable are sung in that language. Although to be honest lead singer Doubrovskaja's accent is so thick that if you're only listening casually chances are you're probably going to assume she's singing in Russian. To be fair it's not just her accent, the music the band plays is so different from what most of us are used to hearing when it comes to Eastern European folk, that the combination of the two makes for a sound so alien to our ears you can be easily forgiven for not noticing she is singing in English. It's a little different when native English speaker Thomas Cooper (he also translated all the songs into English) sings on tracks eleven and thirteen, but by then the disc is almost over and the atmosphere been long set.

Before anyone starts jumping to any conclusions about brooding Russians or anything equally stupid, by mood I'm referring to the fact that Doubrovskaja sounds likes a Russian accented Marlene Dietrich. Yet while both she and Dietrich evoke smoke filled cabarets with dim lights, musically, lyrically the two women are miles apart. For while the former's stock in trade was sultry love songs, the latter's lyrics drip irony onto music that tastes of a little bit of everything from Balkan beat box to traditional folk sounds. There's actually something eerily familiar about Ersatzmusika's overall sound that escaped me for the longest time, until it struck me how much they reminded me of The Doors in their slower and more pensive moments.

While they might share certain characteristics with other performers and have drawn upon various styles, it's doubtful you've ever heard anything quite like Ersatzmuika before. While the instruments in play sound like the normal array for an Eastern European folk ensemble/pop group: guitar (Leonid Soybelman, Sergej Voronzov, Fuslan Kalugin, and Phil Freeborn); bass (Konstantin Orlov, and the late Igor Vdovchenko on two tracks); drums and percussion (Michail Zukov and Roman Buschuev); keyboard, piano, and accordian (Irina Doubrovskaja); cello (Sergej Chanukaev); synthesizer (Werner Zein); and harmonica (Roman Buschuev), the results are anything but standard.

Where one has come to expect a lively sound inspired by polka's, the heady influence of gypsy violins, or other rural traditions, you find moody, atmospheric sounds which are a far more accurate reflection of life today. The lyrics in turn are a match for this sound as they offer commentary on humanity's checkered history and uncertain future. The opening lines of "Gypsy Air", the first track on the CD, give you a good idea of the band's appraisal of our past: "Woe filled times we must abide/& woe betide him who knows not this...Let us compile a list/Of the wrongs that man commits/Never shying ignominy/Clipped the wings, ducked the tail/Little boy, Nagasaki."

However it's not only the past they are concerned with as they capture the true price of the greed and materialism that plagues today a little later in the same song with the following lines, "That tenderness' needs must contrast/With tender, its negation." I don't think I've heard a condemnation of a system that puts selling above caring phrased so succinctly and directly before. Now, lest you think they're only a one note band, they also show themselves capable of being darkly humorous. "Oh Pterodactyl", track seven, is a darkly delightful examination of our genealogy. "There has of late been much debate/Bout what is round and what is straight/And why no politician/Could have a forebear simian/But oh pterodactyl/To you we owe a/Oh pterodactyl/A debt of honour/Oh pterodactyl/Although that Noah/Oh pterodactyl/Wants to disown ya."

It's hard to describe the experience of listening to Songs Unrecantable by Ersatzmusika simply because there's not much else like them around to offer up as a comparison. Their accents mark them as Eastern European, and there are elements of their music that reflect that heritage, but not in the way we've grown accustomed to hearing them as presented by world music labels. This is an edgier, more contemporary, and urban sound which, while it doesn't discount its heritage, uses it as its springboard to something new instead of just recreating what's been done before. It's only fitting though considering their song's lyrics, which are not only predominately in English to allow for more universal comprehension, are also far more relevant to today's world than what we're used to.

Recently we've seen how young musicians from backgrounds as diverse as Balkan and Roma have begun to make their sound more contemporary while maintaining a connection to their traditional music. Ersatzmuzika is on the leading edge of the movement intent on proving anything old can be new again and in the process are creating some great music.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:47 PM | Permalink

The St. Lawrence River runs from the Atlantic Ocean into Lake Ontario and over the years has carried everything from cargo to typhoid in the holds of the ships that have sailed up river to inland destinations. As the great river completes its westward journey to the lake, travellers pass through a stretch known as the 1,000 Islands. While some of these so called islands are no more than lumps of rock with a tree stuck on them, the region between Cornwall and Kingston Ontario on the Canadian side of the river and Oswego to Massena on the American, takes its name from the over thousand islands that dot the river and Lake Ontario.

The area is now a major source of tourist revenue for towns on both sides of the border as they ferry countless tourists each summer on cruises through the numerous channels that the islands have created merely by existing. Dotted throughout the system are occasional wonders like Boldt Castle, the never completed testimony of industrialist George Boldt's love for his wife Louise. When Louise died before it was finished George ordered all work stopped on the project and it lay abandoned for decades until the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority bought the property and turned it into a tourist attraction.

History, romance, and mystery are what attract people to the Thousand Islands by the bus load on a daily basis every summer, and it's those qualities that have been the inspiration for the southern Ontario based band Great Lake Swimmers' new CD on the Nettwerk Music Group label, Lost Channels. However don't expect many literal references to specifics like Boldt Castle or other geographical landmarks from the region as this is a much more impressionistic venture than that. Recorded at various locations throughout the 1,000 Island region, the band has tried to capture the sense of wonder, romance, and mystery that the locale has evoked in people's mind for generations.

Great Lake Swimmers' sound is built around lead vocalist Tony Dekker. There's an almost ethereal quality to his voice that make it ideally suited for these types of atmospheric creations. That's not to say his voice is thin or lacking in any way, rather it has an otherworldly quality making it sound like he's been able to peek behind the curtains where the emotional truths of events are normally hidden. Thankfully that's not just for show, as unlike other bands who strive for the profound and recite the prosaic, Dekker and company's material shows the presence of genuine empathy for the emotional context of a situation or location.

On first listen, Lost Channels, is difficult to get a read on as initially you can't help but be caught up by the flow of their music. Unlike most bands who always seem to be in a hurry to get to the end of their disc, this music seems content to carry you gently to its destination. Yet it's not just a matter of being washed away in a bunch of pretty sounds and bobbing along on the surface as there's a definite undertow pulling you down into each individual song. You may not realize what it is you're hearing on the first listen, but there's something about it that compels you to listen again and again; an insistent voice continually demanding your attention. Only then do you realize the distinct flavour that each song contains within what felt like a singular stream of music.

Like the St. Lawrence River itself which flows ceaselessly from the Atlantic Ocean but still takes on different personalities dependant on where it's passing through, the various points of call that are the songs on Lost Channels have enough individuality to make them stand out from the whole and each other. Although they each share the common element of Dekker's unique voice and share some composition elements, content is their distinguishing feature.

The song that first stuck out for me was the fifth track, "She Comes To Me In Dreams" mainly because it was the first song on the disc that sounded at all typical of the folk rock genre the band is supposed to be part of. Strong guitars are accompanied by equally pulsating drums, while pedal steel guitar and mandolin fill out the sound making it sound like a cross between old Buffalo Springfield and the Flying Burrito Brothers musically. It's on this track that you realize the strength of Dekker's voice, for instead of it being washed out by the music like those who contrive to have a mysterious voice, he comes through loud and clear without losing any of the qualities that make him unique.

It's almost if instead of its etherealness causing it to be drowned out by the music, it gives his voice a buoyancy that allows it to float across its surface. It's the same on each song, no matter whether he's accompanying himself on acoustic guitar and piano as on "River's Edge", or the full band is playing behind him. With the music and the lyrics being closely knit, so that the one is an extension of the other, it means that we are drawn to listen for him by a desire to hear how he expresses what the music implies with his words. "I am in an uproar" he sings in the opening lines of the tumultuous "She Comes To Me In Dreams", and the music is as well; a perfect reflection of the emotions expressed throughout the song.

Lost Channels was inspired by the mystery and beauty of the stretch of the St. Lawrence River known as the 1,000 Islands. While it may not be specifically about any of the islands in particular, it somehow manages to capture some of the depth of emotion that the area inspires in people. Music that attempts to elicit emotional responses from its listeners through impressionistic means runs the real risk of being either manipulative, sentimental, or cliched. Tony Dekker and the rest of Great Lake Swimmers not only avoid those pitfalls, but have broached new ground with their creation. The twelve songs listened to as a unit evoke an image of the river on its endless journey from the Atlantic into the heart of North America, while the individual songs enliven some of the specific emotions she has provoked in people's hearts and minds over the centuries.

There are occasions when being haunted is a good thing, and listening to Lost Channels is an example of how that is possible. It's not often that the spirit of something as vast and unpredictable as the St. Lawrence River is brought to life, but Great Lake Swimmers have managed to do just that with beauty and intelligence.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:21 AM | Permalink

Life has always been hard for the nomadic people who live in the deserts of the world. However the advance of civilization and all that accompanies it has seen what used to be a tough but possible existence become virtually impossible. This has been especially true for the Tuareg people of the Northern Sahara. What was once their territory has now been split up among five countries and severely curtailed by the encroachment of cities and mining facilities. From Algeria and Libya in the north, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso in the south, the Tuareg have gradually been forced to give up their traditional nomadic ways and try to adopt to a sedentary existence.

They have not surrendered without a fight though, and their history in post colonial Africa since 1963 has been marked by sporadic uprisings in an attempt to secure rights and maintain a hold on their territories. During the uprisings of the 1980's a group of young Tuareg receiving military training in Libya started performing music together first as a means of entertaining themselves and the other Tuareg in Libya, but then as a way of spreading the message of the rebellion among their scattered peoples. The songs spoke of what they had lost and what they hoped to regain, and were designed to inspire people to resist and fight for their rights.

This was the beginnings of Tinariwen, who have arguably become synonymous with the Tuareg in Europe and North America. Since then the band's founder, Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, and his first band mates have been joined by younger Tuareg musicians eager to learn the style of music he pioneered. Combining traditional tribal rhythms with the sound of the modern electric guitar might at first sound like an odd mix, but you only have to hear Tinariwen once to become a convert to their sound. Even better than listening is seeing, and the recently released Tinariwen: Live In London DVD produced by Independiente and World Village Music combines sixty-eight minutes of concert footage with interviews and documentaries to bring both the band and the people they represent to life.

The concert footage is from the group's performance at The Shepherds Bush Empire in London England in December of 2007. Watching them perform, even via a camera, one can't help but be drawn into the oasis of sound they created on the stage that night. To our eyes the composition of the group might seem odd; a djembe (hand drum), a bass player, up to three people on guitar, and two background vocalists isn't the line-up we've come to expect at a pop music concert. Than again you need to throw away any and all expectations you might have about music when watching and listening to Tinariwen, for they can't be defined by any of our genres.

As the lyrics of all the songs are sung in their native Tamasheq, it's the music the band makes that we focus on. As it turns out, the sound of their voices play a key role in the overall atmosphere of the music whether you can understand them or not. With each song following the pattern of the lone drum setting the pace and establishing each song's rhythm and the bass and rhythm guitars reinforcing what he's started and adding a melody for the vocalists to follow and the lead guitar to counter point, there is a certain amount of similarity to all the songs. However this does not mean they all sound the same, just that they share common elements, much like would happen in any style of music.

Tinariwne's music is deceptive, for initially it merely sounds like they are endlessly repeating the same musical refrain over and over again. Gradually, however, what might have become boring in the hands of others, becomes almost entrancing. For as the music works upon you it also takes hold of you, and becomes more compelling the more you listen to it. There's something about it that draws you deeper and deeper into the sound, until finally you are not only able to feel it affecting you physically, in that it makes you want to tap your feet and move to the rhythm, but emotionally as well.

If you're at all familiar with the Sufi Muslim tradition of the whirling dervishes where the dancers obtain a trance like state through music and movement, than the state that the music Tinariwen manages to induce in its listeners won't be unfamiliar to you as you undergo a similar transformation. Now obviously you won't be ascending to quite the level as dervishes, but the music will "carry" you in a way that pop music just isn't capable of doing. Of course watching them perform only contributes to this sensation, for during the songs individual members of the band allow themselves to be caught up in the music and through their dancing we are drawn even deeper into the music

Aside from the concert footage the DVD also contains an extensive interview with the band's leader and founder, Ibrahim, in which he discusses his life, the contemporary history of the Tuareg, the rebellion he took part in, and what he hopes to accomplish with the band now that armed uprisings are a thing of the past for him.(Although they're not a thing of the past for all Tuareg as oil exploration in Mali has provoked new uprisings because of how it threatens even further depletion of the Tuareg's traditional lands) Its a fascinating, and rather graphic, description of the poverty and hardship faced by his people, and his efforts to keep their culture alive through his music.

Tinariwen Live In London is a wonderful opportunity to see this incredible band in concert. Combining elements of traditional Tuareg music with modern electric guitar, Tinariwen are arguing the case for their people's survival by showing the world their culture is still vital and alive. Where once their lyrics might have inspired their fellows to take up arms, now they recount their history and remind Tuareg listeners of their cultural heritage. While we might not be able to understand the details of the message, the power of their performance is testimony to their strength of spirit and the importance of this band. They are currently touring the United States, check the World Village Music web site for dates and locations, and if this DVD is anything to go by, that's a concert you don't want to miss if at all possible.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:20 AM | Permalink

Have you ever noticed how there is always some great musician that almost no one's ever heard of who supposedly is better at what he or she does than all those who have become famous for playing the same style of music? It's amazing how ordinary so many of these supposed hidden great ones turn out to be, and the reason they never made it big becomes obvious as soon as you listen to them. However, once in a while one of these folk turn out to be the real deal, which is the case with a guy named Chris Darrow.

I don't know about anybody else but I'd never heard of him before I read the press release announcing the Everloving label was releasing the Under My Own Disguise Box Set consisting of Darrow's first two solo releases, Chris Darrow and Under My Own Disguise (from 1973 and 1974 respectively) on both LP and CD, plus a forty-eight page 12 X 12 inch photo book. The review copy I received was a single CD without any of the bells and whistles, but it did contain what really matters, the twenty-one tracks from the original releases. While it's true what I said about having never heard of Darrow before, reading through his biography made me realize how many times I had heard him without knowing it.

Even the briefest summary of his career sounds like a whose who of the country/rock genre and folk as Darrow was one of the founding members of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band back in 1967, played with Linda Ronstadt and Hoyt Axton, was the basest on Leonard Cohen's first album, and played fiddle and violin on James Taylor's Sweet Baby James. When he wasn't doing country/rock he was experimenting with psychedelic rock by co-founding with David Lindley Kaleidoscope, playing bluegrass with The Dry City Scat Band (again with David Lindley), and even had a stint with The Flying Burritos. It appears that he hasn't met a stringed instrument he doesn't like for he plays guitar, fiddle, bass, violin (which is different from fiddle playing), banjo, Dobro, lap steel, and mandolin for a start.

However its his own work that we're mainly concerned about here, and while there are a lot of great session musicians who can pick up almost any instrument and play it, very few of them ever go on to recording their own music, or if they do it ends up not being that special. I wasn't sure what to expect from Chris Darrow; his press materials mentioned one of my personal favourites Graham Parsons, but also made reference to that mockery of country rock, The Eagles. Much to my relief Darrow's music from that period was far closer to Parsons then The Eagles, while at the same time being almost completely different from most anything else I'd heard before.

While some of the songs are pure country, like "Albuquerque Rainbow" or "We're Living On $15 A Week", there's others that veer over towards the psychedelic jug band sound of the Grateful Dead. "Take Good Care Of Yourself" seems to have four different melodic patterns going on, starting with the reggae derived beat that drives the song and finishing with Darrow's laconic, country tinged vocals on the off beat. Somehow, although it constantly feels like its on the verge of imploding, this strange mixture not only manages to find its way to the end of the song, but it sounds great.

The rest of the songs from those two early solo releases show off Darrow's virtuosity as he plays mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, bass, fiddle, slide-guitar, dobro, guitar, sings lead, and produced them as well. Probably the only stringed instrument he doesn't play is the Celtic Harp played by Alan Stivell. "Devil's Dream" is a beautiful instrumental with Darrow accompanying Stivell's harp with his mandolin. The harp shows up again on the next track "We Don't Talk Of Lovin' Anymore", which sounds like Darrow's reached back and grabbed the Celtic roots of country music and combined them with American folk to create this aching and haunting song.

Listening to Darrow's music one can't help feeling cheated, because you realize just how severely country music and so-called country rock have compromised themselves in their attempts to be commercially viable. The irony is once anybody listens to any of Darrow's music they're not going be satisfied with anything from either Nashville or the bland tedium of the Eagles. Darrow's music has the honesty and passion of Graham Parson at his best and the musical inventiveness of the Dead, while drawing upon traditional folk, blues, early rock and roll, and psychedelic pop for inspiration.

Today we'd probably try and fit him into the roots rock or Americana genres, but realistically you can't cram him into any of those neat little categories. I mean what are you going to do with a guy who covers Hoagy Carmichael's "Hong Kong Blues" and then latter on has a song like "That's What It's Like To Be Alone"; a plaintive lament whose lead instruments are cello, harp, what sounds like a kazoo, and harpsichord. The fact that medieval and renaissance instruments like the rebec (and early stringed and bowed instrument), sacbut (an early version of the saxophone) and others equally obscure show up to rub shoulders with mandolins and guitars only make him harder to pin down.

It's one thing to go back in time and re-discover music by someone who's no longer with us and mourn what's been lost and regret over what could have been. It's another thing altogether to look back on an artist's career to help put his current output into perspective. Chris Darrow is still alive and well and producing compositions quite unlike anything you'll see and hear anywhere else. The web site Chris Darrow's Art contains examples of both his photography and current music projects and shows that he's still drawing outside the lines and charting his own unique course.

While some have seen fit to lump Chirs Darrow's work from the 1970's into the same category as the Eagles and other California so called country/rockers, it doesn't take long to realize just how erroneous a judgement that is. Even one quick scan through either Chris Darrow or Under My Own Disguise will tell you how much more exciting and innovative he was than anything else from that era. The early 1970's might have been primarily a wasteland of commercial pabulum when it came to pop music, but there was at least one shining light being hid under a bushel, and his name is Chris Darrow.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:41 AM | Permalink

Anybody familiar with even the most basic history of jazz and blues knows how they both have their origins in African tribal music that came to North America with slaves. When the slaves were Christianized by their masters those sounds formed the basis for the music of their churches, which in turn provided the inspiration for its secular cousins jazz and blues. Of course African American traditional, or folk music, isn't the only one to have inspired other genres. In Louisiana's Cajun music one can hear the sounds of Normandy that were brought south by the deported former settlers of New France, the Acadians, while traditional Hungarian, Romanian, and Roma (gypsy) music inspired the orchestral compositions of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok.

So it's only natural for a jazz musician whose origins are in South East Asia to want and go back to the traditional music of where he was born and use it as inspiration for a new series of compositions. Which is exactly what Fareed Haque has done with his latest group, Fareed Haque & The Flat Earth Ensemble, on the soon to be released CD, Flat Planet, on the Owl Studios label. Drawing specifically upon the folk music of Pakistan and North Western India (which is also the basis for today's Bollywood music as well) Haque's intent was to emulate fellow jazz musicians of African American descent embracing of, what he calls, "the groove of gospel music", by doing the same with "the groove of my own heritage". Punjabi folk music, he claims, is to India what gospel is to America - funky, fun, danceable and spiritual.

In order to achieve his goal Haque has augmented Flat Earth Ensemble's regular line up with some special guests. The band is already a mix of traditions featuring as it does players on the instruments we normally associate with jazz; guitars, saxophone, drums, keyboards, and bass as well as those playing tabla, dhol, and other South East Asian percussion instruments. However the addition of sitar and Hindustani violin allows them to expand their sound even more and explore melody as well as rhythm.

Anyone familiar with Bollywood musicals, especially modern ones, and movies like Bend It Like Beckham that have brought Indian music to Western audiences, will know that Haque isn't exaggerating with his description of the music as funky and fun. However if you come to this disc expecting to hear something along the lines of what you'd hear in one of those movies you'll be disappointed. Remember he's not trying to recreate either Bollywood, traditional folk, or even the dance hall music that has sprung up out of the fusion of Bhangra (the name given a specific type of folk and dance music from the Punjabi region of India) with hip-hop, reggae, and house music. What he's doing is creating music that draws upon those influences like jazz draws upon gospel.

While some of the tracks have beats and sounds that make them immediately identifiable as South East Asian, much like you can hear identifiable elements of funk in some jazz fusion projects, there are quite a few more where he's taken a couple of quantum leaps away from his source material to create something new. However, in order to ensure that listeners are able to appreciate, as much as possible, what he has created, Haque builds up to those pieces by beginning the disc with songs containing elements of either rhythm or melody that we can identify with. It's like he's showing us the various stages he went through in working with the music in order to develop his final sound.

Whether it's the track that leads off the disc, "Big Bhangra", with its insistent, tabla and kanjira driven beat that evokes the pulsating rhythm that propels dancers across the screen of a Bollywood musical, or "The Chant", incorporating sitar and violin to flavour the melody, the tracks at the beginning of the disc introduce the listener to the various elements that are used in the traditional music. However, even with these tunes he and the band are starting to expand and develop those aspects and give you an indication of the direction he will taking the music in.

Somehow or other, even at this stage, the music doesn't seem like a fusion of sounds, where one has been welded onto the other. Instead it feels like Haque and his band are taking individual elements - as described above - and seeing how they interact with the band's regular sound in order to develop something new. It's like they are asking themselves what does a sitar do to the melody line of a song and how can we create that feel without actually using its sound? Of course, as these songs are in of themselves great pieces of music, the music is nowhere near as clinical as that sort of description makes it sound. However, as we progress further into the recording and the band is pared back to only its original membership, we begin to feel the Punjabi influence more than actually hear Punjabi sounds in the music.

So by the time we reach the conclusion of the disc, three movements from "The Four Corners Suite"; tracks nine ("North"), ten ("South"), and eleven ("West"), Haque and the rest of The Flat Earth Ensemble have created a sound in which you can hear the debt owed to the folk music without actually hearing any of its distinctive elements. It's like you would never think to hear it that John Coletrane's music is related to African American gospel, as it has evolved so far from that sound.

Flat Planet by Fareed Haque & The Flat Earth Ensemble is a great disc that's not only filled with interesting and fun music, but gives you an insight into how a musician will develop a new sound. Derived from the traditional music of the Punjabi region of India and the surrounding environs, the sound he ultimately creates is not only appreciative of Haque's cultural background, but beautiful in its own right.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:07 PM | Permalink

My first introduction to the band Yes came via my older brother's record collection back in the early 1970's when I found his copy of the triple album set Yes Songs. The first thing that grabbed my attention about the collection was, like I'm sure so many other people, Roger Dean's art work. The futuristic, and fantastic, landscapes that decorated both the outer and inner sleeves of the album were sufficiently bizarre (even today his work from that time makes me think of giant toadstools) that it made me want to hear the music that inspired it.

In those days swirling synthesizers, twenty minute songs, and the use of orchestral instruments in pop music was still a novelty and so the music lived up to the expectations that the artwork created that this was going to be something different. However once the novelty wore off I quickly tired of their music. For while there was no question that they expanded the horizons of pop music's potential with their approach to composition and their incorporation of electronics, their material all began to sound the same very quickly. Instead of continuing to push the envelope of discovery that they had begun by continuing to experiment, they seemed to have settled on a formula and stuck with it.

That's not to say that I've ignored the band, or the solo careers of various individuals after they left Yes, in the years since then. Periodically I've checked out what they've been doing in the hopes that they've managed to recapture that spark of invention that inspired their first albums and that maybe one of them will have come up with something a little different or new. It was for this reason that I decided to check out the DVD, Tour Of The Universe, distributed by MVD Video, that was created out of a live concert that Jon Anderson, one time, and still occasional, lead singer of Yes, gave at the XM Satellite Radio station in Washington DC in 2004. While some of the concert was going to be comprised of older material from Yes and Anderson's solo career, it was the promise of new material that really interested me.

Anyone even slightly familiar with the music of Yes will remember Jon Anderson's very distinctive soprano voice. It was the perfect match for the keyboards and the ethereal sound that the band was after. While the voice hasn't changed at all, what has changed is Anderson's approach to the music. While the music was as lush and textured as one would expect from a former member of Yes, the focus was primarily on Anderson's voice and whatever instrument he was playing live. (As this was a real solo gig, all accompaniment was pre-recorded or pre-programmed)

The combination of Anderson's voice and one of either the semi-acoustic guitar, classical guitar, harp, or simple electric piano that he chose to play resulted in a sound that had more in common with traditional folk music of the British Isles than anything that Yes had ever produced. There had always been that underlying element to a lot of Yes' and Anderson's music in the past, but here he brought it into the foreground. Instead of electronic music that had a suggestion of folk undertones, the traditional music was brought front and centre and the electronics were used to generate an ethereal atmosphere evocative of the bygone era where the music originated.

Contributing to this atmosphere were the elaborate post production visual effects that had been added to the music. Although the concert was recorded live, almost every song has been turned into a video presentation that accents its theme. While some of these were slightly cliched, the video for "White Buffalo" was almost embarrassing in the way it presented Native Americans, others were beautiful in the way they were able capture the feelings generated by the music and bring them to life. It was those times, where the music and the visuals synchronized, that the connection to the older time that the music was striving to recreate was the strongest, and they were also some of the most powerful moments on the DVD.

Unfortunately, instead of letting us draw our own conclusions from the music and visuals that he has created for us on Tour Of The Universe Anderson is proselytizing a "philosophy". It appears that he has become fascinated with the concept of the "Golden Mean" and sees it as having some sort of bearing on the answer to the secrets of the universe. The Golden Mean, as far as I could understand from the special features included with the DVD, is a geometric formula that was first developed by Euclid in Classical Greek times that expresses the relationship of two parts of a whole with each other and with the whole. So, unfortunately, we are forced to endure quite a bit of what amounts to no more than what I would refer to as New Age nonsense being foisted on us while listening to the music.

If that isn't bad enough, even more annoying are the constant interruptions by somebody from XM Satellite Radio spouting metaphysical garbage about the power of satellite radio and how it will change the world. In fact we are subject to quite a number of commercials for the station throughout the course of the DVD, so whatever flow or sense of continuity that Anderson might have been trying to create with his music is disrupted. It's all very well and good that the concert was filmed in their studios, but they simply make themselves look silly and unprofessional by their constant interruptions.

The sound and visual quality of this disc are uniformly excellent as you have the option of 5.1 DTS Surround, 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround, or plain Dolby Digital Stereo and NTSC 16:9 wide screen display. As I mentioned before the special features focus on the wonders of the Golden Mean, and unless you've an interest in that subject they can easily be ignored.

In the end, in spite of the distractions, Tour Of The Universe will be a treat for people who are fans of Jon Anderson. The twenty plus songs in the concert include re-workings of vintage numbers from his days in Yes and new material being played for the first time. Even those who may not have been fans of the band, or who tired of the excesses of progressive rock, can't help but appreciate the sincerity and elegance of his performance.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:58 PM | Permalink

Cultural anthropologists and music historians have been making what are known as field recordings ever since Thomas Edison invented his wax cylinders more then a hundred years ago. A field recording is pretty much what its name implies, any recording that's made out "in the field", or in other words, the home location of the people who make the music. A majority of the time these recordings are done not with public consumption in mind, but as a means of obtaining samples for future study and analysis or of simply having a record that will preserve a sound for posterity.

However there are also those who make field recordings for the simple love of the music and hearing it played in the way its been played for generation after generation. The sound quality of these recordings are obviously going to be inferior to anything that's been recorded in the studio, but the compensation lies in the immediacy of the performance and the connection between the performer and the music. In his introduction to the book that accompanies his Art Of Field Recording Volume ll on the Dust To Digital label, Art Rosenbaum talks about how the context of memory, history, and associations each performer has connecting them to the songs he recorded them singing makes them makes them resonate with an audience.

Art should know what he's talking about for the subtitle of the collection is "Fifty Years Of Traditional American Music Documented By Art Rosenbaum". With recording equipment in hand Art has travelled across America for the last fifty years listening and recording music on back porches, living rooms, churches, and anywhere else that people gather to play, listen to, or dance to the music that their parents and grand parents taught them. The four CDs of music that make up "Volume ll"; "Survey", "Religious", "Accompanied Songs And Ballads", and "Unaccompanied Songs And Ballads", not only show the amazing diversity of music that has been and is being sung across America, it demonstrates that personal connection between performer and music on every track.

There's so much wonderful music in this collection that it's hard to know where to start when talking about it. "Survey", the first disc, contains twenty-nine songs from all across America representing everything from French Canadian fiddle tunes found in New Hampshire, Fidel Martin playing "La Grondeuse" (The Scolding Woman) that was recorded back in 1967, to Tony Bryant playing "Broke Down Engine", an example of Georgia blues that was recorded forty years later in 2007.

This first disc can make your head spin a little because one second you might be listening to the Cajun sounds of The Balfa Brothers and Nathan Abshire from Luisiana, and the next your listening to a teenaged Kirk Brandenberger recorded in the 1970's playing amazing fiddle tunes and sounding wise beyond his years when he talks about how he's not so sure whether he likes the fiddle competitions that he keeps on winning because of the hurt feelings of those who lose. (I hadn't read the background information on this track until after I heard it, and I thought Kirk was a much older man when I heard him talking and playing. Not only did his voice sound like that of someone who'd lived for a while, his playing did as well)

While the second ("Religious"), third ("Accompanied Songs And Ballads"), and the fourth discs ("Unaccompanied Songs And Ballads") each contain songs of a similar type, that doesn't stop them from being any less diverse than disc one. I have to admit that I've always preferred African American gospel music to old time country religious music save a few exceptions. However after listening to disc two of this collection I realize that was only because I'd rarely had the opportunity to hear the latter played by people with conviction. Listening to The Myers Family and Friends singing their version of Hazel Houser's "The River Jordon", originally written for the Louvin Brothers, you know these people feel what they are singing about as it sounds like each word is drawn out of their hearts.

Of course there are plenty of examples of the African American style of gospel music we're most familiar with, my favourite on the disc being "Lets Have A Family Prayer" performed by The Travelling Inner Lights, but there's also some examples of older styles of African American gospel. "A Charge To Keep I Have" by Rev. Willie Mae Eberhart, Sister Fleeta Mitchell and Eddie Ruth Pringle is done in the old style called "lining" where one person intones the words of a line and then the congregation repeats the line in song. This style of music also contains the unique feature of the congregation moaning the last line of the piece, which according to Rev. Eberhart allows an individual to feel the music deeper in their spirit. As listening to these three women sing that final line gave me chills I'd have to agree with her.

The last two discs contain music that probably more of us are familiar with, standards such as "Barbara Allan", "John Henry", ' John Hardy", and "On Top Of Old Smokey" to name only a few. But until you hear someone like Mose Parker sing "John Henry", growling out the lyrics and strumming and beating on his guitar like it was old John Henry's hammer, I don't think you can say you've actually experienced the song. I don't know any other way of describing what it was like to hear him sing it except to say that if he didn't live through that experience he knew somebody who did.

It's easy to forget just how potent a single unaccompanied voice can be until you hear somebody like Mary Lomax on the final disc of this set. By no one's definition does she have a refined voice, or even one that's easy on the ear, but it's easily the realist voice you'll ever hear. Listen to her version of "Fair And Tender Maidens" and you'll understand more about a woman's broken heart than any poet could tell you and hear more real emotion than if you combined all the modern pop divas together.

Art Rosenbaum is not only a music collector he's also a gifted painter, (the painting above is one of his) and each CD cover as well as the box set's cover is graced by one of his works depicting people playing the music that he loves so much. For Art Of Field Recording Volume ll is nothing if not a labour of love. Why else would you wander the backwoods roads and into villages in the hopes that you'll find someone who not only plays music but will let you barge into their living room with no introduction and record them? Reading the accompanying ninty-six page book, full of photographs and illustrations by the author and his wife and blurbs on each song and the people performing it, and Rosenbaum's descriptions of how this music is unique because of the love that each performer has for their music, you can hear his love for them and the music shine through.

Art Of Field Recording Volume ll is an amazing collection of music and people that can't help but make you feel better about the world. There are fewer and fewer people today who play music because of what the song means to them in terms of their family's history or the people who taught it to them. To have the opportunity to experience listening to that type of music is a rare treat and one that might not be available to us for that much longer. Thanks to people like Art Rosenbaum though we will at least have records like this one to help us remember just how good that music was.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:10 AM | Permalink

Almost every week without fail you can read somewhere about how the end of the CD is nigh. Digital downloads of Mp3s are no longer the way of the future, they are now. All those big cumbersome CD players are being replaced by teeny little I-pod clones that can hold hundreds if not thousands more songs than one 700mb CD ever could. At one time the downloading of music from the Internet was the province of hackers and considered an illegal activity. Now every major record company has got in on the act and new releases are routinely available to download from I-Tunes long before they come available in hard copy.

Of course this saves them tons of money, as there's no longer the need to create physical packaging. If an item is being downloaded what purpose is served by spending a small bundle on cover art or liner notes - simply post the stuff to a web page once and be done with it. Well maybe I'm old fashioned, but one of the things that I still miss most about LPs (Long Playing records for those folk under thirty who don't remember what came before CDs) is the great album art. CDs are such dinky little things that what you get is a postage stamp compared to the huge expanse of colour that covered LPs. Yet at least with the CDs you get something you can hold on to while listening to your music - some tangible proof that somebody, somewhere, went to some effort to produce something.

It turns out that I'm not as alone or weird as I thought I was in those thoughts as the independent Norwegian label Rune Grammofon is proving with the release of Money Will Ruin Everything: The Second Edition on February 3/09. Gathered together on two CDs, a poster, and an accompanying book, they are releasing their second package celebrating the various performers signed to their label. The two CDs contain samples from the various groups and individuals they've recorded and the book is chock full of interviews, articles, photos, album art, and other mementoes related to the past five years of their recording history.

To be honest I'd never heard of the label until I received the press release from their North American distributor, Forced Exposure, and had no idea what kind of music they produced. What attracted me was the fact that this little label had the balls to produce this type of package when nearly everyone else is going in the opposite direction as quickly as possible. I had to know more about this label produce that they would go to this much effort to celebrate their performers and who are the people responsible for making it happen.

According to an interview that's published in the book with label owner Rune Kristofferson it sounds like its pretty much a one man show with Rune doing all the work himself. Although it means he's unable to sign or record all the bands he wants to, it's a very deliberate effort on his part to keep the label small and not become another big corporation where money is the bottom line. I think that the sub-title of the collection, But The Music Goes On Forever tells you all you need to know about what motivates Rune and his efforts.

When I requested a copy of Money Will Ruin Everything I didn't know what to expect, but I thought it might be a collection of experimental and electronic music that verged on the edge of dissonance. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that although some of the music fell into that category, there was also a great deal of diversity to be found among the groups and individuals signed to the label. From the ethereal sounds of Susanna And The Magical Orchestra's version of Henry Purcell's "When I Am Laid" to Shining's cover of the old King Crimson cut "21st Century Schizoid Man" there's something here for every ear to listen to and be amazed by.

The overall impression you get from listening to the two disc set is that Rune Grammofon is a label where it's the quality of the music that matters, not the kind of music being played. Considering it's only one person making the decisions behind what gets recorded each year you'd expect some sort of pattern to develop that would give you an indication of his personal preferences when it comes to music. Instead what you get is a wider range of music than anything you'd find on any label with multiple producers and talent scouts.

As for what attracted me to request a copy of this collection in the first place, the packaging, that doesn't disappoint either. The book is an amazing collection of images from the last five years of Rune Grammofon's existence including everything from examples of some of the most interesting cover art you've seen together in one place, images of Oslo Norway where most of the recordings have happened, and photos of most of the folk who appear on the compilation. The articles that have been written for the package reflect how so many different people mourn the passing of cover art, and respect and admire the work that Rune Kristofferson is doing with his little label.

There's also a wonderfully chaotic atmosphere to the layout that captures the free spirit of the label. Absolutely nothing about anything you see, or hear, in Money Will Ruin Everything says "corporate", which to my mind is a good thing when it comes to music, especially popular music.

In this day and age when less is increasingly becoming the adage of all music production companies and album art is increasingly becoming a thing of the past, it's taken a small independent label from Norway, Rune Grammafon, to remind us what a joy it is to have something tangible to go with the music you love. Money Will Ruin Everything The Second Edition proves that not only does music not have to all sound the same, but you can still make the experience of purchasing it a pleasure for more than just one of your senses.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:25 AM | Permalink

It must get awfully tiring being a folk singer from Ireland sometimes. People find out where you're from and they immediately have an expectation as to what type of music you sing. You're going to sing songs about Ireland's pathetic past, or about the bad British, or maybe about the wee people. Heaven forbid you sing anything in English about something as mundane as friendship or life today.

Of course it must even be harder for women than men what with the proliferation of the Celtic Woman franchise. You have a name that sounds even halfway Irish and there going to want you dressed up in some God-awful evening gown singing oh so sweetly, while step dancing and playing the fiddle at the same time. For those of you out there who think along those lines I want to let you in on a little secret; people can be Irish and singers without having to sing about Ireland.

I'm telling you this because I don't want you picking up Lisa Hannigan's forthcoming CD, Sea Sew being released on February 03/09 by ATO Records in North America, thinking that you'll be hearing songs filled with references to the Emerald Island or potato famines. In fact, the closest thing to an Irish instrument on the CD is the violin played by Lucy Wilkins, but no matter how hard you look you won't find anyone playing the pipes or a tin whistle.

Now some of you might have heard Lisa's name before, and even have heard her sing, as she toured and recorded with Damien Rice for seven years, and has done a few other projects with other people, but this is her first solo recording. While her partnership with Rice didn't end on the best of terms, he fired her minutes before they were to go on stage for a show in Germany, it must have been an overall positive experience, as she doesn't seem to have had any problems handling the switch from back-up vocalist to lead. That may not sound like much of an accomplishment, but I've heard many a wonderful background vocalist fail miserably when they've been given the opportunity to take centre stage.

You have to be more than just a good singer and songwriter to be able to command the attention of a listening audience. I don't care how powerful a voice you have, or how ethereal you can sound, if you don't have any personality behind it, you just end up being another in a long line of interchangeable voices that the industry churns out year after year. Lisa Hannigan not only can write intelligent lyrics, she sings them in a voice that makes you want to listen to her. When you listen to Lisa sing, you realize that she would be a good person to have a conversation with as she not only has things to say, but the way she says them is interesting.

Now that I think of it, that might be a good way of describing Lisa's songs, conversational. That's not to imply anything negative about the music, because it's not meant to. What I mean is that you really have the feeling that she is communicating with you when she sings, not just singing at you. A lot of singers tend to proclaim how they feel and don't leave you any space to fill in the blanks with your thoughts. They're making so damn sure you know they have "Feelings" with a capital "f" that they blast you so hard with both barrels that you're left too stunned to really understand what the song was about.

That might be fine for a gospel number where all you're trying to do is instil in the listener the need to believe. However, in the case of a song about anything a little more two dimensional there has to be room for ideas to come through as well. On Sea Sew Hannigan has managed to balance ideas and emotions in her material. She displays a wonderful use of imagery that somehow manages to convey her feelings on both an intellectual and emotional level. Listen to the lyrics from the first track of the album "Ocean And A Rock" and you'll see what I mean.

It's a song about absent friends where she talks about wanting "a frame to put you in when you're and ocean and a rock away" and then continues with "I feel you in the pocket of my overcoat, my fingers wrapped around your words and take the shape of games we play". Printed on the page like that I guess they don't seem like much, but the way Hannigan delivers them make you feel not only how much she really misses her friend, but understand it on an intellectual level as well. Who wouldn't want to capture a piece of a friend in a frame that's more substantial than a picture that we could hold on to when they are absent. Or haven't you ever walked around clutching a letter from someone special in your pocket and been able to image them present?

The music accompanying Hannigan's lyrics is full of surprises, the really nice jazz influences for instance. The combination of instruments; Tom Osander drums, Shane Fitzsimons double bass, Donagh Molloy trumpet, melodica, and glockenspiel, Gavin Glass piano, Vyvienne Long cello, and the previously mentioned Lucy Wilkins on violin allow her and the band to come up with arrangements that not only meet the needs of the material, but allow for some wonderful innovations. There's a depth to the music that you wouldn't normally associate with pop or folk music that is the perfect augmentation to the songs the group performs and the expressive nature of Hannigan's vocals.

While on occasion there is a slight breathy quality to her voice that might become annoying if it were constant, she has such good command of her voice that she never allows that to happen. Like the other instruments being utilized on the disc, Hannigan gears her voice towards the needs of each individual song. Some singer's material ends up being limited because their voice can only do one or two things, but that's not the case here. Not only does Hannigan's voice have a substantial range but it can equally as convincing belting out tunes as whispering lyrics gently.

Lisa Hannigan's Sea Sew is a wonderful collection of beautifully arranged, intelligent songs, sung with grace and style. I know it might disappoint those who expect Irish singers to be a certain way, but the rest of us will cherish the release as an example of a talented signer and songwriter's work. Damien Rice could have perhaps found a nicer way to push her into starting her solo career, but we should be grateful that he did as Lisa Hannigan deserves to be in the spotlight.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:24 AM | Permalink

Like most North Americans my first exposure to Ladysmith Black Mambazo came through Paul Simon's Graceland recording. While the album featured other guest performers from various backgrounds, this amazing sounding male vocal ensemble from South Africa stood out from the rest. In those days, the mid 1980's, the idea of world music was still a novelty to most people, and the sound of their voices was enough to make us notice them. During the North American tour that followed Graceland's release they appeared on Saturday Night Live (SNL) with Paul Simon, and I was given a far too brief glimpse of this amazing vocal group's power.

In the ensuing years I've had plenty of opportunities to listen to their music on CD and each time have been amazed anew at their ability to harmonize and the sounds and atmosphere they are able to create with their voices alone. One of my biggest regrets is that I've never had the opportunity to see them perform save for that brief appearance on SNL nearly twenty-five years ago. Thankfully the perfect remedy is now at hand as on January 27th/09, Heads Up International will be releasing the DVD Ladysmith Black Mambazo Live. Recorded live from EJ Thomas Hall at the University Of Akron in Ohio, the DVD captures not only the music that bewitched me from their recordings, but their awe inspiring ability as live performers.

Those of you who have seen them in performance, either live or through concert footage, know what I'm talking about and how simply listening to them perform fails to capture their complete essence. I'm not just talking about the dance steps or hand movements that are a choreographed part of all their shows, although that is a key component. No, what you fail to experience when listening to their CDs is the brilliance of the energy they exude while performing.

At the beginning of the concert the group's founder and leader, Joseph Shabalala, talks about the power and strength of tradition and how when its properly rooted, people, like the strongest of trees, are able to withstand any storms the world can throw at them. Watching Ladysmith Black Mambazo perform is to see that personified, for what else could explain the mesmerizing influence they have on an audience. Without instruments, without fancy light shows, or any of the other accoutrements that we associate with music concerts these days, they hold us spellbound. When they sing they seem to be drawing upon the history of their land and their people and are expressing the feelings of joy that they derive from being who they are.

Even a deceptively simple song like the fourth track "Hello My Baby", that appears to be nothing more than a typical love song, evolves into something far more compelling than the song's title seems to justify. The lyrics aren't overly complicated or even stimulating, nor does the way the group arranges itself on the stage, a row of nine with the tenth, leader Shahbalala, standing alone in front, lend itself to supposing anything dramatic is about to happen.

Then they start to sing. You may not notice anything besides their wonderful voices, the amazing harmonies, and the effortless grace with which they incorporate small and large movements into their singing to start with, but as the song continues you can't help but be aware that something is gradually building. I know it sounds sort of "New Age" and flakey, but it begins to feel like they are weaving some sort of ritual that takes you inside the music so that at some point what's being said ceases to matter and the music takes on a life of its own.

Although Ladysmith Black Mambazo are still up there singing and moving, they are now accompanied by another presence - the music. Okay, I know what that sounds like, and let me assure you my days of pharmaceutical experimentation are long in the past, but there is a quality to their performance that verges on the hypnotic, akin to the chanting that one would associate with rituals used to evoke trances. The more you allow yourself to be drawn into the music the stronger its pull on you becomes, until you can't help but feel it as a distinct, living, and breathing entity.

One of the reasons that you are able to experience this sensation while watching this video is the magnificent job that has been done in filming the concert. The cameras have been situated such that you are right on stage with the performers. Imagine having seats at a concert where you're on stage with the band and have the freedom to wander around so that one moment your standing nose to nose with an individual and the next you have stepped back and are able to take them in as a full ensemble, and you'll have a good idea as to what a good job they have done.

Even more remarkable though was the quality of the sound recording. Like everything else these days you have the option of 5.1 surround sound, but it's what the cameras pick up that make it special. Periodically the members of the group dance while singing, and there are moments when their movements take them out of range of their microphones yet you can still hear their voices singing faint but clear. It's touches like this that really bring the magic of this concert to life in a way that I've never seen done before on DVD.

Included on the DVD are interviews with Shabalala, and other members of the ensemble. Shabalala gives an account of how the group was originally formed and a little of his own personal history. While these are interesting enough, it's the music that makes this disc truly remarkable. Singing in a mix of Zulu and English, unaccompanied by any instrument, a Ladysmith Black Mambazo performance has to be one of the purest forms of musical expression you can hope to experience. Ladysmith Black Mambazo Live brings that vibrancy into your living room via your television and DVD player.

If you've never had the chance to see Ladysmith Black Mambazo in person, this is the next best thing. In fact it might even be better, as the cameras capture moments that you could easily miss while sitting in the audience of a concert hall. Note for note this is probably one of the best concert DVDs that I have ever seen.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:33 AM | Permalink

Prior to the coming of the Spanish in the 16th century Peru was home to the sophisticated civilization of the Inca empire. Although the Inca had managed to subjugate their various neighbours and raise exquisite cities, they quickly fell to the Spaniards due to gunpowder, disease, and deceit. Once the conquistadors had sated their lust for gold it was time to start settling the territory, and since they had pretty much exterminated the local crop of potential slaves they had to rely on importing Africans like everyone else.

As has been the case throughout the Western hemisphere where Africans were used as slaves, the African population in Peru brought with them their own traditions, including music. However, unlike North America where it became one of the key foundations for popular popular music, in Peru their music, like their population, has remained segregated from the mainstream. African Americans in South America are routinely second class citizens, and anything associated with them is considered inferior, including their music. So, aside from sporadic recognition from outside performers like David Byrne's The Soul Of Black Peru released in 1995, little Afro-Peruvian music has been heard outside of its own community.

In 2001 four young Peruvians, Ramon Perez-Prieto, Grimaldo Del Solar, Rafael Morales, and Carlos Li Carrillo, from outside the Afro-Peruvian community formed the group Novalima as a way to experiment with their appreciation for both Peruvian and modern music, and in 2002 released their first disc, Novalima. They had invited various musicians from the Afro Peruvian community to participate and created a disc that mixed both traditional rhythms and contemporary sounds. When the disc went platinum in Peru, they realized they were onto something and in 2006, they released Afro internationally, and firmly establishing Afro-Peruvian music on the world scene as it spent ten weeks at number one on the US Collage Music Journal's Latin Alternative and New World charts.

The band has now expanded to include permanent Afro-Peruvian musicians; Juan Medrano Cotito, Mangue Vasquez, Milagros Guerrero, and Marcos Mosquera, as well as renowned Peruvian drummer and percussionist Constantino Alvarez. It's this group, plus a variety of guest performers from the Afro-Peruvian music community, who can be heard on the band's forthcoming release (January 13th/09 US & Canada and the 16th for the rest of the world) Coba Coba on the Cumbancha label.

On first listen the disc was almost overwhelming with its seemingly inexhaustible supply of rhythmic variations. My first impression was of one continuos song whose sole purpose was to enable me to forget it was minus twenty out and I was trudging through ice and snow. It was only once I had recovered from the initial exhilaration that the music inspired, and was able to listen to the disc with something approaching a critical ear, that I began to discern the distinctive elements of each song. For although all the tracks share a common foundation, what's been built up around it gives them each unique characteristics.

The opening track on the disc, "Concheperla" (Mother of Pearl or Pearl Shell) is a traditional Peruvian dance called a marinera that dates back to the 1800's. These "mariner" dances were composed as patriotic tributes to Peru's navy and were originally performed by brass bands. Originally transcribed and arranged by the great grandmother of band member Rafael Morales, its a perfect example of how the band reaches back into their country's history for inspiration without getting stuck in the past. While the trumpet you hear is a nod to the military bands of yesterday, the rhythm and beats are the sound of today and a recognition of the band's African roots.

"Concheperla" is a fitting overture to the rest of the disc in the way it successfully combines traditional, or older, melodies with modern musical technology and a variety of musical influences. While in this instance the foundation is a song from the dominant culture's history, some draw upon Afro-Peruvian songs for their inspiration and others the folk music of various regions around the country. However, regardless of a song's provenance, they are all subject to a creative process that gives them added depth and dimension by adding new layers of rhythm and different musical textures.

"Ruperta/Puede Ser", the fourth track on the disc is a great example of this as it takes an older song, "Ruperta", combines it with "Puede Ser" by the Cuban hip-hop duo Obesion, and mixes it all together in Jamaican dub style inspired by the likes of Mikey Dread (known for his dub work with The Clash). The result is something really spectacular, as the dubbing techniques serve to tie the two songs together rhythmically, without being overbearing or dominating the melodies. I have to say that normally I find dub music tedious and and annoying, but that's not the case here. Instead of making the song sound like someone with speech a impediment who was forced fed Quaaludes like dub normally does, here the dubbing is used to accentuate the beat like an additional percussion instrument and gives the song an extra spark of life.

In fact one of the most impressive parts of the disc is the manner in which they have combined the old and the new. Far too often when you hear of these types of projects you end up with little idea of what the original music sounded like as it ends up buried under the bells and whistles of the modern technology. Novalima never lose site of the original music and keep it front and centre all the time. They understand that you can't replace, or simulate, the power and passion of these songs with studio tricks or programmed beats. What they have done is use the technology to give the original music a platform on which it can be shown off to its best advantage.

It's not often you get to hear a funky bass line accompanied by traditional percussion instruments like the jaw bone of an ass or cajon (a hollow box with a resonator hole like a guitar's) like you do on "Tumbala", or hear the words to a poem describing the history of Afro-Peruvian music turned into a song like you do in "Africa Lando", but Coba Coba is replete with moments like that. Not only does this disc shine a spotlight on music that has been neglected for far too long, but it does it in such a manner as to make it appealing to a wide variety of people without diluting any of its passion or diminishing its integrity.

Novalima sets the standard for all other bands wishing to bring modern technology into play when adapting traditional music. This is brilliant stuff that will not only keep you dancing, but will hopefully open some eyes to the ongoing discrepancies in Peruvian society.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:54 AM | Permalink

If music from countries outside North America and England is considered world music, and music by people from English speaking North America is considered popular music, what would you call music performed by a band whose lead singer was born in the States to parents originally from the Punjab region of North India, who moved to the South of France when she was ten, and now lives in San Francisco again? In an industry where an entire band can have been born and bred on the streets of Brooklyn, and still be referred to as world music I guess the answer is obvious, but it does beg the question - which "world" are they talking about?

The one Rupa, the lead singer of Rupa & The April Fishes, was born into in San Francisco, the world her parents left behind in the Punjab, or the new world they all discovered in Aix-En-Provence in southern France? With the majority of the songs on their first release, ExtraOrdinary Rendition on the Cumbancha, being sung in French, the answer seems obvious, yet there's a lot on more going on here then what first meets the ear.

While it's true that some of the songs contain elements that are associated with French music; the drawn out sound of the accordion, a slightly melancholy air, and a passionate vocalist. Since the days of Edith Piaff these have been hallmarks of French chancon style of performance, but that's only one of the elements that have gone into the music you hear on ExtraOrdinary Rendition. There's latin beats mixing with the swing of a gypsy violin while a guitar strums in a style reminiscent of American folk, and a cello dances in the background.

Now there are plenty of bands that have taken to combining elements from various styles of music lately that gives their music a transcontinental flavour, but there is something about what Rupa & The April Fishes do that distinguishes their music from others who attempt something similar. It's not obvious at first, but gradually you realize there is a sensibility at work in this music that's not prevalent in others. Others who I've heard combine musical styles seem compelled to attack with their music, as if the only way they can succeed is by breaking down any barriers an audience might have preventing them from accepting it.

Rupa & The Fishes have taken another approach. While some of their music is every bit as high tempo as other bands, there is also a subtlety about it that makes it feel less like a direct assault upon your senses and more like a gradual seduction. With the majority of the lyrics being sung in French those of us with limited language skills are forced to rely upon the music and the sound of Rupa's voice, the lead vocalist, for our clues as to the nature of each song. However listening to the songs, one gets the feeling that the band has taken that into account. The compositions are such that the sounds of the instruments and Rupa's voice work together to create an overall emotional landscape that tells us enough about each song's nature we can appreciate them without understanding the lyrics.

Of course it doesn't hurt that the band members seem to have a innate ability to express themselves with their instruments as if they were singing. In some ways this even gives them an advantage over groups that sing in a language listeners are familiar with, as they don't have to worry about a song's lyrics being taken literally. As an audience member I know that I will automatically let my feelings be dictated by the meanings I give to the words I hear a band sing no matter what subtext the music might be supplying. Here, where the vocals are merely another instrument generating sound, we are forced to listen to all the nuances that the music generates in order to try and understand what a song is about.

In fact when you read the translations of the lyrics that are provided with the disc, you realize it wouldn't matter too much even if you spoke French fluently, as they are more like abstract poetry than the song lyrics most of us are accustomed to. Like the music, they are a series of thoughts and images that work together to create an overall all impression that the listener will carry away with them. Take track three for example, "Poder", which translates as "Power", and the way the lyrics sound. "the fish can/the wind can/even money/but not me/the song can/love can/even a little kiss can/but not me."

The lyrics, which incidentally are sung in Spanish, are accompanied by an upbeat, latin influenced, rhythm that seems to be offering a challenge to whoever Rupa is addressing with the song. You thing you know what power is, but what can any of us know what power is? All of these things, the items she lists in the song's lyrics, they have power, but we don't. Without understanding the lyrics of the song it sounds like she is being defiant, either daring somebody to do something or dismissing their authority over her. The expression in her voice and the challenge offered by the music exemplify the scorn the song's lyrics express about people's ideas of power, and the desire to hold power over other people.

Rupa lives in San Francisco, sings in French, Spanish, and English, in a band whose musical influences are from nearly every part of the globe. For a change this is a band whose sound you can call world music without it being a misnomer as they represent the sounds of more than just one country. Yet what makes them truly world oriented is that it doesn't matter whether or not you understand the language they sing in, because you can still understand what their music is about. Like true citizens of the world their music speaks to all of us and is in a language that all can understand.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:55 AM | Permalink

It used to be you could safely walk into a record store and pick up a long playing record of Irish, zydeco, klezmar, or gypsy music and know what you'd be getting. You could tell just by looking at the covers that those were simpler times. Everybody was wearing their colourful ethnic clothing and had big happy smiles plastered across their faces. You knew who was who and what was what; gypsies were gypsies, Jews were Jews, and you would never confuse the music they played with anything somebody from New Orleans or County Warwick released. Now, not only do you have to buy your music on those CD things, where you can barely see what the people on the cover look like let alone what they're wearing, you can't even be sure if you pick up a recording of gypsy music it will sound like its supposed to sound, like the way you want it to sound.

Its all the fault of that damned, so-called Irish band, The Pogues. They were the ones who first started messing around and changing people's attitudes towards ethnic music. Making them believe that it didn't have to be played the same way over and over again. That it was all right to sing about contemporary issues instead of the great events from hundreds of years ago that were truly meaningful. Well it was bad enough when it was only Irish music, but now its spread everywhere. Punk zydeco bands who play klezmar music, klezmar bands that use hip hop techniques and gypsy violins, and now, worst of all, punk Gypsy music.

All you have to do is listen to the upcoming release from the Serbian gypsy band KAL, Radio Romanista, being released on Asphalt Tango Records January 2009, to hear an example of how deeply the influence of those miscreant Pogues has spread. First off, just look at the way the members of KAL dress. Instead of wearing the colourful costumes of their people, they dress in black. What kind of statement does that make? Haven't they ever seen pictures of how they're supposed to dress, don't they have any respect for what we expect gypsies to look like?

Then there's the music they play. While they might play all the right instruments; violin, accordion, guitar, percussion, and drums, it sure doesn't sound like what its supposed to sound like. I don't care what the lead singer says about "stereotypes" and "cliches". Where does he get off saying things like, "If you expect from me music because I am a Gypsy then I'll do it but don't think that I'll not use it to say very important things about my people - Don't just look at us as entertainers - we're no longer going to stay silent and entertain you." That's all very well and good, but what kind of gypsy music sounds like a run a way train, or is accompanied by that hip-hop, beat box, rhythm that you usually hear in dance halls. They have the gall to take so much pride in the fact that they've even given it a name: Rock n' Roma!

Even the name of the band, KAL, is depressing as it means black in the gypsy language, and than there's the songs themselves and what they talk about. It's a darn good thing they don't sing very many songs in English I tell you. Who wants to hear songs like "Radio Romanista" which imagines a gypsy country that has a national radio station. Gypsies don't have a country - they wander, how could they be gypsies if they had their own country - don't these guys know anything? Or what about "I'm A Gypsy", the title sounds promising enough, but then the lyrics: "I'm a gypsy, I'm looking for my place under the sun, I have no home, my country is the entire road" Well, duh? Everybody knows that - but he doesn't sound happy about it, it sounds like he wants a place to call home. What kind of real gypsy complains about not having a home or a grave?

They don't even call themselves gypsies these guys in KAL, they call themselves Roma, which is really confusing as it makes them sound like they either come from Italy or from Romania. Why can't they be happy being called gypsy like we've been calling them for years? Don't they understand anything about tradition? Have they no respect for what we expect from them? What ever gave them the idea that we wanted to know about their reality? That they fall in love, get their hearts broken, or that their lives are anything at all like ours? Why can't they be happy being what we want them to be?

No, they insist upon joining the twenty-first century and changing their music to suit their needs so it expresses how they're feeling. Who wants to know that they live in segregated neighbourhoods, that their houses get burnt out from under them, and that they are still harassed and tormented wherever they go? Why can't they sing songs about caravans, dancing round the fire, and other traditional stuff like they show in the movies? Haven't they ever seen King Of The Gypsies or listened to Cher? Aren't they modern enough for them?

It's a sad commentary on the state of the world when you can no longer count on ethnic groups to behave the way you want them to. Radio Romanista by KAL only confirms this disturbing trend of people taking charge of their own lives and justifying it with words like pride and self awareness. Not only do they expect us to call them by the name they use for themselves, Roma, they expect us to accept the fact that their music can change to reflect the world around them just like everybody else.

I don't know about anybody else but I blame it on the Pogues. Blame it on the Pogues, blame it on the Pogues, you'll feel so much better, just blame it on the Pogues. (With apologies to Kris Kristofferson)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:57 AM | Permalink

One tends to forgive a lot when a people's history has been as fraught with difficulty as has the Irish. Although Irish nationalist invective is aimed towards the English these days, they are merely the most recent of invading forces that swept across the Islands to the west of mainland England. According to legend even the Celts were invaders at one time, sweeping the original inhabitants away, only to be pursued themselves by the Romans, who in turn were raided by Saxons and Vikings alike before the English even got it together to invade. Even the supposed hero of Ireland, St. Patrick, was an invader, as he was second a generation Roman born in Britain who led an army into Ireland to purge the traditional religion and ensure the ascendancy of Christianity.

So it's easy to understand and forgive them if they tend to get maudlin and sing songs that celebrate their occasional victories over an enemy, or getsentimental over the sound of a clear tenor voice singing of the glories of a dark haired woman's sparkling eyes. Of course there's a world of difference between the Chieftans and The Clancy Brothers singing the old songs, and The Pogues tearing a hole through tradition and singing about Irish life in the twentieth century, but it's all from the same tradition, so to try and generalize about Irish music is as dangerous as it is to try and generalize about anyone's culture.

On the other hand it gets a little difficult not to when in recent years we've seen an upsurge in the marketing of big market Celtic extravagances like Riverdance and its offshoots. One of the more successful successors of the dance shows has been David Downes', the musical director of Riverdance, latest show Celtic Women. Currently featuring four vocalists (there have been as many as five) and a violinist backed by traditional Irish instruments, a choir, and a orchestra, the show is a mixture of Irish songs, show tunes, contemporary, and original material in one glitzy package.

Since its inception in 2005 the show has sold millions of CDs and DVDS, made television specials and appearances, performed countless live shows, and saw their first CD hit number one on the Billboard world music charts for sixty-eight weeks. This year Manhattan Records has released a compilation DVD, The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection, that brings together excerpts from the three television shows; Live From The Helix Dublin, A New Journey: Live From Slane Castle, and A Christmas Celebration which acts as a retrospective of their career to date.

Over the course of twenty-five tracks the DVD gives you a very good idea what it must be like to attend one of their shows, even though the Slane Castle show was staged and not shot live, as they capture the total experience with orchestration, lights, sets, and audience interaction. Of course the other thing it does is give you a very good idea of what they are like musically. While there is denying that all the women are gifted musically, the music carefully orchestrated and arranged, and the individual soloists within the accompanying band very talented, the show is designed to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Therefore many of the rough edges that can make folk music in general, and Irish music in particular, exciting, have been smoothed away for easy digestion.

The choice of material is the first clue as to the direction the show will take as it includes such chestnuts like "Danny Boy", a composition by David Foster called "The Prayer", "Somewhere Over The Rainbow", and other songs taken from the safe and comfortable middle of the road catalogue that could fit into the play list from any adult easy listening station without making waves. The only occasions on the disc where the music even approaches obtaining some of the wildness and abandon that one associates with the best of Irish music are the violin solos by Mairead Nesbit as she careens around the stage wailing away on her fiddle. In fact her performances, especially on "Shenandoah - The Contradiction" where she's joined by both percussionists on bodhran, are probably the best things musically about the DVD.

Of course in some ways the choice of material isn't really the appeal to these concerts, it's the spectacle that captures the imagination and captivates the audience. When you have anywhere up to six very attractive woman dressed in gowns appearing on exotic sets with a castle as a backdrop, like at Slane Castle, illuminated by lights and blazing torches, and backed by not only an orchestra but gifted individual musicians, you can't help but get caught up in the moment at times no matter what the music is. The package is designed to elicit an emotional reaction from the listener, and the DVD does this with far more success than a CD ever could as you are exposed to the full weight of the show.

Technically the disc is superlative, with Dolby digital sound and wide screen picture. Although, since the original shows were shot in the days before high definition, and apparently shot directly to video, you still get the occasional colour distortion in the background from the glare of the lights. As far as special features aside from the main body of the disc, they've included a documentary that tells how the show Celtic Women came about, behind the scenes looks at the recording of the three television specials and the their second CD, and interviews with each of the regular cast members, David Downes, and various other members of the production company.

There can be no doubt that Celtic Women is a phenomenal success the world over, selling out shows in Europe, North America, and Japan and continuing to sell CDs and DVDs by the bushel load. However, the music you hear on this DVD, and I'd have to assume on their CDs, isn't what you'd hear scratched out on fiddle and guitar down at the pub on a Saturday evening, and you're not going to hear anything even mildly controversial, or even precious little Gaelic. Light and ethereal, the music is as fluffy as a cloud and generally as substantial as candy floss; neatly packaged in a show designed to maximize emotional reactions and minimize thought. As musical extravagances go Celtic Women The Greatest Journey: Essential Collection works remarkably well, as an example of Irish or Celtic music on the other hand, aside from occasional flashes of life, its a pale imitation at best.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:14 AM | Permalink

I'm sure we've all seen or heard various documentaries about the history of popular music in North America that have traced the roots of jazz and blues music back to the tribal sounds of Africa. Or how the blues developed out of the songs, "hollers", that the slaves used to sing while working in the fields that were a mixture of old tribal rhythms and the Christian hymns that the slave owners forced down their chattel's throats in an attempt to pacify them. However, most of us are probably unfamiliar with how the music that developed in both North and South America returned to Africa to influence the popular music scene in various West African nations.

In the 1980's, thanks to Peter Gabriel's World Of Music and Dance (WOMAD) festival, African popular music started to come the attention of European and North American audiences. Performers like King Sunny Ade from Nigeria exposed us to the previously unheard of genres high life and juju; guitar driven, high energy, and exuberant music that kept people on the dance floor for hours on end. However Nigeria was only the tip of a widespread pop music scene in Africa. Thinking that King Sunny Ade represented African pop music would have been as stupid as thinking a blues musician from Chicago represented all of North American pop music.

Benin lies on the West coast of Africa and butts up against Nigeria in the south, Niger in the east, and equally tiny Togo to the north. What distinguishes Benin from its neighbours is the fact that it happens to be home to Vodoun - or as we know it over here Voodoo. So it should be no surprise that the popular music of Benin draws heavily upon the rhythms of Vodoun rituals, but what is surprising is the other influences that have come into play. The Vodoun Effect: Funk & Sato From Benin's Obscure Labels 1972 -1975 a recent release on the Analog Africa from Germany, that has collected together fourteen tracks by one of Benin's most popular bands, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou. Recorded in the 1970's on a variety of small independent labels, they show not only the Vodoun influence but how music from both South and North America found its way back across the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the publicity material that came with the disc in the late 19th century a group of freed slaves from Brazil returned to Benin and over the years their dances and songs were incorporated into Beninese ritual, and from there worked their way into the popular culture. In the 1960's and 1970's American soul and funk music started making its presence felt in Africa, and along with the sounds of pop music from neighbouring Nigeria were assimilated into the popular music scene in Benin.

When you listen to Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou you have a choice, you can either try and analyse the individual songs in an attempt to discern the particular influences that are present in each song, or you can just sit back and enjoy the ride. Of course there are times when you just can't help noticing obvious influences, especially when the songs are as radically different from track to track as they are on this disc. One moment you'll be listening to a song that you swear if it continued a second longer would have sent you off into a trance the rhythm is so hypnotic, while the next, you can't help feel like you're listening to 1970's era Santana the Latin groove becomes so strong.

Now a lot of these songs were recorded early in the band's career and you get the feeling in some instances that they are trying out a new sound. However, on some of the tracks, and these are the ones that are my favourites, they have started to synthesize the various influences into their own sound. While you can still hear the occasional distinctive trait; the staccato horn sound of funk, an underlying rhythm that sends a peculiar shiver up your spine, or an electric organ riff that sounds like it might have strolled over from "Black Magic Women" to sit in for the take, the band shows they weren't going to be content just being imitators of other people's sounds.

It's interesting to hear the difference between various tracks on the CD as they show the band's sound developing and becoming more sophisticated. On the first track, "Mi Homlan Dadale" they sound like any number of African pop bands, not even incorporating any of their own traditional rhythms into the music. By the sixth track, "Se Tche We Djo Mon", and the seventh track, "Dis Moi La Verite", your hearing an amazing progression in their playing. The latter of the two is especially impressive for you can hear the beginnings of a successful marriage between the hypnotic rhythms of Vodoun, the distinctive sound of a latin melody, and the brassiness of American funk. It still sounds a little like three different styles of music are being played at once, but you can tell what the band is trying to accomplish, and it in no way diminishes the fact that the song is a hell of a lot of fun to listen too.

The only drawback to The Vodoun Effect is the sound quality on some of the tracks is not very good. This has nothing to do with the contemporary engineering, but with the fact that when the band originally recorded it was often with everybody piled into the studio gathered around two microphones. It's actually remarkable at how well balanced the sound is considering the size of the band and the number of instruments involved in making the recordings. The only real problem that crops up is distortion of the vocals and the horns, as they both occasionally sound like the levels were far too high when they were recorded.

This is a fascinating recording of some extraordinary music, by a group of highly skilled and dedicated musicians. We still know so little about African popular music over here in North America, that any recordings that shed light upon something that hasn't received wide spread exposure yet is interesting as well as important. It's also nice to know that Analog Germany is making plans to release more music by Orchestre Poly Rythmo de Cotonou from later in their career that should show the band's talent in a far better light. If they're this good raw, we're going to be in for a real treat when the next batch of recordings are released, the only pity is that it's taken so long for their music to find its way back over the ocean again.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:33 AM | Permalink

Music has always had the power to inflame people's passions. From ultra nationalist songs that whip up hatred against others to religious music that inspires devotions, music has the potential to have the strongest and most immediate emotional impact of all the arts. Therefore, it's little wonder that down through the years music and songs have been written to express both dissatisfaction and appreciation for the way the world is going.

While I'm sure you can find examples of protest songs from almost every era of civilization, just check out the Irish songs about the British occupation, it really wasn't until the twentieth century that English language protest songs began to take the shape that we are familiar with. Most of the early ones dealt with the plight of the working class in North America and called for the establishment of unions. As the twentieth century progressed, and fell into the depression of the 1930's, songs the plight of the poor farmers and the social/political system that could allow the crises to happen began to be heard.

However it wasn't until after WWll and the popularization of folk music that protest songs began to obtain widespread popularity in English speaking North America. With first the civil rights movement in the United States, and then the war in Vietnam, causing people to question the moral authority of government and society's inequities protest, songs and the people who sang them gained widespread popularity. Country Joe McDonald's "Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag", and Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A Changing" were along the lines of typical folk songs, while Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers Of America" showed that the protest song didn't have to be limited to just folk singers.

Yet, after only a relatively short time the protest song's popularity died again. It seemed that when the impetus created by the unique combination of events and circumstances that had fostered the movement for social change died, so did interest in listening to songs about what was wrong with society or other people's troubles. While punk bands like the Clash, or musicians like Billy Bragg made no bones about their politics and did their best to motivate their listeners, the majority weren't interested. Like punk, rap and hip-hop had the potential to speak for the disenfranchised, but it was co-opted until now it glorifies the very things it originally protested against. (Check out the the lyrics of any Grandmaster Flash song from the early eighties and compare it to what's being sung as rap now and you'll see what I mean)

Now that doesn't mean that protest music is dead, it just means you have to look a little bit harder to find it. As a public service the good people at Ruf Records in Germany are releasing a new compilation CD of protest music recorded in the last few years. Rich Man's War: New Blues & Roots Songs Of Peace And Protest, to be released in the United States and Canada in the new year, is a collection of topical blues songs that were written in response to the first American presidency of the 21st century. While Ruf Records is distributing the disc, only two of the performers appearing on the disc are from their label, as producer Kenneth Bays has searched out recordings by as diverse a group of blues players as he could find. You'll notice that some of the songs seem to stretch the definition of blues somewhat, which explains the slightly unwieldy title, but does nothing to diminish the quality of the music.

I guess it only shows how unpopular protest songs have become when of the twelve songs on the disc not only have I only heard two of them before, "Follow The Money" by Bob Brozman and "Jesus And Mohammed" by Candye Kane, but I only recognized the names of two of the other musicians who had contributed to the recording; Guitar Shorty and Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater. Which is a great pity, because not only are the songs on this disc all intelligent, and sometimes quite funny, but even better, they are all good pieces of music. Protest music has received a bit of bad rap over the years for being painfully earnest and painful to listen to as its been wilfully misrepresented by those who'd rather we'd not be reminded that the world isn't quite the way the government depicts it.

Needless to say as the songs collected here are all in direct response to the Bush administration and its policies their primary focus is on topics that have dominated the newspapers since his election. What was nice to see was how each of the performers found a way to address the issue they chose to talk about without resorting to making villains out of people like the soldiers being sent overseas, but attacked the policies and motivations of those who made the decision to send them. Even better, there are a couple of songs that don't even resort to blaming anybody in particular, but instead seem to be shaking their heads with regret at the whole damn situation.

Two of the best songs on the disc are the previously mentioned "Jesus And Mohammed" by Candye Kane and "A Time For Peace" by Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater. In the former, Candye Kane imagines a conversation taking place between the two prophets and them shaking their heads in disbelief at how their followers could have screwed up their respective messages so badly. "This isn't what we wanted, both were heard to say, how could our words of love lead us to this day/ Oh my children don't you understand, misery and hatred won't get you to the promised land". Sung along the lines of a country/blues gospel number, and especially with Candye Kane's big and expressive voice, the song is a particularly effective condemnation of the hatred generated by all those who would have their followers on either side believe they are fighting a holly war.

Like Candye Kane, Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater has turned to the gospel roots of blues music for his song, complete with an echoing organ solo and church choir. "How many politicians have to lie? How many good soldiers have to die?". What makes this song so effective is the stark simplicity of its message, "It's time for love/It's time for peace/It's time for war...to cease", and the genuine passion that he and the choir are able to bring to what they are saying. "A Time For Peace" is a genuine prayer for peace that transcends individual religions or politics and reminds us if we don't keep love in our hearts we're no better than those we criticize for making war.

Rich Man's War is a collection of intelligent, musically interesting songs written in response to events of the last eight years. You probably won't have heard many of the songs on this disc performed before, and you may not have even heard of some of the performers themselves. However, after eight years of listening to one version of events and maybe starting to feel a little uncomfortable with what you've been told, don't you think it's about time to give some other opinions a chance? This CD represents that chance - maybe you should give it a listen.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:37 AM | Permalink

Even centuries after an empire's fall, traces of that civilization can be found throughout the geographical area that it once occupied. Roman ruins dot the landscape from Great Britain to the Middle East, the decorative arts of the Ottoman Empire can still be seen throughout Spain, and the Taj Mahal in India is a permanent reminder of the Mogul Empire. However, if you want to see examples of the influence that's still being exerted by some of these great powers look at the similarities in traditional music among the countries they once occupied or that came under their sphere of influence.

This is especially true of the various cultures that at one time or other were ruled by the Ottoman Empire of Turkey. Aside from any of their own musical traditions that they might have carried with them as they expanded across Europe and the Middle East, they also brought with them any of the influences they may have absorbed along the way. From Egypt to Spain and throughout the Balkans enough similarities in music can be found that it's possible for contemporary musicians with roots in any of the cultures touched by the Empire to feel comfortable playing and adapting the music of another region that had come under their influence.

This was really brought home to me when I listened to the self-titled CD by the duo who make up Teslim. While violinist Kaila Flexer draws upon a background in Jewish music, oud, and a multitude of other plucked string instruments, player Gari Hegedus combines his Eastern European heritage, Hungarian, with a love for the traditional instruments of the Middle East. As a result the music on their CD, Teslim, not only reflects their individual heritage and interests, but is an example of the common ground that exists between the music of different cultures.

Would you have considered it possible for a traditional Sephardic Jewish melody in praise of God, "El Meod Na'ala" ("God Is Very Divine") to be played in such a manner that it would be reminiscent of Turkish Sufi music? Maybe not, unless you happen to remember that the Sephardic Jews inhabited the Iberian peninsula, Portugal and Spain, in relative peace when it was part of the Ottoman Empire. While it's highly doubtful that they would have written music that was in that style, the music that they developed during that time would have reflected the culture around them.

Listening to "El Meod Na'ala" you'd never know that it hadn't been originally written the way its performed on Teslim as it sounds perfectly natural. There's none of the forced sound that you so often hear when people try and combine musical traditions that have no business being put together. In fact unless you knew that it was made up of a melody from one culture and the rhythmic pattern of another you couldn't tell as they fit together so seamlessly. While not all the of the songs on the CD draw upon multiple traditions, each of them could very well have its origins in one or other of the countries that at one time was under the sway of the Ottoman Empire.

While that may explain why the divergent styles being played on this disc work so well, it doesn't even come close to describing the experience of listening to the music these talented musicians and their occasional guests perform. I have listened to any number of CDs by extremely talented musicians playing all sorts of music on an incredible array of instruments, but very rarely have I heard music that has managed to affect me in the way this disc did. There is a haunting quality to everything they played that seemed to speak to me on an emotional level that nothing I've heard before has done in the same way.

Have you ever been somewhere, for me it's usually somewhere in nature - deep in a forest or by a large body of water early in the morning - where you are reminded of just how truly magical the world is? Where for a few precious moments you are able to forget everything about the mundane world we usually live in and are transported outside of yourself. Listening to this CD had a similar affect on me. There was something about the sounds of the instruments and the rhythm they followed that elicited the same sensation of being part of something far bigger than my own life and its trivial concerns like when I'm surrounded by the wonders of nature.

It's not like the songs are about great spiritual matters or anything like that, or there has been any attempt on the part of the musicians to create that type of atmosphere. I think the closest they come to writing about spiritual matters would be the song I mentioned earlier, "El Meod Na'ala" and another piece called "Knight Of Cups", inspired by the Tarot card of the same name. Most of the other songs are about more mundane matters, like Gari's granddaughter learning how to walk, "Kiana's Waltz", or inspired by the rhythmic patterns of other songs as was the medley of "Elk"/"High Tide"/"Yetierre", where the first two songs were inspired by the time signature of the last.

It's not even as if the music is able to overwhelm you with its power either, as there only at most four people playing at a time, and the majority of the time only two, Perhaps, though, that's part of the answer; the simplicity of the sound allows it to be a more direct and personal experience than we're used to having with music today. With the most elaborate arrangement on this disc involving three violins, a couple of different plucked instruments, and a frame drum, there is an immediacy to this music that you don't often experience anymore.

Normally we are listening to multiple sounds that we have to sort into a form inside our head that will allow us to comprehend them. Whether we want to or not that means we are bringing our intellect into play and erecting barriers between our emotions and the music. Here the music has the opportunity to "speak" directly to us on an emotional level as we are not having to "interpret" or rationalize it. Haven't you ever noticed how much more powerful a solo instrument is, even though its quieter than the entire band or orchestra? Well it's the same situation here, but for the entire length of each song instead of just for a moment or two during the piece.

Of course if the two musicians weren't as incredibly gifted as Kaila Flexer and Gari Hegedus are it might be a different story. For not only are they technically skilled at what they do, but they have an amazing ability to transmit emotion with their playing. At the same time they never exaggerate the significance of what you're hearing, but are able to communicate the feelings that are generated by the simple pleasures in life - like watching your grandchild take her first steps - in such a way that it captures the true sublime nature of the moment.

Teslim by Teslim is not only unique because it allows us to see the common musical heritage that so many different cultures draw upon, but because the music on the disc brings the magic of the world alive. This is a beautiful collection of music that will remind you of what it is that music can do in the hands of skilled people whose love for what they do comes through in every note they play.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:59 AM | Permalink

Since throughout history the Roma (Gypsies) have had been vilified by people around the world, it seems only fair that they also start receiving some of the credit they're due for how much they've influenced the music of so many different cultures. As is detailed in Latcho Drom (Safe Travels), Tony Gatlif's amazing documentary that traces the Roma's travels from Northern India to France via the music of all the countries in between, their music has influenced the sound of every country they have lived in. Classical composers like Hungarian Bela Bartok incorporated Roma music into their compositions and folk music from Russia to Spain bears their stamp.

Who hasn't listened to klezmer music or flamenco and heard the guitar and the violin of the Roma playing alongside the other instruments? In France their sound merged with the Celtic music of Breton, and I've often wondered how the fiddle and the guitar ended up in Ireland, a country known for its pipes and drums traditionally. Every so often something really extraordinary happens and some of these Roma influenced traditions collide and create something new altogether. In New Orleans Spanish and French music hooked up with the sounds of Africa and zydeco was born.

Now, in something akin to nuclear fusion on the musical level, the New Orleans based band The Zydepunks, have taken zydeco a lot further. It's not just Spain and France they draw upon, they bring in the Eastern European sounds of klezmer and the folk sounds of the Balkans, and power the result with a punk sensibility similar to the Pogues. Listening to their latest release, Finisterre, on Nine Mile Records, it's impossible not to get carried away to the ends of the earth by the sounds they have created.

At first you don't really know what to expect because the disc starts off with a traditional sounding Klezmer song, "Papirossen in Gan Eden", that's beautifully performed and sung with heartfelt sincerity. However, you get the feeling the band is easing you into things gently, as there's also an underlying tension to the song that's hard to put your finger on. When the next number, "Angel Whisky" sounds like it owes a debt to Dublin as well as Poland, it's the first indication that you're about to embark on a musical journey unlike one you've experienced before.

The strains of an accordion that sound like they could have haunted the streets of Paris or played a sea shanty for the fishermen returning with their catches in Breton in one song will turn into the sound of an Irish reel in another. The violin whose bow dances across its strings in a merry fiddle tune on one occasion, will echo the muddy streets of Eastern European Jewish settlements in another. Yet instead of sounding like a collection of unrelated songs, The Zydepunks manage to find the thread that ties them all together.

Even if you can't hear, or make, the musical connection between songs it doesn't matter, because its more the how instead of the what they are doing that brings about the cohesion. Each song, no matter what the tempo, is performed as if it were the most important piece of music that the band ever played. You can't make a violin cry or dance like either Denise Bonis or Ti-Juan do, or an accordion dance like Eve does, or create the rhythm to contain all the music with the precision that drummer Joseph Lilly and base player Scott Potts do if you don't believe in what you're doing.

When playing so many different styles it would be easy to go through the motions, but not once did I get the impression that anybody, either the regular band members or any of the guests who they have sitting in on this recording, are doing anything but throwing themselves heart and soul into every song. It doesn't matter what language the song is in, English, French, Spanish or Yiddish, if they are singing a song in memory of a departed friend ("Song For Mike" and "Long Story Short" are for Michael Frey a friend of the band who was murdered in 2006), or a song about them being evacuated post Katrina ("Dear Molly"), you can hear in the sound of their voices and the intensity of their playing that there's nothing more important to them than playing that song at that moment.

Aside from the fact that they are playing such an exotic mixture of styles and beats, the other thing that makes The Zydepunks so exciting is the punk sensibility they bring to their music. That doesn't meant they play loud and fast all the time, or sound like any of the other cliches that you might want to associate with punk, it means they take each song to the edge. They play with a wild abandon that always seems to be on the verge of descending into chaotic ruin but somehow always manages to stay on course. They are like a ship running before the strongest of winds that keeps threatening to keel over, but because of the skill of the crew they not only stay afloat, but they skim the waves faster and cleaner than you would have thought possible.

The city of New Orleans has long been a place where musical styles have converged and created sounds that hadn't been heard before. Not only do the Zydepunks continue that tradition by drawing upon the music of the region, they have reached even further afield to draw upon other musical sources similar to the French and Spanish roots of Zydeco, but that also have unique flavours of their own. As the Roma travelled West across Europe they planted musical seeds in every country they settled in. It's from those seeds planted centuries ago that The Zyedpunks have cultivated their own unique sound.

Exciting, exhilarating, and just plain fun, the music on Finisterre is quite unlike anything you'll have heard before, while sounding remarkably familiar at the same time. Yet, no matter what the music sounds like, the one thing you can be sure of is that you're in for the ride of your life when you listen to this disc.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:37 AM | Permalink

You see them on the street corners of almost every major city in the world. Some of them have elaborate set-ups including battery powered amplifiers, others are one man bands playing a kick-drum t, strumming a guitar, and blowing on a harmonica. Some of them can barely play their instrument, while others are virtuosos. Yet, no matter how good or bad they may be, for one reason or another, no matter what the weather, these musicians have made the sidewalk their stage and what, or whoever passes by, their audience.

In another life time I was part of a children's theatre company that use to perform outdoors in parks and even on the occasional sidewalk. So I speak from experience when I say there is nothing more difficult for any performer to do than attract the attention of someone just passing by, unless it's holding their attention in spite of all the distractions around them. Amplifying your sound doesn't do much more than add to the overall white noise of a city street and actually increases the likelihood of people blocking you out like they attempt to block car horns and everything else around them.

The experienced street performer knows that it's force of personality that attracts people's attention. If you just stand there strumming your guitar and singing, the average person walking down the street with their mind on the day ahead or the one that just passed won't pay you any attention. When you play the streets you learn how to "sell" yourself and your music so someone catching sight of you out of the corner of their eye, or hearing just a snatch of sound coming from your direction, will be attracted and turn their attention to you. If you think it sounds difficult to do, well believe me it's even harder to accomplish in practice.

After listening to Lightin' In A Bottle, street musician Guitar Red's new release on Backspace Records, I'd lay odds that when he plays street corners not only do people stop, but traffic does too. Right from the opening notes of the discs first song, "Box Car No. 9" he reaches out and grabs your attention, and doesn't let go until the last note of track ten, "Song About A Jimi Hendrix Song" fades away. Accompanying himself with only guitar and clavinet, and helped out on bass by Chris Francisco, Guitar Red's music has more energy and vitality than most bands, and hundreds of times more personality than ninety percent of any musicians I've ever heard.

There's nothing sophisticated or polished about Guitar Red (real name Billy Christian Walls) or his music. What it does have is pure and unadulterated heart and soul, with each song sounding like he's drawing upon personal experience for inspiration. It doesn't matter whether he's singing about the woman who done him wrong or serving on a chain gang for stealing potatoes, you can't help but believe he sweated out his days under the Georgia sun breaking rocks or had his heart broken time after time. When he sings about telling the boss man not to ride him so hard because his momma just died on "Chain Gang Blues", you don't have to be prescient to know that the next line will be "now I'm serving twenty to life" because you can feel the depth of his grief and know just how close to the edge he is.

It doesn't matter whether he's playing slow or playing fast, singing sad or singing glad, because he doesn't differentiate between them when it comes to passion or intensity. He's like the best storyteller you've ever heard, in that he draws you into what he's telling you without seemingly trying. One second you're listening to the opening notes of a song, and the next you're sitting looking at the world he's created through his eyes and experiencing everything he's talking about.

A lot of people who play acoustic blues, or traditional blues music, seem to get hung up on playing the same rhythmic pattern over and over again until you're stupefied with boredom. Guitar Red on the other hand keeps things moving, so that the music fits the mood expressed by the lyrics of his song. The blues isn't about what note or chords you play on your guitar, the blues is what comes from your heart. Guitar Red knows that and his music reflects it, and listening to it you sure can feel it.

One of the things that really struck me about this recording was how he used his voice. He doesn't have what you'd call an attractive singing voice, but he has a fine ear for understanding how to make the best use of the gifts he's been given, which is a highly expressive voice. Many people who play the streets end up only knowing how to be loud and louder when they sing from years of having to compete against traffic noise. Red, on the other hand, modulates his voice according to the needs of the song and the mood he's trying to establish. Compare how he sounds on the up tempo "Lips Poked Out" where's he creating a fun, teasing atmosphere, to "I Believe", a quiet and sincere declaration of his faith that has a hundred times more conviction to it than any preacher foaming at the mouth.

After years of listening to histrionical pop singers trying to prove how emotional they are by either screaming or whispering, Guitar Red comes as a welcome relief. It's like he has a direct conduit from his heart to his voice so that no matter what he says it comes out sounding like he means it with his entire being. If he's singing one of his up tempo, up beat songs you can hear the smile on his face and the twinkle in his eye coming through in his voice. When he's singing about something difficult or serious you can feel his body bending under the weight of the words.

There are thousands, if not even millions, of people who play music on the streets of our cities every day of the year, and the majority of them aren't anything special. Once in a while though there are genuine gems among the dross whose talent is so pure it shines out like a beacon for all to see. Guitar Red is one of the latter as his music is heartfelt, passionate, and full of life. He might be singing the blues, but he sure brought a smile to my face.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:32 AM | Permalink

Music ethnologists have travelled around the world since the days wax cylinders were the height of recording technology collecting examples of music from various cultures. In some instances these recordings have become not only research projects, but records of traditions that were in the process of heading for extinction. Buried in the archives of universities and museums are sound files of everything from Native American healing songs to chants and ritual music from Southern Africa. European encroachment into original people's lives and lands and colonial government policies of cultural genocide and enforced assimilation ensured that those ancient songs would not be passed along to a new generation so these recordings are all that remains of thousands of years of tradition.

Ironically as technology improved to allow better quality recordings, fewer and fewer original cultures existed to be recorded. However, since we have turned into such a disposable society the techniques used by original researchers to record indigenous music have been used in recent years to ensure music that grew out of early North American European and slave cultures are being preserved. While in the United States that's included songs that are as contemporary as the 1930's, in other parts of our hemisphere some of these newer traditions date back to the 17th century and represent a mingling of imported and native cultures.

Sometime in the 1600's two ships carrying African slaves from Nigeria were shipwrecked off the coast of St. Vincent Island in the Caribbean that were occupied by two tribe of indigenous peoples, the Arawars and the Kalipuna called the Caribs by Spanish explorers. Initially there was conflict between the escaped slaves and the natives but eventually they settled their differences, intermarried and created a third people who are now called Garifuna. As colonial masters changed The Garifuna were rounded up by the British to be moved to an island off the coast of Honduras, Roatan. When it in turn was taken from the British by the Spanish the people were moved again, this time to Trujillo to serve as labourers and farmers.