6 April 2011, World Cafe

Two of South Africa’s greatest guitarists died in March 2011 – Shiyani Ngcobo and Syd Kitchen. I’ll be playing some of their music in the May show.

1 Afrocubism – Nima Diyala (World Circuit)

The musics of Cuba and West Africa have had a strong interconnection for centuries, particularly in the 1950s, 60s and 70s when Cuban rhythms, melodies and even lyrics became the springboard for an explosion of styles in West Africa, including Congolese rumba and Senegalese mbalax. Even so, to me the Afrocubism project, which we’ve just listened to, sounds exploratory – and I think that is mainly because it combines the older, more traditional Mande courtly music of Mali (played on kora, ngoni and balafon) with modern urban Cuban music. As the musicologist Banning Eyre points out, the arrangements are busy, with the Cuban and Malian instruments falling into a similar frequency range, and so the hierarchical distribution of musical roles in those two styles tends to break down.

Anyway, the stellar players in the project, including Djelimady Tounkara (guitar), Toumani Diabaté (kora), Bassekou Kouyaté (ngoni), and ex-Buena Vista Social Club member, Eliades Ochoa (guitar and vocals), pull things off. The customary clear but full bodied World Circuit production, courtesy of Nick Gold, also helps.

Thanks to Sheer Music, the distributors in South Africa, for the disc.

2 Amparo Sanchez – Hoja en Blanco (Blank Sheet) (Wrasse)

Amparo Sanchez is the singer for the mestizo band Amparanoia – mestizo being a fusion of reggae, salsa and hip-hop with Spanish music. Last year she departed from her formula and teamed up with American band Calexico for the album “Tucson Habana”, which describes their approach in a nutshell – surf music, mariachi brass, Cuban son with some seriously mournful Spanish lyrics. “Hoja en Blanco” translates as “blank sheet”.

3 Los Wembler’s de Iquitos – Lemento del Yacuruna (Barbes Record)

Classic chicha from 70s Peru, Los Wembler’s de Iquitos hail from the land-locked oil boom town of Iquitos, on the border of the Amazon jungle. Chicha is actually a pejorative term in Peru – but one that has began to be worn with pride and defiance – generally referring to the music of the slums of Lima created by rural migrants from the Andes. But the style goes way beyond Lima, as this track illustrates, way beyond fusions of cumbia and rock, and way beyond the working classes – indeed many of the most famous players of chicha are schooled musicians, specializing in the more established style of criollo – music played on Spanish guitar, castanets and cajon. Check out the “Roots of Chicha 2 – Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru” for more tunes and a discussion of the lineage.

4 Angel Viloria y su Conjunto Tipico Cibaeno – Merengue cerrao (Ansonia Records)

Last month we listened to some merengue from the Dominican Republic. Merengue is actually an old Spanish dance, but was given a thorough reworking in the 50s in South America, especially the Dominican Republic. Accordionist Angel Viloria was one of the prime movers. On “Merengue carrao” he is joined by saxist Ramon Garcia and singer Dioris Valladares, who also produces scraping sounds on the “gourd”.

5 Dimba Diangola – Fuma (Analog Africa)

In the 60s and 70s, the inhabitants of Luanda’s “musseques” (shanty towns) started to create a Mardi Gras culture distinct from that of their colonial masters, centred around the two week carnival period and its year-long preparations. They combined the rural sounds of Angola with imports – Congolese rumba, Caribbean merengue, Cuban son and rock. “Fuma” sounds like some kind of a son to me. It came out in around 1968. Fuma are the worrying rumours about a person spread around town by a liar, who then vanishes when family from the villages arrives in consternation. It comes from a fabulous collection out on Analog Africa – “Angola Soundtrack: the unique sound of Luanda 1968 – 1976”.

6 Orchestra du Bawobab – Digone nga ma (Musicafrique)

The Orchestra du Bawobab (also Baobab) from Senegal is one of the great West African fusers of Cuban, African, rock and a lot more. “Digone nga ma” comes from an apparently impossibly rare LP, “Une nuit au Jandeer”, which came out in 1978. Check out the Global Groove blog if you’re interested in getting it.

7 Vicky et OK Jazz – En memoire de Bayon (EMI)

Vicky Longomba was one of Franco’s top singers and a founding member of OK Jazz. “En memoire de Bayon” is a song in memory of Bavon Marie Marie, Franco’s brother. The song came out just after he died in a car crash in late 71.

8 Timbila – Zvichapera (Timbila)

Perhaps you’d expect a New York group to produce a cutting edge combination of Chopi marimba or timbila music from Mozambique with Shona mbira music from Zimbabwe. But you’d probably not expect all the musicians to be American – which they are as far as I know. At least one of them, Banning Eyre, has serious pedigree, having spent some time in the American incarnation of Thomas Mapfumo and the Black Unlimited.

9 Bela Fleck & D’Gary – Kinesta (Rounder)

A D’Gary tune played with the virtuoso American banjo player Bela Fleck, who has tried his hand, largely successfully, at just about everything – bluegrass, new grass, funk, baroque, folk, jazz, Indian classical music. D’Gary is from Madagascar. In about 2008 Fleck traveled around Africa playing with just about every African string-playing luminary. His half brother Sascha Paladino documented all this and produced a movie, “Throw Down Your Heart”, and there’ve been a bunch of CD tie-ins around this. This song is from “Throw Down Your Heart, Tales from an acoustic planet: Africa Sessions Part 3”.

10 Ataratu - Ludu Parinna – excerpt (Smithsonian Folkways)

Madagascan culture is a serious melting pot, with one of the key ingredients being Indonesian music. This lovely version of the song “Ludu Parinna” from the island of Sumba is played on the guitar-like four-stringed jungga by Ataratu. The song is played during the threshing of the rice harvest and dispenses, in improvised verses, advice to the young including not to listen to gossip or spread rumours. It comes off the Smithsonian Folkways release, “Music of Indonesia vol 20 – Indonesian Guitar”, which was recorded in the field between 90 and 97. Ataratu originally sang a 35 minute version, but you might be pleased to know this has been shortened, first by the compiler and then by me.

11 Bounthong Keoboboula – Lam Saravane (Inedit/Maison des Cultures du Monde)

The bamboo mouth organ is probably the national instrument of Laos. It’s made of 16 pipes fitted with free reeds and arranged in a raft shape. The pipes pass through a hardwood wind chamber, each pipe with a playing hole which when covered activates the reed. This design creates a wall of sound which can be varied subtly to rhythmic and harmonic effect. Bounthong Keoboboula plays a courtship song in combination with a flute player and singer. The wooer extols the virtues of the Pakse region, near the Cambodian border. The song was recorded in 2005.

12 Meas Hokseng – Jomnes ji kor aung (Sublime Frequencies)

Here is Meas Hokseng from Cambodia, from a tie-in to the documentary “My Friend Rain” which presents musical segments, fleeting glimpses and odd sounds captured in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar/Burma. The blurb on the CD that accompanies the movie states that the music is culled from various damaged and indecipherable cassette and LP sources purchased in SE Asia. Vintage Sublime Frequencies, then.

13 The Panthers – Simmi Dance (Sublime Freqencies)

From another Sublime Frequencies collection, “Pakistan Folk & Pop Instrumentals 66-76”, which came out last year. The 10 year period 66 to 76 was one of wild rock’n’roll-propelled invention, which was snuffed out by the coup in June 77 that led to the establishment of an Islamic state governed by Sharia law. Sadly a period never to be repeated in Pakistan – there was a mass exodus of musicians to America, Canada and England.

14 TK Ramamoorthy – Sahana (EM Records)

TK Ramamoorthy was a South India based film music composer of note in the 50s, 60s and 70s. In 1969 he came up with an extremely smooth and seamless joining of the karnatak classical music and jazz. As the on-line music shop, Weirdo Music, puts it: “a sly, syncretic combination of karnatak raga and bachelor-pad lounge”.

15 Salah Ragab & the Cairo Jazz Band – Egypt Strut (Art Yard)

Salah Ragab, a major in the Egyptian army in the 60s and a jazz drummer, founded the first jazz big band in Egypt in 1968, the Cairo Jazz Band. “Egypt Strut” is a fusion of American jazz and Arabic music, similar to that played in the US at the same time by the likes of Yusef Lateef and Ahmud Abdul-Malik. We’ll be getting to some of that music in the May show.

Ragab is also well known for his friendship with Sun Ra. He helped Ra out with instruments and venues in Ra’s first pretty shambolic tour of Egypt in 1971, when the band’s instruments were held up at the border post. He also toured with Ra in the 80s around Egypt and Europe. The tune comes from a lovely 2006 Art Yard album called “Egyptian Jazz 1968 – 73” in which Ragab’s key tunes were compiled for Western consumption.

16 Diaspora (featuring Amina Annabi) – Elhem 1 (Green Queen)

Pity about the bland name, but the music of Diaspora is far from bland. The core of the band is Italian-born Luca Gatti and Frenchman Stephane Rene – they came together to work on film soundtracks in the early 2000s, and later worked with Asian Dub Foundation on the music for an opera about Gaddafi. They recently combined with Egyptian Baheeg Ramzy Mikail, a veteran violinist and vocalist who worked with Oum Kalthoum, and with French Tunisian singer Amina Annabi to come up with the album “A Jamaican in Cairo”.

17 Augustus Pablo – East of the River Nile (Original Rockers)

An alternative dub version of “East of the River Nile”. It comes off the killer 3 CD box set “The Definitive Augustus Pablo”.

18 Lee Perry (featuring Roots Manuva and LSK) – International Broadcaster (On-U-Sound)

A couple of months ago we listened to something from the recent Lee Perry collaboration with Adrian Sherwood, “Dubsetter”. “Dubsetter” is actually the dub version of “The Mighty Upsetter”. “International Broadcaster” is from the latter album and features two British rappers, Roots Manuva and LSK.

19 Erkin Koray – Turku (Dogan Plakcilik or World Psychedelia Ltd in 1999)

Turkey has long had a vast psychedelic rock scene, in which Turkish folk elements, often played on sazes (distorted to hell and gone) coexist very happily with the normal rock tropes. Erkin Koray is one of the granddaddies of the scene. “Turku” is from one of his classic albums, “Electronik Turkuler”, from 1974.

20 Arif Sag – Osman Pehlivan (Bouzouki Joe, 2010)

Arif Sag is another veteran from the Turkish psych scene. “Osman Pehlivan” is a well-known Turkish song, I believe. It comes from the collection “Turkish Freakout: Psych-folk singles 1969 to 80”.

21 Hayvanlar Alemi – Bahar Patlatan (Sublime Frequencies)

Hayvanlar Alemi (Animal Kingdom) is a current band from the Turkish pych scene. They have a bunch of free downloads on their “My Space” page. “Bahar Patlatan”, the tune we’ve just listened to, comes off the Sublime Frequencies LP “Guarana Superpower”, released a few weeks ago. Pretty Western-sounding, this track.

22 Stimmhorn – Pilgerfahrt (Traumton)

BBC’s Radio 3 has a new series Music Planet presented by Andy Kershaw and Lucy Duran, which hopefully you know about. You can stream it from Radio 3’s website, and although all the episodes have already been broadcast, all are still available for streaming. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sggq0.

One of the regional styles featured on the show about mountains is yodelling. Yodelling developed in Switzerland mainly to communicate over distances, and to call and herd animals, but it has an expressive life of its own. Check out: http://www.furious.com/perfect/yodel.html for more on yodelling.

Stimmhorn are one of the great recent Swiss yodelling innovators, alas not featured on Music Planet. The track comes from the collection “Heimatklange”.

23 Henry Parsons - Rolling Waters Holler (Rounder Records)

Hollerin’ is an American cousin of yodelling. Henry Parsons with “Rolling Waters Holler”, from 1975 recorded at Spivey’s Corner, North Carolina, home of the National Hollerin’ Competition.

24 Tanya Tagaq Gillis – Surge (Jericho Beach Music)

Music Planet’s Arctic and desert programmes feature fantastic examples of throat singing, including Inuit singing from Canada by Tanya Tagaq Gillis from Cambridge Bay. The Inuit singers are keen on imitating sounds from their environment – from kittens to snowmobiles. Not sure what Tagaq is imitating on the track, “Surge” though.

25 Ayuo – Izutsu 11 (Tzadik)

New York-raised composer Ayuo wrote the “Izutsu” sequence in 11 parts for singer Mikiko Sakurai. He combines the Irish harp with the koto and a Gaguku wind section – a wind section used in ancient Japanese court music. “Izutsu” is based on a Noh play written by the 15th century writer Zeami (1363 – 1443). Old childhood friends marry, but then become estranged – the man has an affair with the empress. Part 11 deals with the woman looking into a well where she and her husband played as children and seeing her reflection changing into his likeness. Ayuo admits he is striving for an image of the old Japan, that might not ever have existed.

26 Mountain Man – River (Partisan Records)

Three university housemates got together to form Mountain Man a few years ago. Apparently only one of them had any background in the stuff, and she was forced to teach others.

27 Carolina Chocolate Drops – Snowden’s Jig (Nonesuch)

Carolina Chocolate Drops are currently one of the most exciting old-timey Americana bands. Their music comes from the Piedmont region in the foothills of North Carolina. They’ve been working under the tutelage of nonagenarian fiddler player Joe Thompson to reclaim tunes. “Snowden’s Jig” is one of those tunes and comes off their 2010 album “Genuine Negro Jig”.

28 June Tabor – I’ll go and enlist for a sailor (Topic)

A veteran of the English folk scene, June Tabor has just released her umpteenth LP, “Ashore”. The track is an instrumental, played by accordionist Andy Cutting, one of my favourite traditional players. Bassist Tim Harris is in there too.