Llajgua Mix

During my stay in Santa Cruz I stopped at a music stand in the Siete Calles market and asked for “la música tradicional boliviana”. The young, slightly befuddled looking seller went foraging through his collection of burned mp3 cds and came up with…this (see photo). “Llajgua” is a variant of llajua (or llajwa), a Bolivian hot sauce made from peppers, tomatoes, and sometimes onions. I figured, hell, for 10 bolivianos ($1.50) I can take a gamble. A gamble that ended up being a little too spicy for my tastes – the music consists of 106 tracks of what essentially amounts to traditional dance “mixes” that all end up sounding pretty similar. I was looking for down-home, funky, gritty traditional folk music (which is surprisingly hard to find, just as it is oddly difficult to find good coffee and chocolate in the land where it’s grown) and got reverb, synths, and pseudo-folk fluff. It’s great for dances though, in fact the majority of the mixes are 8-10 minutes long and if you know how to do the chacarera, caporales, tinku (see previous post), saya, cueca, or other dance styles, you’ll have sore feet by the end of this compilation!
At my sister-in-law’s pre-wedding Bolivian dance class, I had received an invitation by the instructor, Oliver Fernando Argandoña de la Zerda – also a top notch musician and member of the famous Bolivian band Fortaleza (there are some great old vids of the band from back in the day) – to go to his home and obtain some local music, but due to time constraints wasn’t able to…doh! So here is a youtube clip of Fortaleza featuring Oliver (he’s the singer and flute player) waxing lyrical about the Caseritas (female market vendors/shopkeepers).

I picked this track, sung presumably by natives of Cochambamba, because of its unabashed pride for the city from whence they hail:
Mi tierra de Cochamba, es tierra maravillosa, es una tierra para vivir…

103.- SAYA COCHABAMBA (Saya)

Musica de Beni

More of an addendum to the previous post, today’s music is off of a cd entitled “Musica de Beni” that I bought for the whopping sum of 10 bolivianos ($1.50) in a little shop in Rurrenabaque (Rurre airport pictured) that sold artisanal products. In full candor, most of the cd is not to my liking. In fact the first 15 tracks are difficult for me to enjoy if only because of the phony production that makes everything sound synthesized (much of it could actually be straight off a keyboard), over-compressed, and, for lack of a better word, cheesy.
Tracks 16 through 20, however, are complete gems. First off, it sounds live, not overdubbed like the previous tracks. It sounds raw, fresh and full of energy. My band recorded our latest album a few months ago completely live and, while parts of it make me wince at its nakedness, in general I dig the energy of an album that can only come from people sitting in a room playing music together, sans edit, sans overdub.
Here’s a youtube clip of “Tamarindo Seco”, along with an audio version in higher fidelity.

Tamarindo Seco – Musica de Beni

Here’s one called the “Machetero Loco” (Crazy Machete Man). On youtube I found what appears to be a sort of Beni Department tourism music video using this song, which features many of the animals we saw in the Amazon, and includes a brief segment showing indians in a village performing their music, as well as a rodeo (cattle ranching is a big part of the economy in the eastern part of Beni).

Machetero Loco – Musica de Beni

And finally, since Carnaval is nigh, I thought I’d tack on this song:

Popurri Carnavalero – Musica de Beni

Tacana Field Recordings

We live in the rainforest, we eat, we cure ourselves, we are dressed with what the rainforest gives us, we know that the trees, the plants, the animals are possessed by supernatural beings that can punish us and make people fall sick for reasons that only they know. Unfortunately, things are changing and the young people are losing our customs and beliefs. For us, the old Tacana, the music and the dances have been and continue being the only and the best way that we have to honor the gods and saints. -Francisco Navi, shaman, San José de Uchupiamonas.

The next several posts will be devoted to the musical diversity of Bolivia, where I just spent the last couple weeks. Originally, the idea was to go down to Cochabamba for my sister-in-law’s wedding, hang out, relax, kick back, chew some coca, drink some Huari, enjoy the party, not too much travelling, quoi. However, realizing what a waste it would be not to take advantage of some of the amazing national parks down there, my wife and I decided to – weather permitting – hop on a small propeller plane and head to the Amazon. Come our arrival in La Paz, the rain gods remained dormant, and so off we went. Lord do I hate small planes and the dreaded fish-tailing turbulence that ensues the minute the smallest cloud appears.
Arriving in Rurrenabaque, we were greeted by the kind folks from Chalalan, who promptly put us on a pirogue with our guide, Rigoberto, and sent us on a 5 and 1/2 hour trip up the Beni and Tuichi Rivers. Upon arrival on land, we had another hour long hike up to the lodge, which is run by the local Tacana-Quechua indigenous community from San José de Uchupiamonas, located another three hour boat ride up the Tuichi.
Tiring as it may have been to get there, the trip was well worth it. In the heart of the protected Madidi National Park in the upper Amazon river basin, the diversity of flora and fauna – and more importantly, the ability of the eco-tourist to actually behold it – is absolutely stunning. Rigoberto and the other guides have razor-sharp senses that catch the minutest movement or the faintest smell, allowing us to trek along behind and witness it all. We saw some 200 wild peccaries tramping along 15 feet away, red howler monkeys screaming like bedeviled ghouls in anticipation of the coming rains (which obliged us to stay an extra day), caimans, tiger frogs, green frogs, tarantulas, amazon tree boas, hundreds of little yellow squirrel monkeys and their overseers, the brown capuchin monkeys, giant grasshoppers, toucans, macaws, parrots, the incredibly rare black spider monkey, the primeval hoatzin bird, cormorans, and kingfishers. We went fishing and caught piranhas (and accidentally a river turtle!), and at night we were joined in our lodge by the ubiquitous tree frogs who made whoopee in our bathroom. Flora-wise it was overwhelming, though I’ll certainly never forget the giant kapok “elephant foot” tree, the equally impressive wild garlic tree (the inner cambium of which is used like we use regular old garlic), the walking palm (and in general the great variety of palms), and all manner of interesting medicinal shrubs and vines that Rigoberto pointed out. The Tacana apparently use ayahuasca too, though we weren’t there long enough to experience shamanistic rituals.
At the end of our visit, the locals put on a party for us, which began with offerings to the Pachamama, including coca leaves, leche de jaguar (a tasty milk-based liquor), and tobacco, and got going with much song and dance. I managed to record some of the music with my digital camera and extract the audio (since the video quality is poor). Of particular interest were the similarities to the African influenced fife-and-drum traditions of North America. In the case of the Tacana, the fife is a wood-carved flute (played wonderfully by Rigoberto!), the snare is called a caja, and the bass drum is the bomba or the bombillo.
Here’s a selection to get a feeling for it, though to help get in to the groove picture yourself in a large, spacious candlelit mahogany and palm thatched lodge-hut in the middle of the Amazon drinking leche de jaguar, chewing coca, and generally unwinding after a day of hiking, fishing, and a late afternoon soccer match!

Chalalan 3 – The Tacana Indians

Chalalan 4 – The Tacana Indians

Chalalan 5 – The Tacana Indians
And here’s one with zampoñas replacing the flauta…

Chalalan 7 – The Tacana Indians

Lomax in Haiti

Many sincere thanks to Archivist Kevin for this pertinent post on Haiti. Our hearts go out to Haitians everywhere and to all the victims and their families… -C
I put it on my Amazon wish list, and the ethnomusicology Santa Claus put it in my stocking: ten (count ‘em 10) CDs of music culled from the 1,500 recordings made during Alan Lomax’s 1936-1937 Haitian Expedition.  From rural to urban, from Catholic to vodou, these songs capture a little slice of Haiti in a turbulent period, only two years after the end of a fifteen-year occupation by the United States Marines.  The box-set comes with a book that explicates every tune, transcribes the Haitian Creole lyrics, and provides an English translation.  Also included is a reproduction of Lomax’s field notebook and correspondence from that period.

Flipping through the book, I learned that in the 1930s, mainstream academic thought held that American and Caribbean blacks has lost all cultural connection with Africa.  Anthropologist Melville Herskovits began to advance the then-novel idea of a continued African connection in a variety of culture, including music.  Lomax had similar ideas, based on his knowledge of African-American and Bahamanian folk music.  Listening to Carnaval music such as “Annou Manyen Na Wè” would seem, to my untrained and modern ear anyway, to be solid aural evidence of a continued African influence – but then, it seems today we have accepted the theories of Lomax and Herskovits*.

Annou Manyen Na Wè (Touch and Find Out) — Premyè Bann Òtofonik

The book tells me that the word Òtofonik in the band’s name is “a creolized version of the word Orthophonic on the old Victrola 78 rpm records, because the megaphones that the lead singers used resembled the horns from old phonograph players.”  The abrupt ending of the recording could have a variety of causes, but I would guess that the acetate disc Lomax was using ran out of space.  Such was field recording at the dawn of “portable” (read: 300-lb) sound equipment.

*At the great Red Hook, NY venue Jalopy, there was just an excellent discussion of how the banjo, as we know it today, came to be.  Extensive reference was made to the Afro-Caribbean roots of the instrument.

Jogging to Steve Reich

See the gulls fight the wind. See their heads bob in and out of the water. See the smoke snaking and curling out of the rooftop of a remote building across the canal. The morning joggers. The sun sparkling across the rippled water. The quivering of the sparse leaves on the poplar trees, the cars rolling up the cobblestone streets, the denizens going about their business.
See the Monday morning unfold in front of you, willy nilly yet all perfectly in sync. Nothing appears out of time, off-kilter, or random. It all has a purpose, it is all linked, all orchestrated, synchronized, and arranged when awash in the vibrant sonic patina of Steve Reich’s music. It’s overwhelming, too much too much…AAAHH!! No need for drugs.

Reich’s filmic music elicits the beauty from the banal by making it all seem so oddly, strangely, beautifully, rhythmically connected. I stared out upon the sun-drenched canal in the 19th in Paris this cold winter morning marveling at the majestic-mundane, making as if stretching post-jog but really just beholding creation tethered together by this beauteous music for six pianos. The phasing of the pianos is likely what tricks the mind into perceiving anything visually in motion to be not only in sync with the music, but occasionally even with the other mobile elements around it. I suppose one could ask a neuroscientist why this might be, but for me it is an indicator that Reich’s music contains within it incredible artistic and intellectual power. That it caused this ruffled morning jogger to have an enlightened, spiritual experience is proof enough.

Warning: long track ahead. I sometimes only listen in little snippets or else I go a little googly eyed.

Six Pianos – Steve Reich

Raul Barboza

Today’s post is from Michael Ward-Bergeman…-C.

“You don’t need to play a note for it to be present.  It’s like a friend who isn’t present…but he is very much present here (puts hand on heart)”  Raul Barboza

I worked on the music for a film last year that takes place in Buenos Aires.  The sound designer and director wanted a music that would capture the Argentine feel, but not sound like the music typically associated with Buenos Aires and Argentina. They decided on the music of an Argentine accordionist by the name of Raul Barboza for temporary tracks while they edited the movie.

Barboza plays a style know as chamamé. Its birthplace is in the Corrientes province of northern Argentina . The style has taken several centuries to evolve into the principal style of the region, where it is played, sung and danced.

The music’s earliest influences start with the Guaraní Indians who lived in this territory in the 16th century when the Spaniards arrived. The Jesuits and their missions soon followed. The Guaraní learned popular and classical music forms from the Spaniards and Jesuits, and also became master instrument builders. They partnered with the Jesuits in the creation of the largest instrument factory in all of Latin America.  The story, including its brutal ending, is documented in Roland Joffé’s movie The Mission.

While not quite as big of an influence as in the music of neighboring Brazil, African music also contributed to the mix.  In the 19th century European immigration brought more influences, and more importantly, accordions. (Before this the music was played on harps and guitars) These were the final elements that make up the chamamé music that is heard today.

Well, back to the movie.

Once the film was edited we needed to come up with original music that related to the temporary tracks.  We listened to a lot of Barboza and other chamamé artists.  The sound designer seemed to prefer one Barboza track in particular, Que Nadie Sepa Mi Sufrir.  After listening to the track about a dozen times, it started to sound familiar (duh!)  But I felt I really knew the song, and for about an hour it became one of those obsessive things you know you know but can’t seem to recall from where or when.

Que Nadie Sepa Mi Sufrir – Raul Barboza and Juanjo Domínguez

Que Nadie Sepa Mi Sufrir by Cabral/Dizeo

Raul Barboza – accordion, Juanjo Domínguez – guitar

And then it dawned on me.  Que Nadie Sepa Mi Sufrir was Edith Piaf’s La Foule. Music…what a world!!!

Jake Thackray

I have a soft spot in my heart for a touch here and there of witty verbosity sung by a surly pre-baby boomer in gentle, yet sharp, well-articulated baritone. Particularly if accompanied by a nylon-string guitar and perhaps a double bass.
A listener of Georges Brassens, I was very intrigued when I stumbled upon today’s featured artist as I immediately said to myself upon hearing his music, “this guy is Britain’s Brassens.” A similar sound, yet totally and utterly English. Northern English in fact. Delivered in unflinching Yorkshire twang, to be precise. Jake Thackray’s name was dangled in front of me during some road-worn show I did with my band in Yorkshire a couple of years back, but it wasn’t until my friend Malachy provided me with a mix that included this wonderful song that I was actually introduced to Thackray’s music. It was a perfect instance of double entendre – there are Thackrays in my American family (it’s even my mother’s first name) who originated from Yorkshire, and what song of his did Jake deem appropriate for me to hear first? Family Tree.

Family Tree – Jake Thackray

Staff Benda Bilili

Normally, this blog is devoted to putting music out there that isn’t necessarily as well known as it should be, that may have slipped off the music industry’s radar or was never on it in the first place, that is just plain odd, old, or out of the ordinary. However, despite the fact that today’s group are the media darlings of the world-music world (having won the 2009 Artist Award at Womex and have been very heavily featured in the music sections of every big newspaper and music mag out there), I’ve elected to post a tune of Staff Benda Bilili’s because of the incredible energy and human warmth and generosity they exude on stage. These guys, made up of four paraplegics (victims of polio), a guy in crutches, a 19 year old virtuoso of his self-made satonge (a small one stringed instrument tensed between a can and a wooden bow), and an excellent rhythm section (featuring homemade percussion), put on a transcendental show in the outskirts of Paris last week. They are a force of nature, an incredible example of how much can be accomplished with very little, and deserve all the success they are currently receiving. I love the relaxed groove of this tune and the fact that you can hear the din of children’s noises in the background. Their music can be found through all the standard channels.

Marguerite – Staff Benda Bilili

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.