4 January 2012, World Cafe

1. Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa – Ana Hayou (General Pattern)

No better way to kick off the new year than with some high octane, high flying fusion from North Africa. Moroccan Aziz Sahmaoui, an expert on oud and guimbri, grew up learning gnawa music before branching out in Joe Zawinul’s band and cofounding the Paris-based Orchestre National de Barbes. In 2011 he put out a magnificent solo release with a crack Senegalese band, the University of Gnawa, that makes obvious gnawa’s origins in the Senegambia region.

2. Tamikrest – Aratan N Tinariwen (Glitterhouse)

Northern Mali is the home of a branch of the Berber people, the Touareg, and lies between Senegambia and North Africa. Tamikrest and Tinariwen are probably the two most well-known Touareg rock bands and both released fine records in 2011. The younger of the two, Tamikrest, put out “Toumastin”.

3. Tinariwen – Ya Massinagh (feat. the Dirty Dozen Brass Band) (ANTI-)

Tinariwen, the elder statesmen of Touareg rock, from their 2011 album “Tassili”, which manages both to hark back to their earlier pioneering sounds forged in a Libyan refugee camp about 20 years ago and to take steps in new directions, through a bunch of collaborations. In “Ya Massinagh” they play together with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans” – I think that the fusion really works, but opinion is divided.

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band are an extremely important force in New Orleans marching band music, revitalizing the form at a low point in the 60s and early 70s by incorporating bebop and r’n’b styles of playing. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band hail from New Orleans’s Sixth District or Treme which lies next to the French Quarter and, despite the reputation of the latter, is the real hotbed of the musical life of New Orleans.

4. Treme Brass Band - Just a closer walk with thee (Geffen Records)

Going back to one of the earliest tunes played by New Orleans brass bands, “Just a closer walk with thee”, which was probably written in the late 19th century. The tune is culled from the soundtrack to the first season of the HBO series “Treme” set in post-Katrina New Orleans. Among quite a few other things, the series looks at the rich musical world of New Orleans; it’s a fabulous series. The Treme Brass Band is an actual long-time working band.

5. Dr John - My Indian Red (Geffen Records)

Dr John’s rough-and-ready arrangement of “My Indian Red”, also from the sound track to “Treme”. “My Indian Red” is often said to be the hymn or prayer for the Mardi Gras Indians, another vast New Orleans sub-culture. The song was first recorded in the mid-50s.

Where does all this richness in New Orleans come from? Well, New Orleans is really a Caribbean city which has been subject to waves of influence from the colonial powers of Spain and France, and from Africa via the slave trade, not to mention from the syncretic cultures formed in the Caribbean itself. In addition, there were the Cajun migrants from Acadia, in Canada. Afropop have a number of programmes about the history of New Orleans music: http://afropop.org/hipdeep/HipDeep.html#programId=595&view=1

6. Huey Piano Smith & His Clowns – Don’t you know yockomo (Ace Records)

No one knows how the Mardi Gras Indians came about, but troupes or tribes probably started forming in the 1880s and their formation has something to do with the politics of performance culture in New Orleans, the ban on slaves wearing masks or dressing up in costumes and the affinity between slaves and American Indians.

The Mardi Gras Indian patios, which certainly sounds Caribbean, has found its way into a bunch of popular New Orleans musical forms – one reason being that the Indians are happy to latch their tambourine-driven calls and responses onto whatever style can fuel their marching and parading … but also because the words sound so cool. In “Don’t you know yockomo” Huey Piano Smith and His Clowns from the late 50s, combine all kinds of things, including some Professor Longhair type piano-playing, nonsense words from well known tunes at the time including “Minnie the moocher” and a Mardi Gras Indian song, with rock ’n roll.

7. Lil’ Band O’ Gold – I don’t wanna know (Room 609 Records)

New Orleans, and Louisiana more generally, has also seen the combining of Cajun and zydeco with rock ’n roll and soul, to form something called Swamp-Pop. “I don’t wanna know” is a tune by the granddaddy of Swamp-pop, Bobby Charles. It’s the second anniversary of his death round about now. This version is performed by the seriously wonderful, Swamp-pop supergroup, “Lil’ Band O’Band”, from Lafayette, and is from their 2010 release, “The Promised Land”.

8. Wild Tchoupitoulas – Hey hey (Indians Comin’) (Mango)

One of the most celebrated Mardi Gras Indian tribes is the Wild Tchoupitoulas, which were formed in the early 1970s by George Landry, or “Big Chief Jolly”, an uncle to the Neville Brothers. The Neville Brothers and the Meters, which included some of the Neville Brothers, combined with the Wild Tchoupitoulas on a 1975 recording that helped give the Mardi Gras Indians an international profile. “Hey hey (Indians Comin’)” is a mambo infused song from that 1975 album, called “Wild Tchoupitoulas”.

9. Aurelio – Bisien nu (My love for you) (Stonetree Records)

Heading into the deep Caribbean, Aurelio Martinez from Belize is one of the main musicians and songwriters within the Garafuna, a centuries old language and culture founded by shipwrecked slaves. “Bisien un” is based on a traditional song in which a young man asks his sweetheart’s father for her hand. The singers, Bella Sidibe and Rudy Gomes, from the well known Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab, guest.


10. Cimarron – Llanero soy (I am a plainsman) (Smithsonian Folkways)

Joropo music is very fast string- and maracas-fuelled music from the Orinoco plains of Colombia and Venezuela. The Colombian band Cimarron, meaning “wild bull”, is one of the best exponents. “Llanero soy (I am a plainsman)” is from their 2011 release out on Smithsonian Folkways.

11. Dino Saluzzi, Anja Lechner, Felix Saluzzi – Son qonati (ECM)

Bandaneon maestro, Dino Saluzzi, normally plays some kind of neuvo tango, but on his 2011 release for ECM “Navidad de los Andes” or “Andean Nativity” he’s taken in a wider palette with long term collaborator, cellist Anja Lechner, and Felix Saluzzi, his clarinet- and sax-playing brother. That was Saluzzi’s wonderful tune, “Son qonati”.

12. Damily – Mahavelo mitaha (Helico)

Madagascar is another place where rural and urban music meet and fuse brilliantly. Tsapiky is a guitar-based style from the south of Madagascar that we’ve listened to before on this show. It was created in the late 60s by newly urbanised musicians in Tulear, who adapted rhythms played at rural dances, mixing them with the African styles in vogue in south-western Madagascar, beamed in via radio from the east coast of Africa. Damily, probably the only musician on the scene with international releases, in 2011 brought out his second LP called “Ela lia”.

13. Jeff Nhore – Afara koa tsy atao (Earthworks)

Jeff Nhore from a great collection of Tsapiky called “Tulear never sleeps” that Earthworks brought out in 2003 and that was largely instigated by the Madagascan guitar superhero, D’Gary. I really like this description of Tsapiky that I came across: “It's as crisp and precise as Congolese guitar, but much more angular and darting. Instead of cycling or sustained melodies, these guys play in fitful, short bursts of start-and-stop action, with speedy, nervous phrasing suggestive of an animal on the run from a predator”.

14. Victoria King’s Jazz – Oscar Obuogo (Pathe Marconi, EMI)

Speaking of guitar-based dance music from the eastern side of Africa, Victoria King’s Jazz from Kenya circa 1977 play benga.

15. Shin Joong Hyun – Pushing through the fog (Light in the Attic)

Shin Joong Hyan is called the grandfather of Korean rock. The tune is from a wonderful retrospective brought out by the label Light in the Attic in 2011, “Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound of South Korea’s Shin Joong Hyun” and dates from the late 60s when Hyun was conducting full scale experiments in psychedelia. This horrified the President of South Korea at the time, who ended up confining and torturing him.

16. Unknown – Blondie in Khmer Camouflage (Sublime Frequencies)

While we’ll on the topic of former war zones of the Far East, Cambodia also has a rich legacy of pop and rock, and modern record companies there have been remixing old classic tunes from the pre-Khmer Rouge era, sometimes pretty crudely, but often to startling effect. Sublime Frequencies put out a collection of the remixes and some of the old original vintage tunes all culled from the radio, called “Radio Phnom Penh”. Many of the artists collected on the CD are unknown.

17. Shankar Jaikishan – Raga Mishra Pilu (EMI India)

Shankar Jaikishan or S/J were Shankar Singh Raghuvanshi and Jaikishan Dayabhai Panchal who worked together as composers in the Hindi film industry from the late 40s to the early 70s. In 1968 they took a little diversion and came up with the first Indo-Jazz record called “Raga Jazz Style”, in which they created songs based on ragas for western and Indian instruments.

18. Kiran Ahluwalia – Raqba (Avokado)

Indian-born Canadian Kiran Ahluwalia is a modern composer working a similar seam to Shankar Jaikishan, except she uses ghazals (which are themselves the result of a mixing of Indian, Persian and Arabic strands) as building blocks and looks more widely for things to add into the mix. Her 2011 LP “Aam Zameen” or “Common Ground” has all manner of guests, including on this track, Amir El Saffar, on trumpet.

19. Lee “Scratch” Perry – Tighten Up (Clocktower)

From a somewhat obscure late 70s collection “Scratch Attack”, a little gem.

20. African Head Charge – Cattle Herders’ Chant (On-U Sound)

To me, one of the best LPs African Head Charge and, indeed their label On-U Sound put out was called “Songs of Praise” which came out in 1990.

21. Madosini – Hobe Lentaka Ezithandayo (New Cape)

Cape Town based composer and musician Madosini from her recent release called “Eparadesi Nkosi Uzube Nam”, out on guitarist Derek Gripper’s newly launched label, New Cape. Over the years Madosini has written new songs on traditional instruments like the uhadi and isitolotolo which are kinds of jews harps and bows, basically keeping this tradition of playing alive.

22. Spiers and Boden – Haul Away (Navigator)

Relatively well known musicians on the English folk scene, melodian and concertina player John Spiers and singer and fiddler Jon Boden (or Spiers and Boden) celebrated their 10th anniversary of playing together this year. They did this in some style by rerecording their favourite songs from their career rather than bringing out the usual best of. “Haul Away” is a sea shanty.

23. Robin Williamson – Matt Groves and Lady Barnard (Quadrant)

In 2008 Robin Williamson, the Scottish singer-guitarist who was one of the core members of the Incredible String Band, put out a pretty stripped down album called “Just like the river and other songs with guitar” which contains an inspired and gut wrenching version of the traditional song “Matt Groves and Lady Barnard”. Thanks to Steve Bloch for drawing my attention to that song.

24. Fribo – Leaving Reindolsaetr – The Passed Test (Fribo Records)

Fribo (meaning “Open House”) are a collaboration between a Norwegian singer, a Scottish fiddler, a Swedish percussionist and an English guitarist. This is something off their 2011 release, “Happ”.

25. Anne Karin Tonset – Hallingen at’n Nystuen (Plastic Strip)

The Norwegian singer, Anne Karin Tonset, was one of the great innovators on the burgeoning 70s Scandinavian folk-jazz scene. The song is from a collection called “Black is the colour of my true love’s hair: Norwegian Folk Jazz 1977-71”. The sleeve notes trace the first attempt at Scandinavian folk-jazz to 1929 when the Kristian Hauger Jazzorkester came up with something called “Norwegian Jazz fantasy part 1 & 2”.

26. Sinikka Langeland – Triumph of being (ECM)

This year Sinikka Langeland put out another CD of her fusion of folk, jazz and poetry on ECM, “The Land That Is Not”. The title of the CD comes from an epic poem, which many see as the birth of modern Swedish poetry, by Edith Sodergran who died in 1923.

Langeland explains that combining folk and jazz is pretty tricky because the feeling of time is so different in each. Old folk music has organic, idiosyncratic, asymmetric rhythms, and jazz in normally always in 2 or 4.