Carlos Puebla, El Cantor de la Revolución

Another random post today as I arbitrarily browsed my iTunes library.
Although the sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club hark to a pre-Fidel Cuba in which gambling, nightclubs, and social clubs were commonplace, some great music did survive the revolution. Trova, if anything, flourished. It morphed into nueva trova in the 60s, at the same time that nueva canción was budding in South America (hear some here). Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes were the chief exponents of this style, but of particular interest to me is Carlos Puebla, who started off singing trova in old Havana. His music is typically old school Cuban, but contains revolutionary, pro-Cuba nationalist lyrical themes. Author of the Che-inspired mega-hit Hasta Siempre and with song titles like Mira yanki como nos reímos, Todo por la reforma agraria and David y Goliath, one can’t help but note the odd juxtaposition of the gentle, languid, cheerful music with the socio-political commentary and nationalistic, anti-American pride imbued in the lyrics. At the end of the day, no matter how you react to the lyrical content, you can’t dispute the excellence of the rhythmic section!
Here are two tracks from the album Chante Cuba.

Van a tener que cambiar de modelo…

Cambio-cambio – Carlos Puebla

Y se acabo la diversión, llego el commandante y mandó a parar…

Y en llego Fidel – Carlos Puebla

The Studio One Recordings

This song came on the other night in a little Parisian café where I was playing old-time music with kindred spirits, instantly reminding me that I needed to put a post together focusing on the old Studio One recordings from Jamaica. The brainchild of Coxsone Dodd, these recordings contain some of the grooviest reggae, rocksteady, and ska music you’ll ever hear. This first tune is off of Studio One – Scorcher:

Mun-Dun-Gu by Cedric IM Brooks & The Sound Dimension

I got into all this stuff when years back I stumbled upon Souljazz Records. Bowled over at the treasures they were re-releasing in beautiful packaging, I began collecting as many of their cds as my budget could accommodate (meaning that ever since becoming a full-time musician I’ve stopped collecting – funny how that works!).
You can get all the Soul Jazz released Studio One stuff on this page or on amazon and elsewhere.

This next song, off of Studio One Roots vol. 1 is a harrowing tribute to the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated in 1961:

Lumumbo by Bunnie & Skitter.

In addition to the Studio One comps, there are many other amazing compilations to be had on Souljazz. I’ll post a couple at a later date.

The Universe of Nick Pynn

Once in a blue moon I’ll come across a musician whose work compels me to take a step back and ask myself two fundamental questions: why is this person not a household name in the music industry, and why am I not renouncing music completely as a line of work? Brighton-based Nick Pynn is of this ilk. He is one of those magical musicians who willfully slog away in the hinterlands of the music business, totally immersed in their creative worlds, impervious to the latest scenes, crazes, re-enactments, general absurdities, and other boring minutiae that decorate the professional music landscape.
He is in essence a “musician’s musician”. His music fills me with that mixed sensation of wanting to learn much more and wanting to stop playing completely as I ponder the work involved! It frustrates me to no end that I have yet to see him do his thing live (though I have jammed with him in the restaurant of his partner, another bewitchingly creative individual named Jane Bom-Bane).
I like his music so much that I had this first song performed at my wedding. A mesmerizing violin driven piece composed in Edinburgh (as evinced by the title) off his 2004 album, Afterplanesman , it delves into all sorts of breathtaking territory, while buttressed by the pumping of Jane’s harmonium.

Off Nicolson Street – Nick Pynn

This next track is from his recent release, Colours of the Night, which features orchestral arrangements of new material. Another wondrous work of wizardry from Sorcerer Pynn.

Michigan Sleeping – Nick Pynn

Quadrille music from the Antilles

My pal, blogger/journalist/musician extraordinaire llan Moss graciously provided me with the track from today’s post. While we are often exposed to island sounds from the former British colonies, it is not often that we hear old folk music from the Franco-African Caribbean. Though similar to the cajun tradition in some respects, it contains much more of the funky, rhythmic drive of Caribbean music.
There is evidently lots to explore in this subfield, but today I’m narrowing in on a world that I myself am not very acquainted with – the quadrille or kwadril dance music tradition of Guadeloupe. I am fascinated by the concept of a French court dance with militaristic origins popularized in 18th century France and brought to the islands to be creolized and transformed into groovy tropical square dance music. I’m looking forward to learning and hearing more and will fortunately be able to do so soon by way of a documentary by Stéphane Bunel on this tradition that is evidently in the works. For info, including some great movie and music clips, (be sure to go to the French version, as the English one isn’t up yet) go here. There are some amazing tunes on the “mizik” page (I also culled today’s image from his site)!
This is a track complete with caller, fiddler, bass, and rocking percussion led by Eli Cologer, who according to Ilan, was one of the last quadrille-style fiddlers in Guadeloupe until his death last year.

Quadrille – Elie Cologer
P.S. There is a Paris-based Antillais band, Caribop, whom I hope to hang with at some point and pick up a thing or ten!

The George Mitchell Collection

Why George Mitchell is not a household name in the field recording world is an enigma to me (or perhaps he is and I’ve been totally out of the loop). Alan Lomax seems to get all the credit, perhaps because Mitchell wasn’t as academic in his approach (which, arguably, might have been a good thing). I only discovered his incredibly affordable, beautifully recorded 7-disc box set, The George Mitchell Collection, after a friend of mine in the UK, Tony Bell of Brook’s Blues Bar, strongly urged me to pick up a copy. Needless to say that this box set is chock full of country blues gems recorded from the 60s to the 80s featuring some fairly big name pre-war recording artists like Buddy Moss, Sleepy John Estes, and Will Shade (of Memphis Jug Band fame), as well as a host of lesser known musicians. Some of the selections from the latter are so intense and so distinct that they likely had no chance in the mainstream blues world. In short, this set is a folk music collector’s dream!

To settle on one tune would be absurd, so I have picked three, the first by Buddy Moss whom Mitchell recorded in 1963. In my eyes Moss is one of the great unsung heroes of the country blues world. His music aged like a fine wine by the time the 60s rolled around, and yet by an odd twist of fate he is not up there on the list with Josh White, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, etc. Here’s my feeble attempt to get him back up there. This song blew me away:

Hey Lawdy Mama – Buddy Moss

Check out this bowel-shaking percussive rendition of Buck Dance done by the Georgia Fife and Drum Band. There isn’t any fife in this tune, but there is a bevy of amazing fife-driven music to be heard in the collection.

Buck Dance – Georgia Fife and Drum Band

Lastly, here’s a spooky number from Jessie Lee Vortis (not much info to be had on him). Takes a little to get going, but it locks in to a steady, weird, pulsating groove after about a minute or so.

When My Baby Got On Board – Jessie Lee Vortis

Anaphora and Kyrie

Another post from the mighty Kevin…
-c

What I don’t know about Coptic Orthodox Christians could fill a whole shelf of books.  St. Mark (of “the Gospel of Mark” fame) is said to have arrived in Egypt somewhere in the 40s AD, and is credited with bringing Christianity to Africa.  Today, 8-12% of Egyptians are still members of this same church.  And that’s where my knowledge runs out.

Fortunately, the Library of Congress has created a wonderful Web resource based on the collection belonging to a leading expert on Coptic music.  Ethnomusicologist Ragheb Moftah, who served as the chair of the Music Department at the Institute of Coptic Studies in Egypt from 1954 until he died in 2001, dedicated his life to the field of Coptic studies.  The Library has generously cataloged and digitized many of his materials.  Turns out, Coptic Christians have a unique and ancient tradition of liturgical vocal music.  Here are some samples:

Procession of the Host 1 – Mikhail Girgis al-Batanouni, Sadiq Attallah

LC Record

This Kyrie, part of the procession of the host from the liturgy of Saint Basil, is almost certainly unlike any Kyrie you’ve ever heard.  It sounds very North African to me, in timbre, vibrato, and affect.  This is part of the liturgy that is the core of the Coptic religious experience – it is performed almost every Sunday, replaced only on special days, such as Christmas or Easter, with the liturgy of St. Gregory.

The Anaphora – Mikhail Girgis al-Batanouni, Sadiq Attallah

LC Record

This Anaphora, from the liturgy of St. Gregory, contrasts powerful unison and subdued, vulnerable solo singing.

The collection also includes links to musical transcriptions, photographs, and some terrific old maps.

The World of Gnawa

Not finding much time right now to post, I am going to let the music do the talking. I discovered gnawa music, the music of north African (primarily Moroccan) sufis, a couple of years ago and can’t get enough of it.
This youtube clip might help situate you. Also on youtube used to be an amazing clip from the same video of the group led by hamid lkessri but featuring a guy with irrepressible energy dancing about in a gnawa-induced fit of exaltation. If anyone knows where I can find this let me know as it seems to have been removed. At any rate, this in my humble opinion is trance music of the highest order (I also love the fact that the stringed instrument – the gimbri/sintir – is played in a similar style to American clawhammer and minstrel banjo)

Here’s a short number from the great two-cd set World of Gnawa to hasten the upload (they otherwise tend to be very long pieces that the shoddy internet connection at London St Pancras doesn’t appreciate):

Turglami

Out of Black and White

Frank Hutchinson (1897-1945) was an early folk recording artist.  He was almost certainly the first white artist to record what we now recognize as country blues, playing a mean bottleneck slide on traditional blues material.  He also played some tunes in a “whiter” folk-country style.  After giving up mining, for a period of about five years in the mid-to-late 1920s he made his living as a musician, but the Great Depression ended his recording career.  His later gigs ranged from small-town postmaster to riverboat entertainer.  Alcohol eventually caught up to him, and he died in Dayton Hospital in 1945, of either cancer or liver disease.

The varied nature of his work, I believe, bolsters the assertion that the racial categories in early recorded music are largely a creation of record companies seeking to classify music in order to sell it.  Listen to the difference between the two tunes below.

The Chevrolet Six – Frank Hutchinson (1929) Archive.org link here

This sure sounds to me like Woody Guthrie, with some fancy octave work emphasizing the “ha ha ha” lick.  The subject-matter (fast Chevys for moonshiners outrunning revenuers) and style are firmly in the white country tradition.

The Last Scene of the Titanic – Frank Hutchinson (1927) Archive.org link here

This is very bluesy – the main lick recalls Blind Willie McTell’s Travellin’ Blues.  While the disaster song ballad tradition was strong in both country (Wreck of the Old 97) and blues, the Titanic was  particularly dear to the black experience.  Jim Crow laws prevented black passengers from that fated ship, and there was a general feeling that divine retribution had been enacted as a result.  The great blog Old Weird America has a lovely overview of Titanic songs, black and white, as well more info on Frank Hutchison.

Thiapa Thioly by Etoile de Dakar

Hung out last night with Matt from the rockin-though-currently-on-hiatus Benn Loxo in a little café on the canal here in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, talking shop amid an unexpected torrential downpour of near-epic proportions. Matt’s blog introduced me to a lot of the funkier and in some cases more esoteric African music that to this day I count among my most cherished albums. His slow descent into blog-slumber is essentially what stirred me into action in the first place in July, though I’m not even remotely attempting to fill his shoes as it would be way too hard! I hope he revives his blog at some point because it is truly one of the best around.
In any case, we exchanged views on lots of music, and may, if lucky, be going to check out the Malian ngoni master, Bassekou Kouyaté, tonight. After touching on the topic of old school Senegalese music (Matt lived in Dakar for a few years), I was reminded of some of the cool stuff I picked up on 116th St in Harlem where many of the NY-based African music shops can be found.
Some of the cds you can buy are merely CD-Rs converted from vinyl or cassette, and so can be obtained for as little as $5. Today’s post is a slice of the Senegalese national popular dance music mbalax, which according to Matt can be seen here in Paris up in Clignancourt on occasional Sunday nights in the wee hours. Can’t wait to see the ventilateur and other sexy dance moves in action! This song is off of an Etoile de Dakar album, which of course features its famous founder,Youssou N’Dour. I posted the 12 minute title track Thiapa Thioly for its interesting rhythmic changes, impassioned harmonies, and most excellent grooves. Though it can be found on Amazon for inflated sums, it appears that on iTunes it can be had for cheap.

Thiapa Thioly by Etoile de Dakar

Chinatown

In 1877, when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, he envisioned a machine that would be used primarily as a business tool, to aid in stenography. He also considered educational and historical uses, such as recording the last words of the dying (very important in the Victorian culture of death). He did not realize that widely-distributed commercial recorded sound would become a touchstone of modern popular culture, and for a time he fought against such uses. He lost this fight, though, and within twenty-five years, wax cylinders and phonograph records were hugely popular and widely available. Instead of aiding secretaries in dictation, the phonograph was carrying all the latest music.  In addition to light opera, speeches, band music, ragtime, and polkas, “ethnic” recordings were common.   These trafficked in extreme stereotypes and casual racism that are shocking to our sensibilities today: Irish drunks, subservient plantation coons, and tight-fisted Jews are among the characters and subjects in these recordings. That leads us to today’s tune, In Blinky Winky Chinky Chinatown, recorded in 1915 by the Peerless Quartet for Victor Records. It begins with a few seconds of comical “Asian” sounding music (still familiar to us today, I would guess partly through cartoon music).  Later, we also get gongs, flutes, and nonsense Chinese-sounding syllables. In full harmony, Schwartz and Jerome paint a vaguely exotic, opium-addled Chinatown, where Sing and Hop pick poppies and dreamy dreamers dream sweet dreams. It fits nicely in a long tradition of musical Orientalism, filtered here through the popular musical tastes of the time. And on a technical note, despite being made in the acoustic recording era, the sound is remarkably clear.

Sheet music with lyrics

In Blinky Winky Chinky Chinatown – Peerless Quartet (1915)