1. Debo Band – Ney ney weleba (Sub Pop/ Next Ambiance)
Debo Band’s version of the Ethiopian singer Alemayehu Eshete’s song “Ney ney weleba” first recorded in 1972. It’s off Debo Band’s fabulous debut album called “Debo Band” which came out a couple months ago on Next Ambiance, a subsidiary of Sub Pop. They’re an 11 piece from Boston – “debo” is the Amharic word for “collective effort” – led by ethnomusicologist Danny Mekonnen, an Ethiopian born in Sudan and raised in the U.S., and vocalist Ethiopian Bruck Tesfaye raised in France.
2. Akale Wube – Marye (Nabligam Production)
Paris-based “Akale Wube” also play stuff inspired by the Golden Age of Ethiopian music – from the late 60s and early 70s. There first album came out in 2011. This is something off their second, “Mata” - a tune that appears to be actually written by the band.
3. The Toure-Raichel Collective - Experience (Cumbancha)
A pairing of Israeli global fusionist, pianist Idan Raichel and guitarist Vieux Farka Toure – Ali Farka Toure’s son. It’s from a collection of spontaneously composed tunes, “The Tel Aviv Session”, which was recorded on a whim directly after a concert where two played together for the first time. The two call themselves “The Toure-Raichel Collective” and in the mix are also bassist Yossi Fine and calabash player Souleymane Kane.
4. Derek Gripper – Djourou Kara Nany (New Cape)
Derek Gripper’s new album, “One Night on Earth”, is mainly translations of kora tunes by Toumani Diabate and Ballake Sissoko to 6 string classical guitar. It’s now available as a physical CD. “Djourou Kara Nany” is by Diabate.
For details on how to obtain album, check out: http://newcape.bandcamp.com/album/one-night-on-earth-music-from-the-strings-of-mali
You can see Derek Gripper playing with Madosini this Saturday 10th November at about four in the afternoon at the Cape Town World Music Festival. Check out: http://capetownworldmusicfestival.com/
5. Rachel Newton – The Last Minute/The Groupie/Height of Rudeness (Shee Records)
Singer, harpist and fiddle player Rachel Newton is a probably more well known as member of the The Shee or the Emily Portman Trio. She just brought out a solo album “The Shadow Side”. The medley of “The Last Minute/The Groupie/Height of Rudeness” is from it with added guitar by the ever-evolving multi-instrumentalist Kris Drever. More about him later.
6. Katie Rose – Witches’ Reel (Folk Police)
“Weirdlore: Notes from the folk underground” is a collection out on Folk Police. As the magazine fRoots, points out, the title suggests older, weirder stuff than the normal traditional fare. “Witches’ Reel” is definitely from the weird side.
7. Warsaw Village Band – My Fate (Jaro)
The wonderful Polish roots band, the Warsaw Village Band, from their brand new album, their sixth one, “Nord” – meaning North. The album has a range of Scandanavian guests plus a Native American one, but “My Fate” is a straightahead Polish number with singers Magdelena Sobczak Kotnarowska and Sylwia Swiatkowska at the centre.
8. Samech – The Dream of Rabbi Levy (Tzadik)
Also from Poland, Samech is a string trio with percussion. “The Dream of Rabbi Levy” which is their recent album, “Quachatta”.
9. Opa Cupa – CPT, due inutili parole (World Network)
Italian brass band, Opa Cupa, from Lecce, one of crop of young bands that have arisen all across Italy, inspired by the 19th century brass banda, which were kind of co-operatives set up to take Italian folk music and opera into the country side often using stunning arrangements. The new stuff packs in many more kinds of music, with “CPT, due inutile parole” having a distinctly Eastern European flavour.
10. Enzo Avitabile – Mai cchiu (feat. Co’ Sang) (PID) (CNI Distribution)
Speaking of Italian institutions, singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Enzo Avitabile, raised in a poor area on the outskirts of Naples, is definitely one. One of the things he’s known for is bringing bottari, a peasant music involving wine barrel drums, into pop music. From his new album, “Black Tarantella”, “Mai cchiu” is a kind of Bottari rap, featuring Co’Sang.
11. Giant Giant Sand – Carinito (Fire Records)
Howie Gelb has been exploring a kind of post-rock Americana for years now. For his 2012 outing which he calls “Tucson” he’s added 6 musicians from Tucson to his regular band of mainly Danish musicians called Giant Sand – the new band being called Giant Giant Sand. One of the sounds they get into is a sort of Tex-Mex, Cali-tex fusion, especially on this tune.
12. Josephine Foster & the Victor Herrero Band – En Esta Large Ausencia (Fire Records)
Classical trained, opera school dropout, American Josephine Foster has been living in Spain for a while. The Victor Herrero Band is her husband’s band, and they’re recently released a collection of old Spanish popular songs, many anonymous, called “Perlas”.
13. Guillermo de la Roca – Bailecito Boliviano (Disques Alvares)
Guillermo de la Roca plays a Bolivian folk tune on an Indian Flute, a kind of wooden flute found in the Andes. This track is on vintage 4 track EP “La Flute Indienne: Aires del Tawantinsuyo” brought out by the French label, Disques Alvares, probably dating from the early 70s.
14. Mas Ka Kle – Lese yo Pale (Strut)
Sofrito, the London-based club night and record label, specializes in re-edits of little known African, Caribbean and South American dance gems both old and new. Strut has just put out a collection of their stuff called “Sofrito International Soundclash”. Mas Ka Kle are from Guadeloupe.
15. Chicha Libre – Muchachita del Oriente (Asian Girl) (Barbes Records)
Brooklyn band Chicha Libre, are as they name suggest heavily inspired the late 60s and 70s vintage psychedelic cumbia from Peru, referred to as chichi, with its “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” aesthetic. The band members are from all over the place: Venezuela, Mexico, America and France. This is Chicha Libre’s take on “Muchachita del Oriente (Asian Girl)” originally by Los Mirlos, one the classic bands from the dawn of chicha. It’s from Chichi Libre’s latest, “Canibalismo”.
16. Lil’ Band O’ Gold – It keeps raining (Dust Devil Music)
From Peru via NYC to the Gulf of Mexico or the Northern Caribbean – we’ve talking about New Orleans. Lil’Band O’Gold is one the greatest current working swamp pop bands –– they’re a 10 piece super group containing some the living greats from the vintage scene. “It keeps raining” is a classic Fats Domino tune from their new album “Lil Band O Gold plays Fats” and has Robert Plant guesting on vocals.
17. Wayne Toups, Steve Riley, Wilson Savoy – Convict Waltz (Valcour Records)
And speaking of greats, Wayne Toups, Steve Riley (who also happens to be Lil Band ‘O Gold) and Wilson Savoy are three wonderful accordionists behind three generations of Cajun revival. Well, in fact, they are multi-instrumentalists – playing guitar and fiddle too. They call themselves The Band Courtbouillon, after a tomato sauce used in Cajun cooking. “Convict Waltz” is by one of the great Cajun accordion players and songwriters, Iry LeJeune, who was active in the 1940s and 1950s and died at the age of 27.
18. Old Crow Medicine Show – Mississippi Saturday Night (ATO)
Sticking in New Orleans, well kind of – OCMS is the Nashville-based old timey string band. They call “Mississippi Saturday Day” a topical song. It’s sung with massive punk attitude – wild nights in the post Kartina post Gulf oil spill Louisiana.
18. KonKoma – Lie Lie (Soundway)
From the ashes of the great Ghanian Afro-rock band, Osibisa, arises KonKoma with former’s guitarist Alfred Bannerman and keyboardist Emmaneul Rentzos at the centre. They’re aided and abetted by saxophonist Max Gruhard and producer Ben Lamdin, who are really the drivers of the project, and joined by an array of guests.
19. Ebo Taylor – Yaa Amponsah (Soundway)
Guitarist, singer and songwriter, Ebo Taylor, is another great veteran of the Ghanian scene. I played something of his album, “Appia Kwa Bridge”, a few months ago. “Yaa Amponsah” is a kind of Ghanian folk song, hugely popular, that dates back to the 1920s.
20. Duffy Power – Johnny too bad (Dusk Fire)
Another veteran, this time of the English jazz rock blues scene, Duffy Power, from his first album of new material in 40 years called “Tigers”. A slowed up, soulful and mournful version of the old reggae song by the Slickers.
21. Bella Hardy – Henry and Clara (Noe Records)
Bella Hardy was brought up in the Peak District in central and northern England and together with Kris Drever, has put together quite a stunning collection of new settings for songs that appeared in “Songs and Ballads of Derbyshire”, a 19th century book of songs, and new material based on the history and legends of the area. The recording was funded by the Peak District National Park’s Sustainable Development Funds. In the great ballad “Henry and Clara” Hardy adds her own lyrics to those of Rev Arthur George Jewitt. The song is from 1815.
22. Fay Hield & the Hurricane Party – Wicked Serpent (Topic)
The Peak District runs through Yorkshire, birthplace of the up and coming folk star, Fay Hield, which, as my friend Keith Kattell points out, is a spoonerism of Hay Field. “Wicked Serpent” is off her new album out on Topic called “Orfeo”. Her star studded line up includes Jon Boden on fiddle and bunch of other string instruments and the magnificent button accordianist, Andy Cutting.
23. The Old Dance School – Ras Al-Maa (Transition)
Staying in that central England neck of the woods, The Old Dance School is a 7-piece band from Birmingham. Their new album, “Chasing the Light”, has an intensely hybrid sound. This tune “Ras Al-Maa” is apparently inspired by Moroccan music, although I’m hearing both Irish and Scandanavian music here.
24. Petter Udland Johansen – Om Kvelden (ECM)
Adrianna Savall and band co-leader Petter Udland Johansen describe their project as a journey linking the Mediterranean and the North Sea. Petter Johnasen is a Norweigan singer, hardanger fiddle and mandolin player and “Om Kvelden” is a traditional song. Sveinung Lilleheir is on dobro.
25. Henning Kraggerud & Bugge Wesseltoft – Om Kvelden (ACT)
A lovely arrangement of the same Norweighan folk tune by jazz pianist Henning Kraggerud and classical violinist Bugge Wesseltoft off a uniformly lovely record “Last Spring”.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
4 July 2012, World Cafe
1 Ragnhild Furebotten – Jag kan inte fela (Telik)
Fiddler Ragnhild Furebottom specialises in playing traditional music from northern Norway – both interpretations and her own compositions. Backing her is a stunning brass 6-piece, with arrangements by trombonist Helge Sunde and sax player Geir Lysne – two of the most highly regarded jazz composers in Norway. That’s from Furebotten’s newish album “Never on a Sunday”.
2 Valkyrien Allstars – Ne’ve Elva (Folkelarm)
The Valkyrien Allstars are one of the most popular folk bands in Norway. They are basically a trio all playing Hardanger fiddles (like a normal violin but with 4 to 5 extra strings in a hollow neck, which while not fingered end up being bowed as far as I can make out), backed by a rhythm selection. From their 2009 album, “To Maner”.
3 The Imagined Village – New York Trader (ECC)
Containing the magnificent singing and fiddle playing of Eliza Carthy. “New Yorker Trader” is a traditional song is off the Imagined Village’s latest, “Bending the Dark”. The stunning arrangement there is by sax and flute player, Simon Clarke, and the normal melody has been thoroughly reworked by a good portion of the group. They’ve changed sound for this their third album to something edgier and spikier, more drum and bassy, and the whole thing is quite a success.
4 The Owl Service – King Henry VII & the Shipwrights (Stone Tape Recordings)
Sticking with the nautical theme, the Owl Service is one of the new crop of revivalist traditional groups who lovingly reproduce the English folk-rock sound of the 70s – in this case sounding a dead ringer for Steeleye Span. The song is off a recent album called “Collected Tracks”.
5 Meic Stevens – Capel Bronwen (Sain)
Iconic singer-songwriter Meic Stevens started writing folk-rock songs in Welsh in the late 60s – one of the first and few to do this. He’s produced quite a few albums over the years, many of them put out on the local Welsh label, Sain. “Capel Bronwen” and comes off his 1982 record called “Nos Du, Nos Da”.
6 Derek Gripper – Kaounding Cissoko (New Cape)
Capetonian Derek Gripper’s utterly phenomenal translation of 21 string kora music onto 6 string nylon string guitar. The tune is a tribute to the great Senegalese kora player Kaounding Cissoko, who died in 2003, composed by the great Malian kora player, Toumani Diabate. It’s from Gripper’s 2012 release “One Night on Earth” which he put out on this own label, New Cape. Check out his website for his musings on how the album was put together.
http://www.derekgripper.com/acoustic-guitar-albums/one-night-on-earth/
You can download the album for a price of your picking at the same address. I recommend you do - it’s an instant classic.
7 Sidi Toure – Ni See Ay Ga Done ( It is to you that I sing) (Thrill Jockey)
From the Mande culture of West Africa to the Songai who are further east and north – in fact, the Songai sprung from the Mande, which were originally located in Southern Mauritania. Sindi Toure is a very well known songwriter and guitarist in his native northern Mali. “Ni See Ay Ga Done” is from his second international album, “Koima”. Like his first one, it was released on the post rock Chicago-based label, Thrill Jockey. Instead of duets done on his back stoep, he’s playing as part of a quintet in a studio. The bowed instrument in there is called a sokou.
8 Ebo Taylor – Assom Dwee (Strut)
Ebo Taylor, the veteran Ghanaian guitarist, singer and songwriter, who’s been going since the 50s, has a brand new record out on Strut, “Appia Kwa Bridge”, named after a lover’s haunt in his home town of Saltpond. Tony Allen, the legendary Afro-beat drummer, and one of the keys to Fela Kuti’s success, guests. “Assom Dwee” has a religious message. The song we heard there is typical of the kind of stuff he’s famous for – a cross between highlife and Afro-beat.
9 Rob – Not the end (Soundway)
Sticking to Ghana and religious themes, keyboardist and singer Rob (he’s just called Rob, but full name is Rob Raindorf) who was a contemporary of Ebo Taylor – they shared record labels in the 70s – but a purveyor of something more hypnotic and stripped-down than Taylor. “Not the end” is from a classic Rob album “Make it fast, make it slow” which Soundway re-issued this year.
10 Eth – Heywet Endiet New (Buda Music)
Last month we played something from the Ethiopiques’ new collection of classic 70s Ethiopian music played by non-Ethiopians “Noise and Chill Out: Ethiopian Groove Worldwide”. This is another track. Couldn’t find out anything about Eth.
11 Dub Colossus – I dub the sound of breaking glass (Real World)
From their album of stripped down, dubbed up versions of tunes from their back catalogue - “Dub me tender”. The meditative piano is by the wonderful Samuel Yirga, and brass by “Horns of Negus”.
12 Hollie Cook– Sugarwater Dub featuring Horseman (Mr Bongo)
Hollie Cook is the daughter of Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook, and since 2006 she’s been playing with the reformed reggae punk band, The Slits. Her new album is a dub version of something she brought out last year, just called “Hollie Cook” – it’s called “Prince Fatty present Hollie Cook in Dub”. Dennis Bovell, The Slits’s bass-playing producer, provides the bottom end and Prince Fatty produces. Here’s what Fatty has to say: “All the dubs are mixed live in my studio in the same Rub a Dub style as was made famous in 70s Jamaica by King Tubby and others, i.e not with the use of computers for automation and endless digital nonsense but with fingers, late night vibes and re-arranged with a razor blade!”
13 Galatic – O coco de galinha (ANTI- records)
New Orleans band Galactic off their album celebrating Mardi Gras and carnival in general, including Brazil, called “Carnival Electricos”. “Coco da Galinha” features the Brazilian singer Moyseis Maques – 70s Brazilian sounds cut with New Orleans parade brass.
14 The Dirty Dozen Band – Don’t stop the music (Savoy Jazz)
Speaking of New Orleans brass bands, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band is celebrating its thirty fifth anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, they’ve come out with an album of mostly original new tunes called “Twenty Dozen”. This tune is a soul makossa type arrangement of a Rihanna song, “Don’t Stop the Music”.
15 George Lewis – Just a closer walk with thee (Membran International)
From the festive to the dirge and back again – well known New Orleans clarinettist, George Lewis’s version of the standard New Orleans funeral song, “Just a closer walk with thee.” Lewis was around from close to the birth of jazz – he started playing in 1917.
16 Gillian Welch – Red Clay Halo (Acony Records)
Keeping with getting closer to God, this is a classic tune by Gillian Welch “Red Clay Halo” from her 2001 album “Time (The Revelator)”.
17 Pelegongan of Kuta – Gonteng (djawa) pengwak solo (World Arbiter)
Some of the earliest recordings of gamelan music, recorded in 1928. It’s from Bali, and that’s by the “Pelegongan of Kuta”. A pelegongan is a particular ensemble configuration for playing an old, courtly style of gamelan which dates from the 17th century. It’s from the album “The roots of gamelan – the first recordings Bali 1928. NY 1941”.
18 Dulsori – Sailor’s Song (ARC Music)
Swinging substantially north from Bali to South Korea, but staying with similar musical roots, Dulsori are a wonderful group who started off playing mainly traditional drum and gong music, and later incorporated Korean zithers, flutes, oboes and shawms. “Sailor’s Song” is off something new by them out on ARC Music called “Binari: Well Wishing Music”.
19 M Ashraf – Dear I love you (feat. Nahid Akhtar) (Finders Keepers)
Lollywood, Pakistan’s version of Bollywood, has produced some great music, much of it by the pairing of composer, M Ashraf and singer, Nahid Akhtar. “Dear I love you” was from the movie “Zanjeer”, and I got it from one of Finders Keepers’s raids on the EMI vaults – they call it “Life is dance: Plugged-in Sounds of Wonder at the Pakistani Picture House”.
20 Zia – Heleyos (Finders Keepers Records)
Another ongoing project of Finders Keepers is to unearth lost and forgotten gems from 60s and 70s Iran before the revolution – “a time of tumult in Iran, bringing growth and freedom while exacerbating inequalities in the country”. One of their aims apparently is to offer some therapy to a generation of Iranians who live in self-imposed mental exile. This comes from one of their collections “Pomegranates”.
21 Selda Bağcan – Bad-I Sabah (Majör)
The well known Turkish protest singer and saz/ bağlama player, Selda Bağcan, was jailed in the 80s. “Bad-I Sabah” from a fairly recent album, “Turkulerimiz 6”, which came out in 2006. (Finders Keepers have actually also reissued some of her stuff from the 70s – we’ll get to that soon.)
22 Majid Bekkas – Fangara (BEE Jazz Records)
From Morocco, Gnawa musician, guembri player and singer Majid Bekkas is not averse to playing in different musical contexts. His 2011 album “Mabrouk” is a teaming of Senegalese kora player, Ablaye Cissoko, and percussionist, Khalid Kouhen, who sometimes plays tabla. The theory is that gnawa is open to other kinds of music because it is itself a mix of Berber song, courtly Arabian music and West African music.
23 Stefano Battaglia, Salvatore Maiore and Roberto Dani– Ararat Dance (ECM)
Italian pianist Stefano Battaglia from his ECM album “The River of Anyder”, named after the river that flowed through Thomas Moore’s Utopia. In it he celebrates mythical and legendary real places and tries to create “timeless” music within the confines of a modern trio. For him timeless music is “music without idioms … that might have been created on archaic instruments a thousand years ago.” He’s joined by bassist Salvatore Maiore and drummer Roberto Dani.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
6 June 2012, World Cafe
1 Zinja Hlungwani – Ntombi ya mugaza (Honest Jons)
From the collection “Shangaan Electro” which came out in 2010.
2 Burnt Friedman – Burnt Friedman Meets Zinja Hlungwani (Honest Jons)
From Tzaneen, Limpopo, via Joburg and London to Berlin - Burnt Friedman’s rewiring of the Zinja Hlungwani tune “Ntombi ya mugaza”. All this is under the auspices of London based label Honest Jon’s which in 2010 saw fit to release a bunch of Richard “Dog” Mthetwa’s fast, cheap and nasty, but ultimately charming productions of Shangaan electronica and caused a global sensation. Honest Jon’s commissioned this radical reworking, and several others from some top-drawer international techno/electro soundsmiths – the remixes are released on a double disk, “Shangaan Shake”.
3 James Makhubelo & the Nhlalukweni Sisters – Salani va chiawelo (Fast Move)
Shangaan music has been evolving for centuries. Thanks to the blog Electric Jive, the go-to website for South African music, I can bring you a moment of that history from 1977 – unencumbered by the modern trappings of a drum kit and electric bass – from the collection “Nkulungwani wa nwalungu vol 1”.
4 Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited – Nyati (Afro Soul)
From the mid 70s that was “Nyati”, the B-side of an early single by Thomas Mapfumo, with his backing band of the time, the Blacks Unlimited. Mapfumo and his guitarist Jonah Sithole were forming the modern Chimurenga sound by building onto a skeleton of Shona traditional music. I also got that from a post on Electric Jive.
5 Batida – Tribalismo (featuring Circuito Feixado) Soundway
Angolan/Portuguese DJ Mpula aka Pedro Cequenao with a combination of kuduro (Angola’s equivalent of kwaito) and 70s Angolan latin-infused folk psychedelia.
6 Rocket Juice & The Moon – Follow Fashion (featuring Fatoumata Diawara & M.anifest) (Honest Jons)
Heading back to the future, Rocket Juice & The Moon is a kind of supergroup built around the drumming of veteran afro-beat legend, Tony Allen, with Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Britrocker Damon Albarn. Mark Ernestus, who also features on “Shangaan Shake”, produces and there are a bunch of luminaries as guests.
7 Jenny Scheinman – Ali Farke Touche (Self Produced)
American violinist, Jenny Sheinman’s tribute to Ali Farka Toure. In her band are Nels Cline, the guitarist from Wico, Todd Sickafoose, the bassist from Ani Difranco and Jim Black, who’s a fairly well known jazz drummer. It’s from Scheinman’s 2012 album “Mischief & Mayhem”.
8 Amadou Diagne – Yaro (World Music Network)
From Mali via NYC, to Senegal. Here is a wonderful percussionist, guitarist and kora player who World Music Network have brought out on their “Introducing …” imprint, which they use to break usually great musicians that are well-known in their local areas onto the international stage. Amadou Diagne is from a griot family and has played in the Senegal National Band for decades. “Yaro” is sung in Wolof, and is a kind of restrained version of Mbalax.
9 Emel Mathlouthi – Ma ikit (Not found) (World Village)
From Tunisian Emel Mathlouthi’s celebratory album "Kelmti Horra" (“My Word is Free”), which came out during or shortly after the uprising there. Arab melodies, trip-hoppy rhythms and Bulgarian choral chanting … a bit much, but it kind of works …
10 Googoosh – Pishkesh (Finders Keepers)
Although not a Middle Eastern pro-democracy activist like Emel Mathouthi, veteran singer Googoosh’s songs have become anthems for international Iranian communities. Her songs were banned after the revolution, her records were destroyed and some of her recordings are reportedly lost forever. Finders Keepers have dug out some of the more obscure tracks that are still around – the collection is called “Googoosh”.
11 Ahmad Al-Harazi – Amsi sameer al-nojoom
Oud player and singer, Ahmad Al-Harazi, from Yemen off a wonderful collection of local music styles in the 60s and 70s out on Parlotone called “Qat, Coffee & Qambus: Raw 45s from Yemen”.
12 Yemen Blues – Jat Mahibati (LevGroup)
The Israeli band Yemen Blues under the leadership of Yemenite singer Ravid Kahalani, off their very fine debut album called “Yemen Blues”.
13 Debo Band – Aderetch Arada (Buda Musique)
According to their website, Debo Band is a “Boston-based 11-member group led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted by charismatic vocalist Bruck Tesfaye”. They’re also flavour of the month on the festival circuit and about to release their debut LP on the ultratrendy Seattle-based label, Subpop.
Hopefully you can hear the connections between Ethiopian and Yemeni music – Yemen is a stone’s throw from the East Coast of Africa and the resonances are ethnomusicologically recognized. I got that Debo Band track off Ethopiques’ latest collection “Various Artists: Noise & Chill Out: Ethiopian Groove Worldwide” – a collection of non-Ethiopian bands playing Ethiopian music ... there’ll be much more from that double album in later shows.
14 Dub Colossus – Stop! In the name of dub (Real World)
One of the bands on the “Noise & Chillout” collection is Dub Colossus. Nick Page, the driving force in Dub Colossus, has released an album of dub-enhanced versions of some of their tunes, with brand new pieces thrown in. The LP’s called “Dub me tender”.
15 Lee Perry & the Upsetters – Natural Dub (Exclusive dub plate mix) (Pressure Drop)
Off the collection of rarities recorded in the Black Ark from the 70s, “The Return of Sound System Scratch on the label Pressure Drop”.
16 Little Axe – Garfield Elementary (On-U Sound)
From Pressure Drop’s sister label, off Skip McDonald’s latest, “If you want loyalty get a dog”.
17 The Happyland Singers – I’ll Fly Away (Excelsior Recordings)
Apparently the earliest recorded version of this 1920’s gospel song is by the Selah Jubilee Singers made in 1941. The Happyland Singers’ version can’t be much younger than that. It’s from a collection of 78 RPMs called incongruously, “Blue Flamingo – Congo Jazz”, which was brought out by the Dutch label, Excelsior Recordings, and includes American hot jazz and gospel and Congolese rumba.
18 James Booker – Slowly but surely (AVES)
Clearly influenced by Professor Longhair, James Booker from New Orleans with his own song, “Slowly but surely”. That was recorded live in Hamburg in 1976. Booker started his career in the 50s, and sessioned for the greats from the early rock n roll New Orleans scene: Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis and Lloyd Price.
19 Dr John – Revolution (Nonesuch)
Another great pianist from New Orleans of the same generation is Dr John or Mac Rebennack (born 1940), in fact Rebennack and James Booker shared backing bands at some point. Dr John is still going strong and, as I mentioned last month, is having a major revival. His latest record, “Locked Down”, is produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, who encouraged Rebennack to write material onsite in the studio which was then more or less workshopped with a sterling group of musicians. Here’s “Revolution”, on which he plays the Wurlitzer organ.
20 MAKU Sound System – Si Las Balas (own label)
MAKU Sound System from NYC with one of their own songs “Si Las Balas”, off their fine self-released album available on Bandcamp, “Makumbala”.
21 Los Corraleros De Majagual – El Ascensor (Vampisoul)
A couple of years ago the reissue label Vampisoul brought out a 2 CD collection of Afro-Columbian stuff culled from the more oddball side of the late 60s and 70s catalogue of the label Discos Fuentes.
22 Andrew Bird – Orpheo looks back (Mom & Pop)
American fiddler, whistler and singer-songwriter Andrew Bird’s amazing hybrid music – I’m definitely hearing Irish music in there, perhaps some Cajun fiddle and loads of other stuff too. It’s from his latest album, “Break it yourself”.
23 Gerry Diver – My Margeret (One Fine Day)
Irish fiddler Gerry Diver, who also plays viola, hammer dulcimer, whistle and guitar, released a fascinating record in 2011 that he calls the “Speech Project”. He’s basically taken conversations with some great Irish musicians like Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore and Martin Hayes and set them to music. “My Margaret” is a very moving one with the legendary singer and banjo player, Margaret Barry, who died in 1989, talking about her mother.
24 Martin Simpson – Jamie Foyers (Topic)
Martin Simpson on guitar off his latest “Purpose and Grace”, backing the seriously wonderful Scottish singer, Dick Gaughan, who is a fine guitarist in his own right, on a traditional song. The beautiful pedal steel is by the English player, B J Cole.
25 Alasdair Roberts & Mairi Morrison – Mile Marbhphaisg Air A Ghaol (Drag City)
The Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist Alasdair Roberts has a new album out – an event always anticipated in my part of the world, and this one does not disappoint. He’s teamed up with the Gaelic singer Mairi Morrison (from the Isle of Lewis off the North coast of Scotland) and come up with a very varied album. It’s called “Urstan”, and the opener is a Pentangle-like folk-jazz affair with a title that translates as “A thousand curses on love”.
26 Warsaw Village Band – Traditional Rural Polka (World Village)
From “People’s Spring” which came out in 2003. The Warsaw Village Band’s mission is preserving traditional peasant music from Poland by seeking out and recording older musicians, and incorporating old melodies into new settings.
27 Fanfare Ciocarlia – I’m your gummy bear (Asphalt Tango)
The theme song from the esteemed TV show - “I’m your gummy bear” – by the Romanian brass band, from the album “Balkan Brass Battle”.
28 The Klezmatics – Man in a hat (Xenophile Records)
From “Jews with horns”, one of the first albums in the current klezmer revival. Lorin Sklamberg, who many believe to the best Yiddish singer around, does the vocals.
29 Steven Bernstein – Dybbuk Dub (Tzadik)
Trumpeter and slide trumpeter, Steven Bernstein’s dubbed up version of the traditional tune “Dybbuk”, out on the Tzadik release “Diaspora Soul”. Professor Is-Rea provides the dubbery.
From the collection “Shangaan Electro” which came out in 2010.
2 Burnt Friedman – Burnt Friedman Meets Zinja Hlungwani (Honest Jons)
From Tzaneen, Limpopo, via Joburg and London to Berlin - Burnt Friedman’s rewiring of the Zinja Hlungwani tune “Ntombi ya mugaza”. All this is under the auspices of London based label Honest Jon’s which in 2010 saw fit to release a bunch of Richard “Dog” Mthetwa’s fast, cheap and nasty, but ultimately charming productions of Shangaan electronica and caused a global sensation. Honest Jon’s commissioned this radical reworking, and several others from some top-drawer international techno/electro soundsmiths – the remixes are released on a double disk, “Shangaan Shake”.
3 James Makhubelo & the Nhlalukweni Sisters – Salani va chiawelo (Fast Move)
Shangaan music has been evolving for centuries. Thanks to the blog Electric Jive, the go-to website for South African music, I can bring you a moment of that history from 1977 – unencumbered by the modern trappings of a drum kit and electric bass – from the collection “Nkulungwani wa nwalungu vol 1”.
4 Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited – Nyati (Afro Soul)
From the mid 70s that was “Nyati”, the B-side of an early single by Thomas Mapfumo, with his backing band of the time, the Blacks Unlimited. Mapfumo and his guitarist Jonah Sithole were forming the modern Chimurenga sound by building onto a skeleton of Shona traditional music. I also got that from a post on Electric Jive.
5 Batida – Tribalismo (featuring Circuito Feixado) Soundway
Angolan/Portuguese DJ Mpula aka Pedro Cequenao with a combination of kuduro (Angola’s equivalent of kwaito) and 70s Angolan latin-infused folk psychedelia.
6 Rocket Juice & The Moon – Follow Fashion (featuring Fatoumata Diawara & M.anifest) (Honest Jons)
Heading back to the future, Rocket Juice & The Moon is a kind of supergroup built around the drumming of veteran afro-beat legend, Tony Allen, with Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Britrocker Damon Albarn. Mark Ernestus, who also features on “Shangaan Shake”, produces and there are a bunch of luminaries as guests.
7 Jenny Scheinman – Ali Farke Touche (Self Produced)
American violinist, Jenny Sheinman’s tribute to Ali Farka Toure. In her band are Nels Cline, the guitarist from Wico, Todd Sickafoose, the bassist from Ani Difranco and Jim Black, who’s a fairly well known jazz drummer. It’s from Scheinman’s 2012 album “Mischief & Mayhem”.
8 Amadou Diagne – Yaro (World Music Network)
From Mali via NYC, to Senegal. Here is a wonderful percussionist, guitarist and kora player who World Music Network have brought out on their “Introducing …” imprint, which they use to break usually great musicians that are well-known in their local areas onto the international stage. Amadou Diagne is from a griot family and has played in the Senegal National Band for decades. “Yaro” is sung in Wolof, and is a kind of restrained version of Mbalax.
9 Emel Mathlouthi – Ma ikit (Not found) (World Village)
From Tunisian Emel Mathlouthi’s celebratory album "Kelmti Horra" (“My Word is Free”), which came out during or shortly after the uprising there. Arab melodies, trip-hoppy rhythms and Bulgarian choral chanting … a bit much, but it kind of works …
10 Googoosh – Pishkesh (Finders Keepers)
Although not a Middle Eastern pro-democracy activist like Emel Mathouthi, veteran singer Googoosh’s songs have become anthems for international Iranian communities. Her songs were banned after the revolution, her records were destroyed and some of her recordings are reportedly lost forever. Finders Keepers have dug out some of the more obscure tracks that are still around – the collection is called “Googoosh”.
11 Ahmad Al-Harazi – Amsi sameer al-nojoom
Oud player and singer, Ahmad Al-Harazi, from Yemen off a wonderful collection of local music styles in the 60s and 70s out on Parlotone called “Qat, Coffee & Qambus: Raw 45s from Yemen”.
12 Yemen Blues – Jat Mahibati (LevGroup)
The Israeli band Yemen Blues under the leadership of Yemenite singer Ravid Kahalani, off their very fine debut album called “Yemen Blues”.
13 Debo Band – Aderetch Arada (Buda Musique)
According to their website, Debo Band is a “Boston-based 11-member group led by Ethiopian-American saxophonist Danny Mekonnen and fronted by charismatic vocalist Bruck Tesfaye”. They’re also flavour of the month on the festival circuit and about to release their debut LP on the ultratrendy Seattle-based label, Subpop.
Hopefully you can hear the connections between Ethiopian and Yemeni music – Yemen is a stone’s throw from the East Coast of Africa and the resonances are ethnomusicologically recognized. I got that Debo Band track off Ethopiques’ latest collection “Various Artists: Noise & Chill Out: Ethiopian Groove Worldwide” – a collection of non-Ethiopian bands playing Ethiopian music ... there’ll be much more from that double album in later shows.
14 Dub Colossus – Stop! In the name of dub (Real World)
One of the bands on the “Noise & Chillout” collection is Dub Colossus. Nick Page, the driving force in Dub Colossus, has released an album of dub-enhanced versions of some of their tunes, with brand new pieces thrown in. The LP’s called “Dub me tender”.
15 Lee Perry & the Upsetters – Natural Dub (Exclusive dub plate mix) (Pressure Drop)
Off the collection of rarities recorded in the Black Ark from the 70s, “The Return of Sound System Scratch on the label Pressure Drop”.
16 Little Axe – Garfield Elementary (On-U Sound)
From Pressure Drop’s sister label, off Skip McDonald’s latest, “If you want loyalty get a dog”.
17 The Happyland Singers – I’ll Fly Away (Excelsior Recordings)
Apparently the earliest recorded version of this 1920’s gospel song is by the Selah Jubilee Singers made in 1941. The Happyland Singers’ version can’t be much younger than that. It’s from a collection of 78 RPMs called incongruously, “Blue Flamingo – Congo Jazz”, which was brought out by the Dutch label, Excelsior Recordings, and includes American hot jazz and gospel and Congolese rumba.
18 James Booker – Slowly but surely (AVES)
Clearly influenced by Professor Longhair, James Booker from New Orleans with his own song, “Slowly but surely”. That was recorded live in Hamburg in 1976. Booker started his career in the 50s, and sessioned for the greats from the early rock n roll New Orleans scene: Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis and Lloyd Price.
19 Dr John – Revolution (Nonesuch)
Another great pianist from New Orleans of the same generation is Dr John or Mac Rebennack (born 1940), in fact Rebennack and James Booker shared backing bands at some point. Dr John is still going strong and, as I mentioned last month, is having a major revival. His latest record, “Locked Down”, is produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, who encouraged Rebennack to write material onsite in the studio which was then more or less workshopped with a sterling group of musicians. Here’s “Revolution”, on which he plays the Wurlitzer organ.
20 MAKU Sound System – Si Las Balas (own label)
MAKU Sound System from NYC with one of their own songs “Si Las Balas”, off their fine self-released album available on Bandcamp, “Makumbala”.
21 Los Corraleros De Majagual – El Ascensor (Vampisoul)
A couple of years ago the reissue label Vampisoul brought out a 2 CD collection of Afro-Columbian stuff culled from the more oddball side of the late 60s and 70s catalogue of the label Discos Fuentes.
22 Andrew Bird – Orpheo looks back (Mom & Pop)
American fiddler, whistler and singer-songwriter Andrew Bird’s amazing hybrid music – I’m definitely hearing Irish music in there, perhaps some Cajun fiddle and loads of other stuff too. It’s from his latest album, “Break it yourself”.
23 Gerry Diver – My Margeret (One Fine Day)
Irish fiddler Gerry Diver, who also plays viola, hammer dulcimer, whistle and guitar, released a fascinating record in 2011 that he calls the “Speech Project”. He’s basically taken conversations with some great Irish musicians like Shane MacGowan, Christy Moore and Martin Hayes and set them to music. “My Margaret” is a very moving one with the legendary singer and banjo player, Margaret Barry, who died in 1989, talking about her mother.
24 Martin Simpson – Jamie Foyers (Topic)
Martin Simpson on guitar off his latest “Purpose and Grace”, backing the seriously wonderful Scottish singer, Dick Gaughan, who is a fine guitarist in his own right, on a traditional song. The beautiful pedal steel is by the English player, B J Cole.
25 Alasdair Roberts & Mairi Morrison – Mile Marbhphaisg Air A Ghaol (Drag City)
The Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist Alasdair Roberts has a new album out – an event always anticipated in my part of the world, and this one does not disappoint. He’s teamed up with the Gaelic singer Mairi Morrison (from the Isle of Lewis off the North coast of Scotland) and come up with a very varied album. It’s called “Urstan”, and the opener is a Pentangle-like folk-jazz affair with a title that translates as “A thousand curses on love”.
26 Warsaw Village Band – Traditional Rural Polka (World Village)
From “People’s Spring” which came out in 2003. The Warsaw Village Band’s mission is preserving traditional peasant music from Poland by seeking out and recording older musicians, and incorporating old melodies into new settings.
27 Fanfare Ciocarlia – I’m your gummy bear (Asphalt Tango)
The theme song from the esteemed TV show - “I’m your gummy bear” – by the Romanian brass band, from the album “Balkan Brass Battle”.
28 The Klezmatics – Man in a hat (Xenophile Records)
From “Jews with horns”, one of the first albums in the current klezmer revival. Lorin Sklamberg, who many believe to the best Yiddish singer around, does the vocals.
29 Steven Bernstein – Dybbuk Dub (Tzadik)
Trumpeter and slide trumpeter, Steven Bernstein’s dubbed up version of the traditional tune “Dybbuk”, out on the Tzadik release “Diaspora Soul”. Professor Is-Rea provides the dubbery.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
2 May 2012, World Cafe
1 Galactic – Attack (Epitaph)
Urgent, brooding, almost martial afrobeat infused jazz-funk from New Orleans. Galactic have been around for 18 years, and “Attack” is from their 2012 album, “Carnivale Electricos”.
2 Dr John and the Lower 911 – Big Gap (Proper)
Dr John, long a mainstay of New Orleans music, is having a serious revival at the moment. That was something from his second last album “Tribal” which he wrote with Allen Touissaint, very much with the aftermath of Katrina and the current recession on his mind. His backing band, the Lower 911, is probably called after the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the oldest and most heavily flooded areas of New Orleans, and the birthplace of Fats Domino.
3 The Heavyweights Brass Band – Bad Romance (own label, used with permission)
From Toronto, not New Orleans, that was the Heavyweights Brass Band with their fabulous Preservation Hall type version of the Lady Gaga tune. These guys have only been around since 2009, and have supported Galactic.
4 Gilles Peterson’s Havana Cultura Band featuring Dreiser and Sexto – Orisa (Brownswood)
Last month we heard the Heavyweights Brass Band’s melting together of Cuban and New Orleans sounds curated by Gilles Peterson on his 2 CD collection “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”. From that same collection, that was something more distinctly Cuban (or perhaps Afro-Cuban) by the house band on CD 1, the Havana Cultura Band. Orisa is a Yoruban deity.
5 Ablaye Thiossane – Bouki Ndiour (Discograph/Sterns)
Sticking with the Afro-Cuban, this time sung in Wolof , that was the great veteran Senegalese singer Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane (who sang for Orchestra du Baobab in the 70s) with “Bouki Ndiour” off his debut solo album which is just out. A bunch of former and present Baobabians play with him on the album, including the sax player Thierno Kouyate.
6 Sory Kandia Kouyate – N’na (Sterns)
Cuban sounds ended up being the musical substrate for most of West Africa in the late 60s and 70s, including Guinea. Sterns has just released the fifth set of its double CD reissues of the Syliphone catalogue. Syliphone was the label linked to the government- funded cultural renaissance in Guinea in the 70s. The new CDs collect the music of Sory Kandia Kouyate, an incredibly powerful singer with a massive repertoire of traditional songs, and is called “La Voix de la Revolution”. “N’na” is from volume 1, on which he’s backed by “modern” dance bands and sounding more poppy than traditional.
7 Teta – Ze mahery managnaze (Buda Musique)
Teta plays in the Madagascan Tsapiky style and has been doing so since he was age 8, in the mid 70s. The tune is off his 2012 album called “Fototse Racines Roots”.
8 Damily – Rombo (Helico)
Hailing from the Tulear region in southern Madagascar, that was the great Tsapiky band, Damily, with a short, frenetic percussive piece, pretty typical of the style.
9 Prince Fatty Meets the Mutant HiFi – Across the border (Mr Bongo)
Where the barren, tumbleweed Mariachi plains meet tropical Jamaica. Prince Fatty and the Mutant HiFi are essentially a pair of producers – Mike Pelanconi and Nick Coplowe. Coplowe has done a bunch of work for the British dub label On-U Sound.
10 Augustus Pablo – Black Ants Lane (Goldenlane Records)
A classic track from the late 70s. Black Ants Lane is a rough area off Red Hills Road in uptown Kingston.
11 New Age Steppers – The Worst of Me (On-U Sound)
After about 30 years’ absence here is the great On-U Sound punky-dubby collective The New Age Steppers, with something new. The late Ari Up (from another punky dub band, the Slits) is at the helm, as she used to be back when the New Age Steppers were a regular thing. She was fighting cancer when she was making the last New Age Steppers album “Love Forever”, and it’s probably the last thing she did.
12 Jagmohan - Aji Kahan Gum Ho (Finders Keepers Records)
The 80s and 90s saw a craze in Bollywood for cheap and nasty horror movies, usually scored by some top-drawer Bollywood composers. Finders Keepers has just released a collection of some of the finer musical moments of the genre – “Bollywood Bloodbath: The B-music of the Indian horror film industry”. The song we heard there was composed by Jagmohan – the performers are lost.
13 Anoushka Shankar – Traveller (Deutsche Grammophon)
From a B grade label, to a decidedly A grade one. Deutsche Grammophon have been making forays into the popular of late. The sitar-playing daughter and pupil of Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, has just put out a release with Spanish flamenco producer Javier Limon – most of it is way too polite and fusionesque for my liking. The title track “Traveller” lets rip though.
14 Anda Union – Galloping Horses (Hohhot)
From the Inner Mongolian city of Hohhot, a wonderful, relatively new band off their fine 2011 album “The Wind Horse”.
15 Kurmanjiang Zaccharia – Babulao (Sublime Frequencies)
Also in Northern China, but on the west side in the Xinjiang region (in fact recorded close to the border with Kazakhstan), that was the Kazakh string virtuoso, Kurmanjiang Zaccharia, playing his two-stringed dongbra. It’s on the album “Ethnic Minority Music of Northwest Xinjiang”, recorded in 2009 just before the Uyghur uprising in that region.
16 Neung Phak – Kawp Koon Kawp Koon (Abduction Records)
Neung Phak is essentially a South East Asian tribute group, hailing from nowhere remotely close to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia or Vietman – they’re from Oakland, California. The tune is from their second LP called imaginatively “2”. The connection between this and the Kazakh track? Mark Gergis, a driving force in Neung Phak, collaborates with and collects music for Sublime Frequencies, especially music from SE Asia and the Middle East.
17 Burnt Friedman – Deku No Bo (Nonplace)
While we are on the subject of ethnological forgeries, here’s another one, this time committed by Burnt Friedman, sounding vaguely Javanese or Indonesian. “Deku No Bo” is off his latest album called “Bokoboko”, which is Japanese for “uneven”. He’s playing modified oil barrels, monochord, rubber band guitar and sarod (an Indian stringed instrument).
18 Renata Rosa – Marcha do Donzel (Nascente)
The rabeca violin is a kind of peasant fiddle from the Pernambeco region of northeastern Brazil, and Renata Rosa is one of the best exponents. This comes from a fabulous collection mostly of field recordings produced for the BBC that Nascente brought out last year called “World Routes – On the Road”.
19 Nidi D’Arac – Ronde noe (Tarantulae Management & Production)
For some reason I paired that Brazilian peasant music with this radically updated version of southern Italian peasant music by Nidi D’Arac, now based in Rome. It’s from their latest album “Taranta Container”.
20 Shazalakazoo featuring Wikluh Sky – Plus 49 (Eastblok Music)
From Belgrade, Shazalakazoo with some kind of Balkan ragamuffin, from their latest album called “Karton City Boom”.
21 Balkan Beat Box – Ljepa Mare (Crammed Records)
Very similar to Shazalakazoo, but from NYC, from their 2010 album, “Blue Eyed Black Boy”.
22 La Bottine Souriante – En p’tit boggie (Les Productions Mille-Pattes)
Québecois music at its best: La Bottine Souriante - "the smiling boot" – with the decidedly skanky “En p’tit boggie”. From their 2001 album, “Cordial”.
23 Iarla O’Lionaird – Ta Dha Ghabhairin Bhui Agam (The Goat Song) (Real World Music)
Quebecois includes a healthy slice of Irish music, so I thought I’d head for the Kilkenny countryside with sean-nos (“old-style”) singer, Iarla O’Lionaird, formerly of the Afro Celt Sound System. That was his version of the Gaelic ditty “The Goat Song”. Producer Leo Abrahams is on guitar, and think Leafcutter John is in there providing subtle electronics, and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh is on fiddle and hardanger fiddle. It’s off his 2011 release on Real World called “Foxlight”.
24 Seamus Ennis – The Kerry Recruit (Traditional)
The great Irish singer, folk-song collector and piper, Seamus Ennis, with his version of the traditional tune, “The Kerry Recruit”, which dates from the Crimean War in the mid 1850s. Apparently, if you were around during the playing of "The Kerry Recruit" during the Crimean War, you could be thrown in jail.
25 Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll – Coronation Day (Own label)
Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll are a fiddle duo based in the South West of England. “Coronation Day” is a traditional tune from their second album, which came out in 2009 called “Beneath the black tree”.
26 Liz Green – Displacement Song (Pias)
Singer songwriter Liz Green is from Liverpool and relatively new on the folk scene. “Displacement Song” is a kind of Brechtian waltz.
27 Saara Markkanen – Ralli (Solo Tuotanto)
The slightly melancholy sounding Finnish singer-songwriter Saara Markkanen. According to a blog entry I came across, her lyrics are “quite poetic and a bit dark”. From the album “Aina Jossain Sataa”.
28 Hanne Hukkelberg – Erik (Propeller)
Another singer/songwriter, also Scandinavian, but this time from Norway – Hanne Hukkelberg with something pretty marvelous off her very recent album, “Featherbrain”: a duet with her 88 year old neighbour, Erik Vister, who happens to be a classically trained singer, with detuned piano accompaniment.
29 Olafur Arnalds – Everything Must Change (Erased Tapes)
The 25 year Icelandic wunderkind, Olafur Arnald, with some soundtrack music he calls “Everything must change” which is from the 2011 Sam Levinson movie “Another Happy Day”.
Urgent, brooding, almost martial afrobeat infused jazz-funk from New Orleans. Galactic have been around for 18 years, and “Attack” is from their 2012 album, “Carnivale Electricos”.
2 Dr John and the Lower 911 – Big Gap (Proper)
Dr John, long a mainstay of New Orleans music, is having a serious revival at the moment. That was something from his second last album “Tribal” which he wrote with Allen Touissaint, very much with the aftermath of Katrina and the current recession on his mind. His backing band, the Lower 911, is probably called after the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the oldest and most heavily flooded areas of New Orleans, and the birthplace of Fats Domino.
3 The Heavyweights Brass Band – Bad Romance (own label, used with permission)
From Toronto, not New Orleans, that was the Heavyweights Brass Band with their fabulous Preservation Hall type version of the Lady Gaga tune. These guys have only been around since 2009, and have supported Galactic.
4 Gilles Peterson’s Havana Cultura Band featuring Dreiser and Sexto – Orisa (Brownswood)
Last month we heard the Heavyweights Brass Band’s melting together of Cuban and New Orleans sounds curated by Gilles Peterson on his 2 CD collection “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”. From that same collection, that was something more distinctly Cuban (or perhaps Afro-Cuban) by the house band on CD 1, the Havana Cultura Band. Orisa is a Yoruban deity.
5 Ablaye Thiossane – Bouki Ndiour (Discograph/Sterns)
Sticking with the Afro-Cuban, this time sung in Wolof , that was the great veteran Senegalese singer Ablaye Ndiaye Thiossane (who sang for Orchestra du Baobab in the 70s) with “Bouki Ndiour” off his debut solo album which is just out. A bunch of former and present Baobabians play with him on the album, including the sax player Thierno Kouyate.
6 Sory Kandia Kouyate – N’na (Sterns)
Cuban sounds ended up being the musical substrate for most of West Africa in the late 60s and 70s, including Guinea. Sterns has just released the fifth set of its double CD reissues of the Syliphone catalogue. Syliphone was the label linked to the government- funded cultural renaissance in Guinea in the 70s. The new CDs collect the music of Sory Kandia Kouyate, an incredibly powerful singer with a massive repertoire of traditional songs, and is called “La Voix de la Revolution”. “N’na” is from volume 1, on which he’s backed by “modern” dance bands and sounding more poppy than traditional.
7 Teta – Ze mahery managnaze (Buda Musique)
Teta plays in the Madagascan Tsapiky style and has been doing so since he was age 8, in the mid 70s. The tune is off his 2012 album called “Fototse Racines Roots”.
8 Damily – Rombo (Helico)
Hailing from the Tulear region in southern Madagascar, that was the great Tsapiky band, Damily, with a short, frenetic percussive piece, pretty typical of the style.
9 Prince Fatty Meets the Mutant HiFi – Across the border (Mr Bongo)
Where the barren, tumbleweed Mariachi plains meet tropical Jamaica. Prince Fatty and the Mutant HiFi are essentially a pair of producers – Mike Pelanconi and Nick Coplowe. Coplowe has done a bunch of work for the British dub label On-U Sound.
10 Augustus Pablo – Black Ants Lane (Goldenlane Records)
A classic track from the late 70s. Black Ants Lane is a rough area off Red Hills Road in uptown Kingston.
11 New Age Steppers – The Worst of Me (On-U Sound)
After about 30 years’ absence here is the great On-U Sound punky-dubby collective The New Age Steppers, with something new. The late Ari Up (from another punky dub band, the Slits) is at the helm, as she used to be back when the New Age Steppers were a regular thing. She was fighting cancer when she was making the last New Age Steppers album “Love Forever”, and it’s probably the last thing she did.
12 Jagmohan - Aji Kahan Gum Ho (Finders Keepers Records)
The 80s and 90s saw a craze in Bollywood for cheap and nasty horror movies, usually scored by some top-drawer Bollywood composers. Finders Keepers has just released a collection of some of the finer musical moments of the genre – “Bollywood Bloodbath: The B-music of the Indian horror film industry”. The song we heard there was composed by Jagmohan – the performers are lost.
13 Anoushka Shankar – Traveller (Deutsche Grammophon)
From a B grade label, to a decidedly A grade one. Deutsche Grammophon have been making forays into the popular of late. The sitar-playing daughter and pupil of Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar, has just put out a release with Spanish flamenco producer Javier Limon – most of it is way too polite and fusionesque for my liking. The title track “Traveller” lets rip though.
14 Anda Union – Galloping Horses (Hohhot)
From the Inner Mongolian city of Hohhot, a wonderful, relatively new band off their fine 2011 album “The Wind Horse”.
15 Kurmanjiang Zaccharia – Babulao (Sublime Frequencies)
Also in Northern China, but on the west side in the Xinjiang region (in fact recorded close to the border with Kazakhstan), that was the Kazakh string virtuoso, Kurmanjiang Zaccharia, playing his two-stringed dongbra. It’s on the album “Ethnic Minority Music of Northwest Xinjiang”, recorded in 2009 just before the Uyghur uprising in that region.
16 Neung Phak – Kawp Koon Kawp Koon (Abduction Records)
Neung Phak is essentially a South East Asian tribute group, hailing from nowhere remotely close to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia or Vietman – they’re from Oakland, California. The tune is from their second LP called imaginatively “2”. The connection between this and the Kazakh track? Mark Gergis, a driving force in Neung Phak, collaborates with and collects music for Sublime Frequencies, especially music from SE Asia and the Middle East.
17 Burnt Friedman – Deku No Bo (Nonplace)
While we are on the subject of ethnological forgeries, here’s another one, this time committed by Burnt Friedman, sounding vaguely Javanese or Indonesian. “Deku No Bo” is off his latest album called “Bokoboko”, which is Japanese for “uneven”. He’s playing modified oil barrels, monochord, rubber band guitar and sarod (an Indian stringed instrument).
18 Renata Rosa – Marcha do Donzel (Nascente)
The rabeca violin is a kind of peasant fiddle from the Pernambeco region of northeastern Brazil, and Renata Rosa is one of the best exponents. This comes from a fabulous collection mostly of field recordings produced for the BBC that Nascente brought out last year called “World Routes – On the Road”.
19 Nidi D’Arac – Ronde noe (Tarantulae Management & Production)
For some reason I paired that Brazilian peasant music with this radically updated version of southern Italian peasant music by Nidi D’Arac, now based in Rome. It’s from their latest album “Taranta Container”.
20 Shazalakazoo featuring Wikluh Sky – Plus 49 (Eastblok Music)
From Belgrade, Shazalakazoo with some kind of Balkan ragamuffin, from their latest album called “Karton City Boom”.
21 Balkan Beat Box – Ljepa Mare (Crammed Records)
Very similar to Shazalakazoo, but from NYC, from their 2010 album, “Blue Eyed Black Boy”.
22 La Bottine Souriante – En p’tit boggie (Les Productions Mille-Pattes)
Québecois music at its best: La Bottine Souriante - "the smiling boot" – with the decidedly skanky “En p’tit boggie”. From their 2001 album, “Cordial”.
23 Iarla O’Lionaird – Ta Dha Ghabhairin Bhui Agam (The Goat Song) (Real World Music)
Quebecois includes a healthy slice of Irish music, so I thought I’d head for the Kilkenny countryside with sean-nos (“old-style”) singer, Iarla O’Lionaird, formerly of the Afro Celt Sound System. That was his version of the Gaelic ditty “The Goat Song”. Producer Leo Abrahams is on guitar, and think Leafcutter John is in there providing subtle electronics, and Caoimhin O Raghallaigh is on fiddle and hardanger fiddle. It’s off his 2011 release on Real World called “Foxlight”.
24 Seamus Ennis – The Kerry Recruit (Traditional)
The great Irish singer, folk-song collector and piper, Seamus Ennis, with his version of the traditional tune, “The Kerry Recruit”, which dates from the Crimean War in the mid 1850s. Apparently, if you were around during the playing of "The Kerry Recruit" during the Crimean War, you could be thrown in jail.
25 Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll – Coronation Day (Own label)
Nick Wyke and Becki Driscoll are a fiddle duo based in the South West of England. “Coronation Day” is a traditional tune from their second album, which came out in 2009 called “Beneath the black tree”.
26 Liz Green – Displacement Song (Pias)
Singer songwriter Liz Green is from Liverpool and relatively new on the folk scene. “Displacement Song” is a kind of Brechtian waltz.
27 Saara Markkanen – Ralli (Solo Tuotanto)
The slightly melancholy sounding Finnish singer-songwriter Saara Markkanen. According to a blog entry I came across, her lyrics are “quite poetic and a bit dark”. From the album “Aina Jossain Sataa”.
28 Hanne Hukkelberg – Erik (Propeller)
Another singer/songwriter, also Scandinavian, but this time from Norway – Hanne Hukkelberg with something pretty marvelous off her very recent album, “Featherbrain”: a duet with her 88 year old neighbour, Erik Vister, who happens to be a classically trained singer, with detuned piano accompaniment.
29 Olafur Arnalds – Everything Must Change (Erased Tapes)
The 25 year Icelandic wunderkind, Olafur Arnald, with some soundtrack music he calls “Everything must change” which is from the 2011 Sam Levinson movie “Another Happy Day”.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
4 April 2012, World Cafe
1 Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa – Tamtakani (General Pattern)
Moroccan Aziz Sahmaoui with his band of brilliant Senegambian musicians, University of Gnawa, off his 2011 “Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa”.
2 Yemen Blues – Um Min Al Yaman (LevGroup)
Sticking in the North African, Middle East area, Yemen Blues are from Israel and centred around singer and composer Ravid Kahalani, who is of Yemenite extraction, and bassist and arranger, Omer Avital, who spent many years in NYC, playing mainstream jazz.
“Um min al yaman” was written by Kahalani and is about a dreamed journey up a mountain in which he sees his mother waving to him in greeting, but at the same time hears a voice telling him he is alone. The time signature is derived from a traditional beat called Da’Sa – I really love the arresting interplay between horns and strings. It’s from an album called “Yemen Blues”.
3 Tuneyards – Bizness (4AD)
Tuneyards is Merrill Garbus on ukulele, voice and layers of drum loops, and on their 2011 album, “Who Kill”, bassist Nate Brenner. In “Bizness” they throw everything into the mix including a bunch of African sounds, a bit like American indie pop darlings MIA, the Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend, only to my ears, Tuneyards is a more uncompromising and better proposition.
4 Fatoumata Diawara – Kanou (World Circuit)
On the subject of media darlings, that was Malian Fatoumata Diawara off her endlessly terrific debut album, “Fatou”. Distributed in South Africa by Sheer Music.
5 Abdu Owiti - Stephen Opio (Dust-to-Digital)
6 Stonik and Kiprono – Molildo Kiruk-Yuk (Dust-to-Digital)
Two obscure vintage gems from Kenya, the first by Abdu Owiti who is of the Luo people from Western Kenya, and the second by Stonik and Kiprono, who are Kipsigis, a pastoralist group. Both groups’ origins can be traced to Southern Sudan.
These recordings come from a remarkable 4 CD collection of vintage stuff all culled from 78 records commercially released for local audiences all around Africa - a bit like the highly influential Anthology of American Folk Music, which came out 60 years ago, only way more diverse. The collection is called “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM”.
7 Alemayehu Eshete – Yeweyn haregitu (Buda Musique)
When we talk about old African recordings, Ethiopia is a serious well-spring. We’ve listened to the great singer Mahoud Ahmed on this show many times, but I think we’ve never heard Alemayehu Eshete, who is in fact just as soulful and scorching a singer. He started out in Addis’s Police Orchestra, which literally was the police band, had his first hit in 1961 and then founded the Alem-Girma Band with pianist, composer and singer Girma Beyene. “Yeweyn haregitu” is an Eshete and Beyene composition, from the early 70s available on the collection “Ethiopiques Vol 9: 1969 to 1974”.
8 Samuel Yirga – Abet Abet (Real World)
Samuel Yirga the keyboardist with the Ethiojazz-dub fusion band Dub Colossus, from his first solo release, the EP “Hegere” which came out last year.
9 Tommy McCook – Far East Dub (Jamaican Recordings)
Sumptuous pentatonic eastern-sounding horn arrangements and dub bring to mind Augustus Pablo and his so-called “Far Eastern” sounds. Tommy McCook recently released a collection of vintage tracks that came out in the 70s, “Dubbing with Horns”. To my ears, on this track McCook’s flute sounds a lot like Pablo’s melodica, although Pablo has nothing to do with this tune as far as I can tell.
10 Little Axe – Grace (On-U Sound)
Little Axe is the stage name for Bernard Alexander aka Skip McDonald - a longtime musician in the stable of the British dub label On-U Sound. McDonald has had a varied musical history which includes playing in the band behind the first ever rap hit song – “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang. Since 94, as Little Axe, he’s been doing a mix of gospel, blues, Americana and dub. “Grace” comes from another great album that On-U Sound put out in 2011, “If you want loyalty, buy a dog”.
11 Anibal Velasquez y su Conjunto – Cumbia Bogatana (Soundway)
From South of the Mason-Dixon Line to Jamaica, let’s carry on heading south to that furious bubbling cauldron of Afro-Caribbean sounds, Columbia. “Cumbia Bogatana” is out on Soundway’s magnificent collection “The Original Sound of Cumbia 1948 to 79”.
12 Maku Sound System – Esclavo Moderno (MAKU Sound System)
NYC-based Columbian fusion band, MAKU Sound System with “Esclavo Moderno” from their 2011 album, Makumbala – available to you on the Bandcamp website http://makusoundsystem.bandcamp.com/ for a price of your picking.
Viviana Benitez, the band’s manager, told me that that Esclavo Moderno was written by M. Llerena and originally done by Manuel Alvarez y Sus Dangers and released on Curramba Records in 1979. http://www.makusoundsystem.com/
I got to hear about MAKU and Yemen Blues on a podcast about the annual musical festival, Global Fest, at which they played this year. You can get the show on the “All songs considered” website – and I would strongly recommend you do that.
13 Roy Montrell – Every time I hear that mellow saxophone (Specialty)
There is some argument about whether New Orleans and indeed Havana are in the Caribbean, or whether the geographical description the Gulf of Mexico would not be more accurate. What is not under dispute is that both cities are intimately connected, at least musically.
New Orleans guitarist Roy Montrell’s early rock n roll from 1956, heavily infused with mambo, New Orleans style.
14 The Heavyweights Brass Band feat. Edrey from Ogguere – Nueva Orleans (Brownswood)
Cuban rap and NOLA brass band music anyone? The Heavyweights Brass Band, from Toronto, with Cuban rapper Edrey from Ogguere. From the second CD of BBC DJ Gilles Petersen’s latest 2-volume production and compilation adventures in Cuba – “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”.
15 Dr John – When the saints go marching in (Parlophone)
If the HBO show “Treme” set in the music scene in New Orleans is to be believed, requests to play “When the saints go marching in” draw silent and not so silent groans from musicians. The song has been played to death. Well, maybe not … check out Dr John’s version in which he shares vocals with Mavis Staples from his album “N’wlinz: Dis dat or d’udda”.
I read about Dr John’s reclamation of the song in Ned Sublette’s fantastic book “The year before the flood”. He calls it a “dirge-tempo, minor, spiritual-church version”. He says the version “reminds us that jazz is partly rooted in the dirge, which is to say in making sure the ancestors are put away right”.
16 Pine Leaf Boys – La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau (Valcour)
We can’t leave Louisiana without listening to some Cajun music. That was the Pine Leaf Boys with “La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau” – a song by the great veteran songwriter and fiddler, Adam Hebert from Church Point. Many of his songs became classics. By the way, Wilson Savoy, on accordion and fiddle, is the son of the great Cajun revivalist couple – Marc and Ann Savoy. They appear more than a few times in the “Treme” series.
17 Laurie Levine – Not gonna cry (Rhythm Records)
And now to some Americana sounds from up North – north of the Orange River … Jo’burg. Laurie Levine off her fabulous 2011 release, “Six Winters”, and her song “Not gonna cry”. She comes to Cape Town once or twice a year – so go and see her.
18 Mandlakayise Mkhize – Izinombizakithi (Gallotone)
In the second half of 2011 Siemon Allen, the artist and collector, put up a truly heroic bit of crate digging and sonic dot connecting on the blog, “Electric Jive” – which he called “Maskanda Roots 1927 to 1964”. (http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/11/maskanda-roots-1927-1964.html)
Mandlakayise Mkhize with “Izinombazakithi” is from the more recent end of the spectrum.
19 Crocodile Male Voice Choir – Sasingaxabene (Better)
On the other end is the Crocodile Male Voice Choir from 1939. They are one of the oldest isicathamiya groups, helping to invent the style. Allen seems to claim them for Maskanda partly because of the vastrap style of accordion playing, a heavy feature of early Maskanda. He points out that the term “Maskanda” derives from the Afrikaans “musikant”.
20 Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre – Batata dia Bwanga (Dust-to-Digital)
Two vintage choral pieces, the last one from Kantanga Province in the Congo: Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre (Singers of the Copper Cross). Also from the “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM” collection.
If you like the Opika Pende collection check out the website of the compiler, Jonathan Ward: http://excavatedshellac.com/
21 Baloji – A l’heure d’ete Saison Seche (Crammed)
From modern day Congo – Belgian rapper Baloji from his 2011 album recorded in Kinshasa – “Kinshasa Succursale”.
22 Charles Bradley – Golden Rule (Daptone)
62 year old soul shouter Charles Bradley from Gainesville, Florida with something from, believe it or not, his debut album, “No time for dreaming”, which he did for Daptone – home of Sharon Jones and the Daptones. You’re asking what has this to do with world music? Very little, arguably – I just love the razor sharp brass arrangements and that James Brown funky undercarriage. But you can also say those sounds had a huge impact on Africa in the 60s and 70s.
23 Missionary Mamie Sam – This may be my last time singing (Tompkins Square)
A few months ago we listened to something off the collection of obscure independent gospel releases “This may be my last time singing: Raw Gospel 45 Recordings 1957 – 1982”. Here is another track from it.
24 Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Shadrack(Fremeaux and Associes)
The great gospel singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with her trademark rock and roll accompaniment on her version of the McGimsey tune from 1953.
25 Kathy & Carol – Carter’s Blues (Elektra)
Kathy Larisch and Carol McComb only put out one record – the 1965 release on Elektra called “Kathy and Carol” – and it’s a real gem of the 60s folk revival. Both played guitar and autoharp and sang. They freely exchange melody and harmony lines in a close, tight but natural way. You have to wonder why this has never been reissued. By the way, Carol still performs and Kathy is an academic at the California College of Arts.
26 Kathleen McPeake – Eileen Aroon (Topic)
From the 1960s folk revival on the other side of the Atlantic, that was Kathleen McPeake with a Gaelic traditional song. Kathleen McPeake was a member of the family-based group from Belfast, the McPeakes. Wouldn’t you know that half the band were called Francis – father, son and grandson – and all Francises were crack Uilleann pipers.
27 Mary Hampton – Benjamin Bowmaneer (Teaspoon)
Mary Hampton shares Kathleen McPeake’s ethereal, mysterious vocal style. Hampton’s version of a mid-17th century folk tune, with added strange improvvy trumpet playing, from her 2011 album “Folly”.
28 Reet Hendriksen – Kui mina alles noor veel olin (Reindeer)
Norwegian singer Reet Hendriksen was a teenager in 1969, when she put out this song from an album of Estonian lullabies.
29 Didier Laloy, Bruno Le Tron, Markku Lepisto, David Munnelly, Riccardo Tesi - Reel Finlandia (Homerecords)
Here is something to take us away from the ethereal for a moment – a supergroup of diatonic accordion players ….. who meld together traditional folk, jazz, pop and classical. Finnish accordionist Markku Lepisto leads the pack on his tune “Reel Finlandia”.
30 Sinikka Langeland – Spring in the mountain (ECM)
The great Norwegian singer and kantele player. The trumpet opening is by genre defying Arve Hendriksen, whom we’ve heard here quite a few times.
Moroccan Aziz Sahmaoui with his band of brilliant Senegambian musicians, University of Gnawa, off his 2011 “Aziz Sahmaoui & University of Gnawa”.
2 Yemen Blues – Um Min Al Yaman (LevGroup)
Sticking in the North African, Middle East area, Yemen Blues are from Israel and centred around singer and composer Ravid Kahalani, who is of Yemenite extraction, and bassist and arranger, Omer Avital, who spent many years in NYC, playing mainstream jazz.
“Um min al yaman” was written by Kahalani and is about a dreamed journey up a mountain in which he sees his mother waving to him in greeting, but at the same time hears a voice telling him he is alone. The time signature is derived from a traditional beat called Da’Sa – I really love the arresting interplay between horns and strings. It’s from an album called “Yemen Blues”.
3 Tuneyards – Bizness (4AD)
Tuneyards is Merrill Garbus on ukulele, voice and layers of drum loops, and on their 2011 album, “Who Kill”, bassist Nate Brenner. In “Bizness” they throw everything into the mix including a bunch of African sounds, a bit like American indie pop darlings MIA, the Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend, only to my ears, Tuneyards is a more uncompromising and better proposition.
4 Fatoumata Diawara – Kanou (World Circuit)
On the subject of media darlings, that was Malian Fatoumata Diawara off her endlessly terrific debut album, “Fatou”. Distributed in South Africa by Sheer Music.
5 Abdu Owiti - Stephen Opio (Dust-to-Digital)
6 Stonik and Kiprono – Molildo Kiruk-Yuk (Dust-to-Digital)
Two obscure vintage gems from Kenya, the first by Abdu Owiti who is of the Luo people from Western Kenya, and the second by Stonik and Kiprono, who are Kipsigis, a pastoralist group. Both groups’ origins can be traced to Southern Sudan.
These recordings come from a remarkable 4 CD collection of vintage stuff all culled from 78 records commercially released for local audiences all around Africa - a bit like the highly influential Anthology of American Folk Music, which came out 60 years ago, only way more diverse. The collection is called “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM”.
7 Alemayehu Eshete – Yeweyn haregitu (Buda Musique)
When we talk about old African recordings, Ethiopia is a serious well-spring. We’ve listened to the great singer Mahoud Ahmed on this show many times, but I think we’ve never heard Alemayehu Eshete, who is in fact just as soulful and scorching a singer. He started out in Addis’s Police Orchestra, which literally was the police band, had his first hit in 1961 and then founded the Alem-Girma Band with pianist, composer and singer Girma Beyene. “Yeweyn haregitu” is an Eshete and Beyene composition, from the early 70s available on the collection “Ethiopiques Vol 9: 1969 to 1974”.
8 Samuel Yirga – Abet Abet (Real World)
Samuel Yirga the keyboardist with the Ethiojazz-dub fusion band Dub Colossus, from his first solo release, the EP “Hegere” which came out last year.
9 Tommy McCook – Far East Dub (Jamaican Recordings)
Sumptuous pentatonic eastern-sounding horn arrangements and dub bring to mind Augustus Pablo and his so-called “Far Eastern” sounds. Tommy McCook recently released a collection of vintage tracks that came out in the 70s, “Dubbing with Horns”. To my ears, on this track McCook’s flute sounds a lot like Pablo’s melodica, although Pablo has nothing to do with this tune as far as I can tell.
10 Little Axe – Grace (On-U Sound)
Little Axe is the stage name for Bernard Alexander aka Skip McDonald - a longtime musician in the stable of the British dub label On-U Sound. McDonald has had a varied musical history which includes playing in the band behind the first ever rap hit song – “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang. Since 94, as Little Axe, he’s been doing a mix of gospel, blues, Americana and dub. “Grace” comes from another great album that On-U Sound put out in 2011, “If you want loyalty, buy a dog”.
11 Anibal Velasquez y su Conjunto – Cumbia Bogatana (Soundway)
From South of the Mason-Dixon Line to Jamaica, let’s carry on heading south to that furious bubbling cauldron of Afro-Caribbean sounds, Columbia. “Cumbia Bogatana” is out on Soundway’s magnificent collection “The Original Sound of Cumbia 1948 to 79”.
12 Maku Sound System – Esclavo Moderno (MAKU Sound System)
NYC-based Columbian fusion band, MAKU Sound System with “Esclavo Moderno” from their 2011 album, Makumbala – available to you on the Bandcamp website http://makusoundsystem.bandcamp.com/ for a price of your picking.
Viviana Benitez, the band’s manager, told me that that Esclavo Moderno was written by M. Llerena and originally done by Manuel Alvarez y Sus Dangers and released on Curramba Records in 1979. http://www.makusoundsystem.com/
I got to hear about MAKU and Yemen Blues on a podcast about the annual musical festival, Global Fest, at which they played this year. You can get the show on the “All songs considered” website – and I would strongly recommend you do that.
13 Roy Montrell – Every time I hear that mellow saxophone (Specialty)
There is some argument about whether New Orleans and indeed Havana are in the Caribbean, or whether the geographical description the Gulf of Mexico would not be more accurate. What is not under dispute is that both cities are intimately connected, at least musically.
New Orleans guitarist Roy Montrell’s early rock n roll from 1956, heavily infused with mambo, New Orleans style.
14 The Heavyweights Brass Band feat. Edrey from Ogguere – Nueva Orleans (Brownswood)
Cuban rap and NOLA brass band music anyone? The Heavyweights Brass Band, from Toronto, with Cuban rapper Edrey from Ogguere. From the second CD of BBC DJ Gilles Petersen’s latest 2-volume production and compilation adventures in Cuba – “Havana Cultura: The Search Continues”.
15 Dr John – When the saints go marching in (Parlophone)
If the HBO show “Treme” set in the music scene in New Orleans is to be believed, requests to play “When the saints go marching in” draw silent and not so silent groans from musicians. The song has been played to death. Well, maybe not … check out Dr John’s version in which he shares vocals with Mavis Staples from his album “N’wlinz: Dis dat or d’udda”.
I read about Dr John’s reclamation of the song in Ned Sublette’s fantastic book “The year before the flood”. He calls it a “dirge-tempo, minor, spiritual-church version”. He says the version “reminds us that jazz is partly rooted in the dirge, which is to say in making sure the ancestors are put away right”.
16 Pine Leaf Boys – La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau (Valcour)
We can’t leave Louisiana without listening to some Cajun music. That was the Pine Leaf Boys with “La Valse de ‘Tit Oiseau” – a song by the great veteran songwriter and fiddler, Adam Hebert from Church Point. Many of his songs became classics. By the way, Wilson Savoy, on accordion and fiddle, is the son of the great Cajun revivalist couple – Marc and Ann Savoy. They appear more than a few times in the “Treme” series.
17 Laurie Levine – Not gonna cry (Rhythm Records)
And now to some Americana sounds from up North – north of the Orange River … Jo’burg. Laurie Levine off her fabulous 2011 release, “Six Winters”, and her song “Not gonna cry”. She comes to Cape Town once or twice a year – so go and see her.
18 Mandlakayise Mkhize – Izinombizakithi (Gallotone)
In the second half of 2011 Siemon Allen, the artist and collector, put up a truly heroic bit of crate digging and sonic dot connecting on the blog, “Electric Jive” – which he called “Maskanda Roots 1927 to 1964”. (http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/11/maskanda-roots-1927-1964.html)
Mandlakayise Mkhize with “Izinombazakithi” is from the more recent end of the spectrum.
19 Crocodile Male Voice Choir – Sasingaxabene (Better)
On the other end is the Crocodile Male Voice Choir from 1939. They are one of the oldest isicathamiya groups, helping to invent the style. Allen seems to claim them for Maskanda partly because of the vastrap style of accordion playing, a heavy feature of early Maskanda. He points out that the term “Maskanda” derives from the Afrikaans “musikant”.
20 Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre – Batata dia Bwanga (Dust-to-Digital)
Two vintage choral pieces, the last one from Kantanga Province in the Congo: Chanteurs a la Croix de Cuivre (Singers of the Copper Cross). Also from the “Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM” collection.
If you like the Opika Pende collection check out the website of the compiler, Jonathan Ward: http://excavatedshellac.com/
21 Baloji – A l’heure d’ete Saison Seche (Crammed)
From modern day Congo – Belgian rapper Baloji from his 2011 album recorded in Kinshasa – “Kinshasa Succursale”.
22 Charles Bradley – Golden Rule (Daptone)
62 year old soul shouter Charles Bradley from Gainesville, Florida with something from, believe it or not, his debut album, “No time for dreaming”, which he did for Daptone – home of Sharon Jones and the Daptones. You’re asking what has this to do with world music? Very little, arguably – I just love the razor sharp brass arrangements and that James Brown funky undercarriage. But you can also say those sounds had a huge impact on Africa in the 60s and 70s.
23 Missionary Mamie Sam – This may be my last time singing (Tompkins Square)
A few months ago we listened to something off the collection of obscure independent gospel releases “This may be my last time singing: Raw Gospel 45 Recordings 1957 – 1982”. Here is another track from it.
24 Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Shadrack(Fremeaux and Associes)
The great gospel singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with her trademark rock and roll accompaniment on her version of the McGimsey tune from 1953.
25 Kathy & Carol – Carter’s Blues (Elektra)
Kathy Larisch and Carol McComb only put out one record – the 1965 release on Elektra called “Kathy and Carol” – and it’s a real gem of the 60s folk revival. Both played guitar and autoharp and sang. They freely exchange melody and harmony lines in a close, tight but natural way. You have to wonder why this has never been reissued. By the way, Carol still performs and Kathy is an academic at the California College of Arts.
26 Kathleen McPeake – Eileen Aroon (Topic)
From the 1960s folk revival on the other side of the Atlantic, that was Kathleen McPeake with a Gaelic traditional song. Kathleen McPeake was a member of the family-based group from Belfast, the McPeakes. Wouldn’t you know that half the band were called Francis – father, son and grandson – and all Francises were crack Uilleann pipers.
27 Mary Hampton – Benjamin Bowmaneer (Teaspoon)
Mary Hampton shares Kathleen McPeake’s ethereal, mysterious vocal style. Hampton’s version of a mid-17th century folk tune, with added strange improvvy trumpet playing, from her 2011 album “Folly”.
28 Reet Hendriksen – Kui mina alles noor veel olin (Reindeer)
Norwegian singer Reet Hendriksen was a teenager in 1969, when she put out this song from an album of Estonian lullabies.
29 Didier Laloy, Bruno Le Tron, Markku Lepisto, David Munnelly, Riccardo Tesi - Reel Finlandia (Homerecords)
Here is something to take us away from the ethereal for a moment – a supergroup of diatonic accordion players ….. who meld together traditional folk, jazz, pop and classical. Finnish accordionist Markku Lepisto leads the pack on his tune “Reel Finlandia”.
30 Sinikka Langeland – Spring in the mountain (ECM)
The great Norwegian singer and kantele player. The trumpet opening is by genre defying Arve Hendriksen, whom we’ve heard here quite a few times.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
1 February 2012, World Cafe
1 Baloji – La Petite Espece (Bumbafu Version) (Crammed)
The Congo-born, Belgium-based rapper, Baloji, from the album “Kinshasa Succursale” - which was recorded in Kinshasa with local musicians. The album was the response to a challenge from his estranged mother to reflect on his roots and the state of the country of his birth. It was essentially recorded in two parts – a full album in 2008 called “Hotel Impala”, and then the extra layers and ironic barbs recorded and added in 2011 to form “Succursale”. You have to love that retro funk feel and the especially Afrobeat brass arrangements here.
“Kinshasa Succursale” is out on Crammed and distributed in SA by Sheer Music.
2 Amadou Ballake et les 5 Consuls – Baden Djougou (Analog Africa)
2011 saw the release of a couple of collections of vintage 70s Afro-funk, rock and jazz by Analog Africa. “Bambara Mystic Soul” brings together some classic tracks from Burkina Faso recorded between 1974 and 1979. There is nothing particularly distictive about the music from Burkina in that period – it’s a mixture of Ivorian, Congolese, Beninese and Malian music – but there were some fine musicians around back then. Perhaps the most famous was Amadou Ballake who cut his teeth playing in Mali and Guinea. You can hear that very clearly on his song “Baden Djougou”.
3 Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Zoma (Mental Groove)
This totally wonderful Swiss band has a retro-futuristic take on Ethiojazz. They only do reinterpretations of classic tracks. “Zoma” is by Martha Ashagani. Their debut LP, “Mercato”, came out in 2011 and it’s seriously good.
4 Asselefetch Ashin and Getenesh Kebret – Metche New (L’Arome Productions)
In December, we listened to the Paris-based Ethiojazz band Akele Wube with their version of “Metche New”. This is an older version from 1976.
5 Samuel Yirga – The Blues for Wollo (Habasha Mix) (Real World Music Ltd)
2011 was a good year for 25 year old Ethiopian pianist and composer, Samuel Yirga, who plays with Dub Colossus. He played a prominent role on Dub Colossus’s release, and released an EP on Real World and a live album on the “Society of Sound Music” series brought out by a partnership of hi-fi company B&W and Real World called “The Habasha Sessions”. This is a track from “The Habasha Sessions”. Yirga’s backstory is fantastic. He only started playing an instrument, let alone taking formal lessons, at the age of 16 having won a place in the prestigious Yared School of Music in Addis by tapping rhythms out with a coin on the top of a piano. His exploration expands the very important place given to Cuban music in Ethiojazz by its founding father, Malutu Astatke.
6 Evarist and Party – Nambanda (Dust to Digital)
In 2011, an incredible reissue label that I’ve just discovered – Dust-to-Digital – put out a fascinating and disparate 4 CD collection culled from 78s from across the whole of the African continent, called “Opika Pende”. I’ll tell you more about this collection in later months, but here is a taster from Northwestern Tanzania – Evarist and Party with “Nambanda”.
7 African Head Charge – Run Come See (On-U Sound)
The rootsy, mystical vocals of Bonjo I A Binghi Noah of African Head Charge. I’ve been going on about British dub label On-U Sound recently – for me they’re the last bastion of old style rootsy dub and 2011 was their 30th anniversary – so forgive me for belabouring the point. “Run Come See” is from an AHC best of collection called “Shrunken Head”.
8 Lee Perry – God Smiled (Moody Boyz Remix)
On-U Sound’s 30th anniversary did see some kind of revitalization for them - they put out some lovely new releases last year, including a collection of radical jungle-ist and dubstep remixes of Lee Scratch Perry tunes called “On-U Sound presents Nu Sound and Version”.
9 Buraka Som Sistema – Tira o pe (Enchufada)
Buraka Som Sistema is a sound system from Portugal. They produce an electro version of something called “kuduro”. Kuduro was originally forged in Angola in the 80s by sampling Caribbean and Angolan carnival music like zouk, soca and semba and sticking it to a fast 4/4 beat. Buraka Som Sistema’s 2011 album is called “Komba” which in Angola is a two week long wake for the dead.
10 Abelardo Carbano – La Negra Kulengue (Soundway)
Developing in the Colombian coastal cities of Cartegena and Barranquilla in the 70s and taking its inspiration from the psychedelic Afro, Latin and Caribbean music being pumped out of sound systems on the street - champeta is another kind of Afro-Caribbean music. This is from a Soundway collection “Palenque Palenque” which came out about 2 or 3 years ago.
11 Alex Acosta y su Orquesta – Cumbia Del Monte (Soundway)
From Colombia, this time from the 1960s when big band cumbia was all the rage. It’s culled from the collection “Cartagena! Curro Fuentes and the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962 to 72”
12 Los Alegres De Valle – Samaria (Soundway)
A fine example of old style cumbia from a 2 CD collection Soundway put out in 2011 “The original sound of cumbia: The history of Colombian cumbia and porro as told by the phonograph 1948 – 79”. There’ll be more from that collection in later shows. Will Holland, who put the collection together, went to great pains to make it definitive, taking 5 years and making numerous fieldtrips into the countryside and small towns looking for old 78s, 45s and LPs.
13 Los Mirlos – Sonido Amazonico (Barbes Records)
Cumbia also took root in Peru, but unlike in Colombia it was more resilient, forming the bedrock for chicha, a fusion of cumbia and psychedelia that arose in slums created by the mass urbanization of people from the Andean highlands and the Amazonian Forest. Here is Los Mirlos with “Sonido Amazonico”.
14 Omar Souleyman – Baghdad Araby (Sublime Frequencies)
Syrian singer Omar Souleyman purveys a style called dakbe but reinforces it with Kurdish, Turkish and Iraqi folk traditions. In his band are keyboardist Razid Sa’id and electric sazist – if that’s a word – Ali Shaker. Unknown outside Syria before 2007, he worked parties and weddings and released hundreds of live recordings on cassette. Sublime Frequencies collected these and released some of the highlights and before long he was touring around Europe and North America. In 2011 Sublime Frequencies put out a collection from those concerts, “Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts”.
14 Hakim – Ya Mazago (The Lion of Egypt)
Still in the Arab world but heading to Egypt - sha’abi is a kind of dance music created by the Baladi, a caste of traders and craftspeople including musicians and dancers, who originally came from rural villagers. Hakim is evidently the king of modern sha’abi and “Ya Mazago” is the title of his 2011 release. It means “his mood”. In-your-face, unrelenting, synth driven dance music.
15 Anda Union – Derlcha (Hohhot)
One the great releases of 2011 was by Anda Union, from Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia region of northern China. They’re a 10-piece with a more acoustic sound than Beijing-based Mongolian folk-rockers Hanggai, who got some heavy rotation on this show in 2010. As you would have heard, Anda Union are big on the vocal arrangements too.
16 Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha – The Philosopher (Yat Kha Records)
Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha are from nearby Tuva and this is from their 2010 album “Poets and Lighthouses”.
17 Banda Olifante – Los Peces (Felmay)
Brass bands or banda became popular in Italian towns and villages in the 1800s, performing for funerals and religious processions and rituals, and also bringing the music of opera houses and symphony halls into the countryside. This music has recently been revived, often by jazz musicians who have added just about every style. "Los Peces" is a Christmas carol popular in Spain and Latin America. The melody has definite Arabic qualities, and Olifante's rendition brings the song closer to klezmer.
18 Boban Markovic Orchestar and Fanfare Ciocarlia – James Bond Theme (Asphalt Tango)
As part of a publicity stunt put together by the label Asphalt Tango, two of the greatest working brass bands of East Europe, Serbia’s Boban Markovic Orchestra, and Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia had a face off near, possibly inside, Count Dracula’s castle. The stunt was called “Balkan Brass Battle”, and this is one of the results in which they combine forces for a full frontal assault.
19 June Tabor and Oysterband – Son David (Topic)
From June Tabor’s great 2011 album, “Ragged Kingdom”, that she made together with Oysterband.
20 Shirley Collins – Turpin Hero (Topic)
Two songs recorded in the late 50s by two early folk revivalists – one English and one American.
Shirley Collins was one of the first revivalists of the English 60s scene. “Turpin Hero” is from her first LP, “Sweet England”, which came out in 1959 and was co-produced by none other than Alan Lomax. Despite the legend, the real Dick Turpin apparently robbed just about anyone, no matter how rich or poor they were, and never made the famous horseback ride to York.
21 John Jacob Niles – The Lass from the Low Country
The great collector, composer and singer, John Jacob Niles, who was born in 1892 and died in 1980, with the trad song “The Lass from the Low Country”. Niles claims to have collected it in North Carolina, but some people think Niles liberally rewrote some of it. I definitely think Tim Buckley took more than a few pointers from Niles.
22 Jimmy MacBeath – Hey Barra Gadgie (Drag City)
Alan Lomax was living in London when he produced Collins’ album, in fact he had been living there since the early 50s. And while there he went up to Scotland and produced a huge number of fantastic field recordings. In 2011 Scottish singer songwriter and revivalist, Alastair Roberts, compiled some of these into a collection called “Whaur the Pig Gaed on the Spree” to mark the 60th anniversary of when the recordings were first started. Jimmy MacBeath’s famous recording, “Hey Barra Gadgie”, is sung in Thieves’ or Rogues’ cant, a secret language or cryptolect thought to have come from Romany.
23 The Waterboys – The Lake Isle of Innisfree (Puck/Proper)
The Waterboys’ astonishing interpretation of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by the legendary Irish poet William Butler Yeats from the Waterboys’ latest, “An appointment with Mr Yeats”.
24 Hiss Golden Messenger – Jesus shot me through the head (Paradise of Bachelors)
Here are three gospel tracks – one new and startling in its imagery and two much older, but no less riveting.
Hiss Golden Messenger, which is the stage name for MC Taylor, had a good 2011, producing two quite different albums, the John Martyn influenced jazz-folk-soul album, “From Country Hai East Cotton”, and “Poor Moon”, which is in a kind of Americana vein. He’s pretty deft at the confessional gospel-blues.
25 Rev Lonnie Farris – Peace in the Valley (Tompkins Square)
Rev Lonnie Farris’ pedal steel driven version of the gospel song, “Peace in the Valley”, written by Georgia-born, Thomas A Dorsey in 1937. It’s from a collection of obscure small label, often self-released 45s, “This may be my last time singing: Raw African American Gospel on 45rpm 1957 – 1982”, brought out by Tompkins Square in 2011.
27 Rev Roger L Worthy and his sister Bonnie Woodstock – Get Back Satan (Tompkins Square)
From a similar earlier gospel collection on Tompkins Square called “Fire in my bones”.
The Congo-born, Belgium-based rapper, Baloji, from the album “Kinshasa Succursale” - which was recorded in Kinshasa with local musicians. The album was the response to a challenge from his estranged mother to reflect on his roots and the state of the country of his birth. It was essentially recorded in two parts – a full album in 2008 called “Hotel Impala”, and then the extra layers and ironic barbs recorded and added in 2011 to form “Succursale”. You have to love that retro funk feel and the especially Afrobeat brass arrangements here.
“Kinshasa Succursale” is out on Crammed and distributed in SA by Sheer Music.
2 Amadou Ballake et les 5 Consuls – Baden Djougou (Analog Africa)
2011 saw the release of a couple of collections of vintage 70s Afro-funk, rock and jazz by Analog Africa. “Bambara Mystic Soul” brings together some classic tracks from Burkina Faso recorded between 1974 and 1979. There is nothing particularly distictive about the music from Burkina in that period – it’s a mixture of Ivorian, Congolese, Beninese and Malian music – but there were some fine musicians around back then. Perhaps the most famous was Amadou Ballake who cut his teeth playing in Mali and Guinea. You can hear that very clearly on his song “Baden Djougou”.
3 Imperial Tiger Orchestra – Zoma (Mental Groove)
This totally wonderful Swiss band has a retro-futuristic take on Ethiojazz. They only do reinterpretations of classic tracks. “Zoma” is by Martha Ashagani. Their debut LP, “Mercato”, came out in 2011 and it’s seriously good.
4 Asselefetch Ashin and Getenesh Kebret – Metche New (L’Arome Productions)
In December, we listened to the Paris-based Ethiojazz band Akele Wube with their version of “Metche New”. This is an older version from 1976.
5 Samuel Yirga – The Blues for Wollo (Habasha Mix) (Real World Music Ltd)
2011 was a good year for 25 year old Ethiopian pianist and composer, Samuel Yirga, who plays with Dub Colossus. He played a prominent role on Dub Colossus’s release, and released an EP on Real World and a live album on the “Society of Sound Music” series brought out by a partnership of hi-fi company B&W and Real World called “The Habasha Sessions”. This is a track from “The Habasha Sessions”. Yirga’s backstory is fantastic. He only started playing an instrument, let alone taking formal lessons, at the age of 16 having won a place in the prestigious Yared School of Music in Addis by tapping rhythms out with a coin on the top of a piano. His exploration expands the very important place given to Cuban music in Ethiojazz by its founding father, Malutu Astatke.
6 Evarist and Party – Nambanda (Dust to Digital)
In 2011, an incredible reissue label that I’ve just discovered – Dust-to-Digital – put out a fascinating and disparate 4 CD collection culled from 78s from across the whole of the African continent, called “Opika Pende”. I’ll tell you more about this collection in later months, but here is a taster from Northwestern Tanzania – Evarist and Party with “Nambanda”.
7 African Head Charge – Run Come See (On-U Sound)
The rootsy, mystical vocals of Bonjo I A Binghi Noah of African Head Charge. I’ve been going on about British dub label On-U Sound recently – for me they’re the last bastion of old style rootsy dub and 2011 was their 30th anniversary – so forgive me for belabouring the point. “Run Come See” is from an AHC best of collection called “Shrunken Head”.
8 Lee Perry – God Smiled (Moody Boyz Remix)
On-U Sound’s 30th anniversary did see some kind of revitalization for them - they put out some lovely new releases last year, including a collection of radical jungle-ist and dubstep remixes of Lee Scratch Perry tunes called “On-U Sound presents Nu Sound and Version”.
9 Buraka Som Sistema – Tira o pe (Enchufada)
Buraka Som Sistema is a sound system from Portugal. They produce an electro version of something called “kuduro”. Kuduro was originally forged in Angola in the 80s by sampling Caribbean and Angolan carnival music like zouk, soca and semba and sticking it to a fast 4/4 beat. Buraka Som Sistema’s 2011 album is called “Komba” which in Angola is a two week long wake for the dead.
10 Abelardo Carbano – La Negra Kulengue (Soundway)
Developing in the Colombian coastal cities of Cartegena and Barranquilla in the 70s and taking its inspiration from the psychedelic Afro, Latin and Caribbean music being pumped out of sound systems on the street - champeta is another kind of Afro-Caribbean music. This is from a Soundway collection “Palenque Palenque” which came out about 2 or 3 years ago.
11 Alex Acosta y su Orquesta – Cumbia Del Monte (Soundway)
From Colombia, this time from the 1960s when big band cumbia was all the rage. It’s culled from the collection “Cartagena! Curro Fuentes and the Big Band Cumbia and Descarga Sound of Colombia 1962 to 72”
12 Los Alegres De Valle – Samaria (Soundway)
A fine example of old style cumbia from a 2 CD collection Soundway put out in 2011 “The original sound of cumbia: The history of Colombian cumbia and porro as told by the phonograph 1948 – 79”. There’ll be more from that collection in later shows. Will Holland, who put the collection together, went to great pains to make it definitive, taking 5 years and making numerous fieldtrips into the countryside and small towns looking for old 78s, 45s and LPs.
13 Los Mirlos – Sonido Amazonico (Barbes Records)
Cumbia also took root in Peru, but unlike in Colombia it was more resilient, forming the bedrock for chicha, a fusion of cumbia and psychedelia that arose in slums created by the mass urbanization of people from the Andean highlands and the Amazonian Forest. Here is Los Mirlos with “Sonido Amazonico”.
14 Omar Souleyman – Baghdad Araby (Sublime Frequencies)
Syrian singer Omar Souleyman purveys a style called dakbe but reinforces it with Kurdish, Turkish and Iraqi folk traditions. In his band are keyboardist Razid Sa’id and electric sazist – if that’s a word – Ali Shaker. Unknown outside Syria before 2007, he worked parties and weddings and released hundreds of live recordings on cassette. Sublime Frequencies collected these and released some of the highlights and before long he was touring around Europe and North America. In 2011 Sublime Frequencies put out a collection from those concerts, “Haflat Gharbia: The Western Concerts”.
14 Hakim – Ya Mazago (The Lion of Egypt)
Still in the Arab world but heading to Egypt - sha’abi is a kind of dance music created by the Baladi, a caste of traders and craftspeople including musicians and dancers, who originally came from rural villagers. Hakim is evidently the king of modern sha’abi and “Ya Mazago” is the title of his 2011 release. It means “his mood”. In-your-face, unrelenting, synth driven dance music.
15 Anda Union – Derlcha (Hohhot)
One the great releases of 2011 was by Anda Union, from Hohhot, the capital city of the Inner Mongolia region of northern China. They’re a 10-piece with a more acoustic sound than Beijing-based Mongolian folk-rockers Hanggai, who got some heavy rotation on this show in 2010. As you would have heard, Anda Union are big on the vocal arrangements too.
16 Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha – The Philosopher (Yat Kha Records)
Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha are from nearby Tuva and this is from their 2010 album “Poets and Lighthouses”.
17 Banda Olifante – Los Peces (Felmay)
Brass bands or banda became popular in Italian towns and villages in the 1800s, performing for funerals and religious processions and rituals, and also bringing the music of opera houses and symphony halls into the countryside. This music has recently been revived, often by jazz musicians who have added just about every style. "Los Peces" is a Christmas carol popular in Spain and Latin America. The melody has definite Arabic qualities, and Olifante's rendition brings the song closer to klezmer.
18 Boban Markovic Orchestar and Fanfare Ciocarlia – James Bond Theme (Asphalt Tango)
As part of a publicity stunt put together by the label Asphalt Tango, two of the greatest working brass bands of East Europe, Serbia’s Boban Markovic Orchestra, and Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia had a face off near, possibly inside, Count Dracula’s castle. The stunt was called “Balkan Brass Battle”, and this is one of the results in which they combine forces for a full frontal assault.
19 June Tabor and Oysterband – Son David (Topic)
From June Tabor’s great 2011 album, “Ragged Kingdom”, that she made together with Oysterband.
20 Shirley Collins – Turpin Hero (Topic)
Two songs recorded in the late 50s by two early folk revivalists – one English and one American.
Shirley Collins was one of the first revivalists of the English 60s scene. “Turpin Hero” is from her first LP, “Sweet England”, which came out in 1959 and was co-produced by none other than Alan Lomax. Despite the legend, the real Dick Turpin apparently robbed just about anyone, no matter how rich or poor they were, and never made the famous horseback ride to York.
21 John Jacob Niles – The Lass from the Low Country
The great collector, composer and singer, John Jacob Niles, who was born in 1892 and died in 1980, with the trad song “The Lass from the Low Country”. Niles claims to have collected it in North Carolina, but some people think Niles liberally rewrote some of it. I definitely think Tim Buckley took more than a few pointers from Niles.
22 Jimmy MacBeath – Hey Barra Gadgie (Drag City)
Alan Lomax was living in London when he produced Collins’ album, in fact he had been living there since the early 50s. And while there he went up to Scotland and produced a huge number of fantastic field recordings. In 2011 Scottish singer songwriter and revivalist, Alastair Roberts, compiled some of these into a collection called “Whaur the Pig Gaed on the Spree” to mark the 60th anniversary of when the recordings were first started. Jimmy MacBeath’s famous recording, “Hey Barra Gadgie”, is sung in Thieves’ or Rogues’ cant, a secret language or cryptolect thought to have come from Romany.
23 The Waterboys – The Lake Isle of Innisfree (Puck/Proper)
The Waterboys’ astonishing interpretation of “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by the legendary Irish poet William Butler Yeats from the Waterboys’ latest, “An appointment with Mr Yeats”.
24 Hiss Golden Messenger – Jesus shot me through the head (Paradise of Bachelors)
Here are three gospel tracks – one new and startling in its imagery and two much older, but no less riveting.
Hiss Golden Messenger, which is the stage name for MC Taylor, had a good 2011, producing two quite different albums, the John Martyn influenced jazz-folk-soul album, “From Country Hai East Cotton”, and “Poor Moon”, which is in a kind of Americana vein. He’s pretty deft at the confessional gospel-blues.
25 Rev Lonnie Farris – Peace in the Valley (Tompkins Square)
Rev Lonnie Farris’ pedal steel driven version of the gospel song, “Peace in the Valley”, written by Georgia-born, Thomas A Dorsey in 1937. It’s from a collection of obscure small label, often self-released 45s, “This may be my last time singing: Raw African American Gospel on 45rpm 1957 – 1982”, brought out by Tompkins Square in 2011.
27 Rev Roger L Worthy and his sister Bonnie Woodstock – Get Back Satan (Tompkins Square)
From a similar earlier gospel collection on Tompkins Square called “Fire in my bones”.
Monday, January 2, 2012
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.
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.
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