Friends, Encounters + Wished I Met

Easing into the new year, slowly.

An old friend, Richard Fleming, aka DJ Richard Nixon, has worked his obsessions (music, hiking, the Caribbean, birding, photography) into a wonderful new book and photographic gallery show.   I first met Rich in Cartegena, Colombia in the early 90s at a music festival, and he has kept in touch, at one point cataloging many of his rarer reggae records for the ARC.  The book is a great read (Walking to Guantánamo, Commons, cloth, 351pp, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-9814579-1-8), and if you are anywhere near New Orleans you can see some of the pics he took on his trip.

Accompanying test :  “I met Dagoberto Manzo in Matanzas, sitting on a stool in front of his house, sanding the neck of an acoustic guitar. You can see the sawdust on the floor. As soon as I expressed an interest in music, he put that job down and rushed into the house to get one of his prize creations, a double-necked tres and acoustic-guitar combo that he claimed is the only one of its kind in Cuba.”

he show is at the Antenna Gallery 3161 Burgundy St. in the Bywater.   Runs until Feb 7.

An even older, more tenuous link to people and places in Louisiana was at a recent concert by Joel Savoy and David Greeley.   About the same time I met Rich I was writing a piece about the Festival de Louisiane in Lafayette for Billboard.  One side trip included a sit on the porch of musicians Mark and Ann Savoy,  Off to the side was lil’ Joel.  All grown up now, he was in New York doing workshops and concerts, the one Patrice and I saw them perform this January at  Scott Kettner‘s studio in Brooklyn.  This was a house concert, about twenty people in an intimate setting, pretty rare these days.  P. fiddles a bit, knows so much more than me about the music, and has taken a workshop with both Joel and David in the past.  Here’s some of her comments:

• It’s rare to hear two Cajun fiddles without accordion…in the old style.  Each has a distinct personal style: David seemed the more traditional player, recounting how he had the privilege of learning tunes from old timers like Dennis McGee. Joel has a special knack for playing around with the chords, using the choppy Cajun bowing style to keep the beat in motion. In Savoy’s hands the fiddle almost sounds like it has bellows, which may come from growing up with the sound of his dad’s (Mark Savoy) accordion.

• Another feature of the Greeley–Savoy duo is the perfection of their intonation…….especially in minor-key tunes like a waltz that was dedicated to a dead calf.  They mention how proud they were that they could end a tune on different notes…apparently not a common accomplishment among Cajun fiddlers.

• Although today’s Cajun dances are usually a two-step and a waltz, they played a couple of Cajun polkas…quirky off-beat tunes that might have confused dancers at a bohemian beer-hall.  Originally, there were a lot more dances (Greely called it a “rond de danse” or round of dances), that the musicians would have to play for a dance night.

You can see Scott on Brasilian percussion with David Greeley here.

Lastly, Kate McGarrigle has died.  Never met her.  Last live listen about 10 ft away, a few summers ago when she and sister Anna, assorted kin and Emmylou Harris played a free concert in Tribeca.  Still remember their reluctantly offered-always asked to play, Heart Like A Wheel, the piercing voice and stabbing lyric.

“They say that death is a tragedy
It comes once and it’s over
But my only wish is for that deep dark abyss
‘Cause what’s the use of living with no true lover”

We Built This City On…

It is a little known fact that the ancient Nabataeans were early adaptors of new sound recording technologies.  They began with cylinder discs (called columns) but found them awkward.  Later, around 70 BC, they sliced the cylinders into wafer thin segments, well thin for the time, and began recording on the flat side.  Thwarted by a region-only spindle size and fierce competition from the Hittites (every tune a Hitt!) and the Phoenicians (the original Purple Reign), they were soon forced out of the market.  Not to mention the freight, as these babies were 33 1/3 tons.  Alas, here at Petra, unshipped goods, in a format that defies migration, linger still.

But, I may be mistaken about all this.  What I do know is that the walk through Al-Siq, and the first glimpse of the Treasury through the slice of rock, luminous pink curtained black, is a remarkable thing and well worth a trip through time.

All I can think of is our last administration, and the inability to tackle any problem successfully, and how everything was ‘hard work”   Please.  Have a look at Ajunta, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, Petra.  Imagine signing off on 40 years to carve a rock facade and we can’t rebuild twenty rows of wooden shotgun houses in New Orleans!   Disgrace, I mean I digress.

I’ve spent the last 10 days here in Amman Jordan setting up the first stages of Muslim World Music Day (formerly the Muslim Music Crash Course) at Columbia Universities Middle Eastern Research Center.  It has been a whirlwind of meetings, show-and tells, planning, report writing and visits to archives, schools, libraries, embassies, musicians and government offices.  The project director handling things from Jordan – the man with ALL the contacts – is Kareem Talhouni.

If you don’t know, Muslim World Music Day is an attempt to catalog all the relevant recording in the world, in one day, and surround this core database with informational and entertaining content, online.  Read all about it at our pre-website blog  www.arcmmcc.wordpress.com

One nice find was a thesis, written in English, but only published in Arabic, on Jordanian music, written by Prof Abdel Hamid Hamam the Dean of the College of Art and Design, University of Jordan.  Written in Wales no less.  We will excerpt it in both languages on the Muslim World Music Day website.

Equally amazing is the work of Dr. Mohammed Taha Ghawanmeh , Music professor and Dean of fine art @ Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan.  Dr Ghawanmeh has spent his life collecting the traditional music of Jordan, and the result is a 500 cassette edition, each cassette one hour long and accompanied by a booklet of lyrics, notation and explanatory notes.  This is hard work at its very best.  Only two sets of the series now exist and I can only hope that some scholars or universities that read this could find this work useful for their institution of scholarly pursuits.   Here’s the contact for the fine arts dept :  fac_finart@yu.edu.jo and Arabic speakers can call +962 79 574 3535

By the way on the road to Petra I has coffee, and after a 800 step climb rested in a rock solid tea room overlooking the rose red monestary.  Life used to be so hard…

My favorite reaction to the project was from a woman at the Center who wanted to know if every whore and slut who parades nearly naked on the TV, shaking her stuff, and singing in Arabic would be a part of the website.  She then showed me a few of Nancy Ajram’s videos (mild by my standards) and then exclaimed with a smile, “This is my favorite!”  And shaking her shoulders, “I love to dance to this one.”   Hey, Nancy was on Ophra last month!

With downloading so prevalent and pirating commonplace, music shops have all but disappeared in Jordan – one small chain, The Music Box, holding its own.  Plus the visual versions are very seductive as DVDs and music on TV predominates.  Live music is scarce in formal performance.  This photo is from a concert at Al Hussein Cultural Center taken by Robert Reeder, an ex pro photographer visiting Amman.   Musically, it was the kanoon playing of Tewfik Mirkham (sp?) that was luminous.

My endless search for actual music collections was finally rewarded on the last day of my visit to Amman with a trip to The Jordan Radio and Television Corp.   Our animated host, Ms. Hala Zureiqat, Director of Jordan Television, listened to our pitch, conferred with her Director, then nearly shouted, “We’re in!”   What has made this trip rewarding is that so many people in the region are willing to support the Muslim World Music Day –  a new idea, on first hearing – so enthusiastically.

In one of the rehearsal rooms we were treated to a short concert by 73 year old singer Mohammed Wahib – sweet, toothless and energetic.  The song is, “Slaima.”

The station has saved nearly its entire history since the 60s on reel to reel tape, and it is mostly catalogued.  The recent past is digitized and can be called up inhouse, electronically.   But for me the real fun was to finally see some real vinyl – 45s, LPs and a full shelf unit of approx 4,300 seventy-eights.

We will work to make sure this material is cataloged for the project and who knows what trash or treasures we will unearth.  Maybe an early Nabataean disc?

Brazil or Brasil

ARC is busy building a comprehensive Brazilian collection here at the Library.  To our shame there is currently no major institution in the States actively building a comprehensive collection of this great music.

Our chief advisor in all this has been Béco Dranoff.  I have known Béco as a DJ and producer (Bebel Gilberto, Red Hot + Rio)  for many years, but now he is a film maker, and launches his latest career in a spectacular fashion this Friday at the MoMa in NYC.

So do try and get one of the few tickets left for “Beyond Ipanema: Ondas brasileiras na música global (Beyond Ipanema: Brazilian Waves in Global Music”)  This Friday, July 17, 2009, 8:00 p.m.  It’s good enough to launch the series of summer films at the museum.

Written and directed by Guto Barra, Béco Dranoff, here’s the pitch from the MoMa site – “For decades Brazilian music has captivated audiences worldwide. What makes Brazilian music such a powerful force? Why does bossa nova still lure DJs and producers fifty years after it was created? Why does the Tropicália movement resonate so deeply with the alternative-rock crowd? Beyond Ipanema explores the Brazilian music experience outside of Brazil, accompanied by a specially curated soundtrack featuring Brazilian classics reinterpreted by a new generation of artists. World premiere. 89 min.”

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/film_screenings/7005

http://www.brazilnyc.com/2009/07/beyond-ipanema-brazilian-waves-in-global-music/

Back to ARC : The Brazilian Collection is growing rapidly – watch this space for new developments!

Miriam Makeba

It was sad to learn today that Miraim Makeba died.  ARC keeps running bios on many artists, so here is our last entry we did on Ms. Makbe, from 1999.  We’ll update again soon and send along.

Miriam Makeba    South Africa
nee : Zenzile. Zenzi, Mazi, Mama Africa, Empress of African Music, Empress of African Song,
b : Johannesburg, March 4, 1932

If ever there was a Grande Dame of World music, it would have to be Miriam Makeba.  Beyond the long career, crossover success, and international appeal is the dignified image, a symbol and a person fighting for women’s rights, human rights, and racial equality.  Having fled South Africa for freedom in America, she was soon forced to leave America as that same freedom was denied her.  Makeba never claimed to be anything other than a musician, and she never shied away from opportunities to speak out.  A normal amount of mistakes and too many hardships chipped away at the icon, while the strength and dignity and the music remained.

Like so many artists Makeba first sang on stage with her church choir and at school, Kilmerton Training Institute sponsored by the Methodists in Pretoria.  Late in her career Makeba revealed that her love of singing began with the great many spirit songs she learned from her mother, an isangoma or traditional healer.  Bouncing between her mother’s and grandmother’s household, the teenager found work as a nanny and maid. It was not much of a decision to become a musician.  Makeba was cleaning taxis for her nephew who also performed in an amateur group, the Cuban Brothers.  He asked her to sing and she accepted.

The Cuban Brothers were neither Cuban nor brothers, but a small combo with Makeba fronting a male vocal quartet.  One evening Nathan Mdlhedlhe (Mdledle) of the Manhattan Brothers caught the act and asked Makeba to audition.  The Manhattan Brothers (Black Manhattan Brothers: Nathan, Joe Mogotsi, Rufus Khoza, Ronnie Majola) were South Africa’s number one close harmony group who utilized a variety of top musicians in their stage shows.  Makeba was hired and, for stage purposes, uses the name; “Miriam,” for the first time.  For Makeba this was a tremendous opportunity – a much needed good turn for a 20 year old with a lifetime of experiences, including the death of her father, breast cancer, the birth of her first child and abandonment by her husband.

The Manhattan Brothers, who began as a mbube acappela group, rose to fame in the tradition of the quartets that developed out of American jazz and swing orchestras, mimicking the style of the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots.  For the most part Makeba covered jazz and pop standards, listing Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn as her favorite performers.  But the Manhattans retained an interest in the music performed in the sheebens and by mine workers drawn from many ethnic groups throughout Southern Africa.   When Makeba came aboard they were once again performing local music in local languages, as well as Western standards in the Xhosa and Zulu languages.  Touring widely with the Manhattans Miriam encountered other African musical styles from Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) and the Congo region.  One story relates that the Manhattans encouraged Makeba to perform the traditional gumboot dance, possibly the first woman to do so onstage.  When she began Miriam was billed as, “our own nut brown baby”  Soon she was known as, “the Nightingale.”  When Miriam’s picture graced Coca-Cola billboards and magazine ads, everyone in South Africa knew Miriam Makeba name.

Makeba recorded many 78s with the Manhattan Brothers for Gallotone. along with her first headlining effort, “Lakutshona Ilanga.”  This Xhosa song of lost-love became a hit, and to reach an American audience an English language version, “You Tell Such Lovely Lies,” with lesser lyrics was penned.  Even though it was illegal for a Black to sing in English, Makeba recorded this version at the insistence of her record company.  Gaining experience and skills, and a new found interest in local music, in 1956 Makeba released her first composition, “Pata, Pata” (Touch-Touch).  The song was also a hit and part of a major dance craze in South Africa.

While loosely still with the Manhattans, around 1956 Makeba sang with a similar style all-female ensemble put together by Gallotone called the Skylarks.  The group featured three other remarkable voices, Abigail Kubheka (Kebeka) and the sisters, Mary and Mamie Rabotapa.  She also began extensive touring with promoter Alf Herberts’, ‘African Jazz and Variety’.  This was a very popular review, with Makeba, her idol and chief singing rival in the day, Dorothy Masuka, and two future husbands, Sonny Pillay and Hugh Masekela.  In general the female singers still mimicked American pop-jazz vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald.  This was the sophisticated direction Makeba was taking.  Later she would offer a prime example when she scat sang Ellington’s, “Rockin’ in Rhythm.” (on the collection, Something New From Africa , 1959).

Makeba was chosen to play Joyce, the female lead in the musical, “King Kong.”  This 1959 play drew from the cream of Jo’berg’s musical talent, including Kippie Moeketsi, Jonas Gwangwa, Dollar Brand, and Hugh Masekela.  Playing the lead of heavyweight boxer Ezekeil “King Kong” Dhlamini, was the man who gave Miriam her first big break, the Manhattan Brothers’ Nathan Mdlhedlhe.  Billed as a ‘Jazz Opera’, the play was an American style musical with bits of kwela pennywhistle street music.  Staged in a university auditorium to allow for a mixed race audience, this rise and fall saga was hugely successful, adding luster to Makeba’s star.

The series of events that led to Makeba’s exile started with her cameo in Lionel Rogosin’s documentary film, “Come Back Africa.”   Taking it’s title from the ANC anthem, the story line follows migrant worker’s life in Sophiatown under minority rule.  Here Miriam’s role was essentially playing herself, offering two numbers in a nightclub scene.  Rogosin worked tirelessly to promote Makeba’s talent and showed the clip of her singing to any and all.  He arranged to bring Makeba to the film’s premier at the Venice Film Festival in 1959, where it won the Critic’s Prize.  He also arranged an appearance on American TV and at a nightclub in New York City.  After the festival Makeba went to London where her newest fan, American singer Harry Belafonte, helped her secure an elusive US visa.  The White South African government saw Makeba’s success and growing international soapbox as a serious threat.  Her passport was revoked, essentially preventing her from returning home to her family.  At the end of 1959 Miriam Makeba went to America.
Both her cause and her music gained Makeba powerful allies in the US entertainment industry, primarily Belafonte and TV host Steve Allen.  Her performance on Allen’s prime time Sunday evening show drew an audience in the millions.  It was television that made Makeba a star in America.  In the golden age of the variety show, the unusual “Click Song” (“Qogothwane”) found a ready TV audience.  The clicking sound, Ngongongtwang, is basic to the Xhosa (Xosa, Zhosa) language, made with a percussive flick of the tongue off the roof of mouth.  Seeking to make it understandable to the average American, Time Magazine likened it to, “the popping of champagne corks.”  Makeba became so identified with the sound that reviews now called her, “The click-click girl.”

It didn’t hurt that Makeba was photogenic, ‘exotic’ and elegant.  So were her fans.  Sitting in the first row, at her first live show at the Village Vanguard were Sidney Poitier, Duke Ellington, Nina Simone and Miles Davis.  Belefonte, who was pretty much managing her career, even commissioned her gowns – Kennedy era silk sheaths, with a shawl covering one shoulder – only hinting at something, somewhat, African.  The repertoire underwent a similar change.  Gone were the jazz numbers, R&B leanings and the wider range of African song.  Makeba’s snappy material, now concentrated on updated Zulu and Xhosa traditional music as well as her own composed songs.  It was a sound that fit right in with the folk revival movement that American music was enjoying. From the very first LP Makeba was clearly being up-marketed as a folksinger for a mixed-drink crowd.

Albums were developed with trademark consistency; many South African traditional numbers, a song from another African country, a calypso or two, a blues, a romantic European number, something from Brazil and almost always a lullaby.  She also attracted a loyal cast of savvy sidemen and producers/orchestrators.  Sivuca, the Brazilian guitarist and accordionist, played regularly with Makeba.  Masekela was another frequent collaborator.  Later they would marry for a while, but they never stopped working together.  Belafonte, who seemed to find his soul mate in Makeba, performed live and recorded with her, as well as orchestrating and producing her early albums.  For nearly ten years every summer they went out on tour together.    A press agent’s dream came true when Makeba was asked to perform at President Kennedy’s birthday party at Madison Square Garden in 1962.  Unfortunately all the talent in the world couldn’t compete with that other MM, sewn into her dress and oozing, “Happy Birthday Mr. President.”

Despite her shyness offstage, Makeba’s high profile made her an ideal spokesperson for the situation in South Africa.  In 1963 she testified at the United Nations Committee Against Apartheid.  She described spectacular and ordinary indignities, including the Sharpsville Massacre (1960), police brutality, mass arrests and the limiting and humiliating pass laws.  The government of South Africa responded by banning her records from the radio and in the shops.   But in the States Makeba went from success to success.  In 1963 she gave a solo concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall amid a hectic performing schedule.  Even more widespread success came with the 1967 release of a rehashed, “Pata Pata.”   With RCA behind the single the song made the American charts and became a hit worldwide.

As meteoric as her rise was her fall in the American entertainment industry.  In 1968, Miriam divorced Masekela to marry radical black activist Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael).  All of a sudden a person applauded for fighting against apartheid in South Africa was considered a radical for associating with those suggesting a similar struggle needed to be waged in America.  Recording opportunities vanished and concerts were cancelled.  Reprise illegally cancelled her recording contract.  The FBI followed her everywhere.  While not officially censored by the government, America treated her exactly like South Africa and essentially took away her right to work.  At the invitation of Guinean president Sekou Toure, in 1968 Miriam and her husband moved to Africa, remaining in Guinea for nine years.  Based in Conakry she began touring again, mostly Europe, South America and Africa.  She also became a Guinean delegate to the United Nations where she twice addressed the General Assembly, speaking out against the evils of apartheid.

Makeba continued to tour widely, lecture and record in Europe as her American albums slowly went out of print.  About her only US concert was in 1975 at Lincoln Center.  At Nigeria’s FESTAC festival in 1977 she triumphed as South Africa’s unofficial representative.  Closer to home in 1982 she joined up with Hugh Masekela for a huge concert in Botswana , with thousand of South Africans crossing the border to attend.  In 1986 her continued push for racial equality earned her the Dag Hammerskjold Peace Prize.  The following year Makeba was profiled in the Faith Isikapere documentary film, Exiles.

In 1987 Makeba made the controversial decision to join Paul Simon’s “Graceland” tour.  The African National Congress had spent years trying to enforce a boycott of South Africa, endorsed by the UN, until apartheid came to an end.  A cultural boycott was an important element, as entertainers garnered inordinate press.  The Graceland album was partially recorded in South Africa and therefore denounced by the ANC.  Makeba had often spoken in support of the boycott.  When Aretha Franklin was considering performing in South Africa in 1971, Miriam was outspoken; “No artist can go to South Africa without getting dirty herself.  …you can’t roll around with pigs and not end up covered with mud.”

Yet she joined the Graceland team stating that the success of the live shows would accelerate change.  The results were that many regarded her participation as traitorous and for the first time in years she was being offered work in America.  Sangoma, became Makeba’s first album released in the US since 1967, and her first album ever to feature only South African material.  For those who thought the fire had died, while promoting the album there was an offhand, ever-present condemnation; “You shoot a bird in South Africa, you go to jail.  You shoot a Nigger, it’s all-right!”

In 1988 her autobiography, Makeba, My Story, was published in six languages, and Miriam performed at a massive Free Nelson Mandella concert before 40,000 in Bologna, Italy.  In a bit of genius Diva programming in 1990 Makeba toured with Nina Simone and Odetta.  At the end of the year Makeba returned home, the following April performing her first concert in South Africa in 30 years.  Also in 1991 Makeba joined Dizzy Gillespie’s “Live The Future!” world tour.  Acting again after so many years, in 1992 Miriam appeared as the title characters’ mother in the film of the musical, Sarafina.

1995 one of her busiest years ever as she toured the world to sold out concerts.  Highlights included the filming of the TV special, “Christmas In The Vatican,” a concert in Beijing with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Marianne Faithful, the filming of a biographic documentary for London’s The South Bank Show directed by Melissa Raimes, becoming a Great Grand-mother, and at the end of the year a return to South Africa to perform for now President Mandella.

Makeba has received a staggering amount of awards, prizes, testimonials and honorary degrees to recognize her long commitment to women’s rights, political freedom and ending Apartheid.  If your in Berkeley June 16 is Miriam Makeba Day, while the date is March 22 in Tusagee, Alabama.  There’s even a street named after her in Guadeloupe. She’s also been sued over the authorship of her hit, ‘Malaika,’ in East Africa, and survived one plane and eleven car crashes.  Add to this her bouts with cancer, five marriages and the death of her beloved and troubled only daughter.  At times she wrote that she was close to madness, and was convinced that mischievous amadlozi spirits had taken hold of her.  After 50 years the spirits, apartheid and all the controversy have now receded.  The music is once again stage front, Makeba still a striking performer in a role that has run from gamine to grandmother of African song.

• A Promise  (Sonodisc, CD 5506, CD, 1986).  Featuring Joe Sample, Stix Hooper, Arthur Adams, and David T. Walker From The Crusaders.
• Africa  (Novus / BMG, 3155-2-N, CD,1991).
• African Convention  (Esperance/Sono, Espcd1907, ).
• All About Miriam  (Mercury, MG 21095, LP, no year listed [1967]).
• Appel à l’Afrique  (Syliphone, Guinea, LP ).
• The Best Of Miriam Makeba  (RCA, LSP-3982, LP, 1968).
• The Click Song   (Sonodisc, Cd 5564, CD) Comme
• Une Symphonie D’amour  (Sonodisc, France, Cd7501, CD ).
• Country Girl  (Sonodisc, France, Cd6518, CD
• Eyes on Tomorrow  (Polydor, 849 313-2, CD, 1991) Featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone, Hugh Masekela And Nelson Lee
• Forbidden Games  (RCA, LP, 1962).
• Greatest Hits  (WEA, LP, 1979).
• I Shall Sing  (Esperance / Sonodisc, Sncd1901, ).
• In Concert  (Reprise, 6253, n.d. [60s]).  Her first LP for Reprise recorded at New York’s Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center, with a small combo including Sivuca.
• In Concert  (Peters International, PLD 2082, LP, 1977).  Recorded at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Paris.
• Keep Me In Mind  (Reprise, LP, 1967).
• Le Monde De Myriam Makeba  (Sonodisc, France, Cd5563, CD).
• Live At The Champs Elysee  (Sonodisc, France, LP, 1975).
• Live Au Palais Du Peuple De Conakry  (Sonodisc, France, Cd8470, CD).
• Live From Paris and Conakry  (Drg, 5234, May, 1996).
• Live In Conakry  (Sonodlsc, France, LP, 1975).
• Makeba!  (WEA/Reprise, RRC 2213, 1968).
• Makeba Sings!  (RCA, LSP-3321, 1965).  Orchestra here led by Hugh Masekela, who did most of the arranging.  Quite a band here, including Jonas Gwangwa, Kenny Burrel, and Milford Graves
• The Magic Of Makeba  (RCA, LSP-3512, 1966).
• The Magnificent  (Mercury, SR 61082, no year listed).
• The Many Voices Of Miriam Makeba  (Kapp, KS-1274, 1962).
• Miriam Makeba  (RCA, LPM-2267, LP, 1960).  Her first solo US LP, featuring “The Click Song” and “Mbube.”  All the monies earned here went directly to Gallotone to buy out her South African contract!
• Miriam Makeba Goes International   (WEA, LP, 1977).  With Perry Lopez & The Belafonte Singers
• Miriam Makeba Live From My Brothers And Sisters (CCP, LP, 1978).
• Miriam Makeba Live In Africa  (Philips, , 1967).
• Music Volume 6: Miriam Makeba  (RCA, France, NL 42421 A, LP, n.d. [1980s]).
• Pata Pata   (Reprise, R 6274, LP, n.d., [1967] / Sonodisc, France, Cd6508, CD).
• Pata Pata (Esregistrement Public Au Théâtre des Champs-Elysées 30 Septembre 1977)  (Sonodisc, C1005, LP, 1977).
• Rhythm & Song  (Peters International, PLD 2073, 1980
• Sabelani  (CCP, LP, 1979)
• Sangoma  (Warner Bros., 9 25673-1, LP, 1988).  Also avail on CD from Wea / Warner Bros. Hugh Masekela plays trumpet.
• Sing Me A Song  (DRG, 5233, CD, 1993 / Sonodisc, France, Cd12702, CD, 1994).
• Symphony De Mour (Symphony Of Love)  (Sonodisc, France, LP, 1975).
• The Voice of Africa  (RCA Victor, LSP-2845, LP, 1964).  Arranged and conducted by Hugh Masekela.
• The World of Miriam Makeba  (RCA Victor, LPM-2750, LP, 1963).
• Welela  (Mercury, 838 208-2, LP, 1989).
• World Of African Song  (Burns and MacEachern Ltd , 8129-0138-x, LP, 1971).  African Folk Songs

Miriam and Bongi Makeba
• Miriam and Bongi Makeba  (Sonodisc, France, LP, 1975)
• Together  (Syliphone / Sonodisc, France, SYL C 007, n.d.).

Miriam Makeba & the Skylarks.
• Volume 1   (Gallo, TELCD 2303, ).    cuts from the 50s and great.
• Volume 2   (Gallo, TELCD 2315, ).
• The Best Of The Skylarks  (Kaz, UK, Kazcd26, CD).
• Skylarks  (Gallo, South Africa, [LP],1953).    Makeba site
• Skylarks (Re-Issue)  (, , 1992).    Makeba site

Miriam Makeba & Harry Belafonte.
• Belafonte Live At Carnegie Hall (2 Songs)  ((RCA, LP, 1960).
• Songs for Africa  (RCA, RCAL 6015, LP, 1985).  Hugh Masekela plays trumpet
• Together  (Ariola Express (GER), 495 592, 1989).  Notes says an anthology.  Some titles Orch conducted by Hugh Masekela
• Miriam Makeba & Harry Belafonte  (BMG, LP, 1972).

Paddy Canny

Paddy Canny 1919-2008

Because his playing was so identified with the “east Clare” style, Canny’s passing is an important moment in Irish traditional music.  He was born in 1919 into a musical family (his father was a fiddle player) and had music all around him from a young age.  In 1947, he became one of the founding members of the infamous Tulla Ceili Band (that’s him, 3rd from left, I believe):

He was a Tulla Band member when he won an all-Ireland fiddle title in 1953 and was with them when the Tulla group recorded in 1958 (check out Echoes of Erin; Dublin Records DU-LP-1000).  His seminal recording happened in 1959, when, along with PJ Hayes, Peader O’Loughlin and Bridie Lafferty, he recorded All Ireland Champion (Dublin DU-1003), one of the very finest albums ever made of Irish traditional music.  (Shanachie reissued this album under the title An Historic Recording of Irish Traditional Music; Shanachie 76001–it is available on iTunes.)  Later (late 50s-early 60s), Canny made a few 78rpm records for the Irish Gael-Linn label (these have been reissued on the Seoltaí Séidte box set; Gael-Linn CEFCD 184) and then, not a whole lot.  For years, it seems, he shied away from recording.  This changed in the 1990s–he appeared on concertina player Gearoid O’hAllmhurain’s album Traditional Music from Clare and Beyond (Celtic Crossings – OWR 0046) and made a solo record of his own in the mid-1990s (Paddy Canny: Traditional Music from the Legendary East Clare Fiddle; Cló Iar-Chonnachta CICD 129) but as far as places to hear his playing there’s not a whole lot out there.

Despite the relative paucity of recordings, Canny’s influence on a generation of musicians was incredibly strong and is one of those players everyone should be aware of.  His passing is a great loss.  The video above of of him playing with Frankie Gavin of De Dannan fame.  Enjoy!

DTN

Dan Donates!

A good friend of ARC, Dan Zanes, has done the impossible; donated ALL, not some, no ALL of his LPs to the library. Sure he threw in a nice pile of CDs (841), but ALL’s a lot, or at least 1,954 discs, and that’s a lot. Not only ALL, but ALL in great condition, and not only that, great recordings. All of them.

Over 300 LPs were Reggae of the highest caliber and rare enough. Like every donation there were the usual 20 or so Dylan items, but no one ever offered 23 Burl Ives albums? Some of them pre-beard!

If you don’t know who Dan is, well you can go to his webthing. We first knew him as a Del Fuego. These days he’s one of our leading family entertainers, and that’s his press agents way of saying an amazing performer of music for kids.

His Catch That Train! was the 2007 GrammyAward winner for Best Musical Album for Children. There was a100+ count box of children’s recordings in the donation, and equal sized boxes of jazz, early R&B, blues and Folkways LPs. Nice.

So thanks Dan for the incredible donation – we should have them all catalogued and infiled by the end of the month.

Smell of meat, tango

Recently, at Jazz Standard, (one of the best rooms for jazz in New York) I heard the Eternal Tango Orchestra. A plus is that the music from the enthusiastically carnivorous nation of Argentina was performed under the rib-infested Blue Smoke, a pretty good Bar-B-Q hang.

Based in NY, ETO has been around since 2003, preserving and adding to the orquesta tipica tradition. If you’re like me and cringe at the overthetop dramatics of the dance and swoon when the same passion is applied to the music, this was a wonderful evening. To quote saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, “the perfect balance between precision and delicacy of the chamber music and the passion and expressive power of the popular music of his native Argentina.”

What was nice was hearing a full rich string section with smart orchestration. Along with the bandoneóns of Hector Del Curto and David Hodges were violinists Nick Danielson, Sami Merdinian, Sergio Reyes and Lucia Giraudo, violist Katie Kresek, cellist Jisoo Ok, bassist Pedro Giraudo and Gustavo Casenave on piano.

The orchestra slimmed down to a quintet for some songs, like a slow and sultry milonga, (Late 19th century urban Argentine style from Buenos Aires, referencing the rural gaucho music, and greatly influencing both the tango and Spanish flamenco music ) and was beefed up with the addition of Pablo Ziegler on piano on a few others. The set was too short and too good to be missed.

Bandoneónist Héctor Del Curto, who’s family has been playing tangos professionally since the early 1900s, has 3 CDs. The ARC bought, and loves, the first two listed below :

• Hector Del Curto. Eternal Tango. Green Parrot Records, n.n. 2007

• Tango & All That Jazz (Live). Pablo Ziegler Quartet and Stefon Harris. Kind Of Blue records, KOB 10017, 2007

• Olé!Ché! Beau Bledsoe with guest Hector Del Curto.

Online :
www.hectordelcurto.com
www.jazzstandard.net

The Irish Session of the Future!

We have lots of Irish music here at the ARChive (the entire Green Linnet catalog, for example), but I don’t think we’ve got anything like this. Here is a video of someone playing a very convincing set of jigs on a game for the Nintendo DS called “Daigasso! Band Brothers.”

I’m not sure how well it would go over so well at a session (especially the ones I like), but played that well I imagine it’d fare no worse than a poorly-played bohdrán.

There’s lots of music out there on youtube that’s made strange/beautiful because it’s played on an anachronous instrument.  I love this one of someone playing Britney Spears’s “Toxic” on the ukulele. What else in the strange/beautiful category is out there that you like? Report your findings in the comments, please!

Dr.D.

Helicopter Girl on Hawaiian Shirt Day

It’s a long story: P. went to Sweden as a High School exchange student.  P. loved it.  Abba dominated the airwaves.  P. was an amateur classical cellist.  Later in life, P. went back to Sweden to learn to weave. One of her Swedish “sisters,” Annmari, gave her an LP of Swedish folk music, by “Skaggmanslaget” (The Bearded Guys Society.  Snus, mus och brännvin, Sonnet Records, Sweden, SLP 2522, 1971). She loved it.

P. became a textile designer and, later in life, got a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in Finland.  Unable to bring a cello to Helsinki, she brought a violin.  So, later in life, P. becomes a Scandinavian folk fiddler.  And for the last twelve years P. has been playing Nordic folk tunes for dancers, every Weds evening, with the NY Spelmanslag at dances hosted by Scandia New York, at the Town & Village Synagogue, 334 E. 14 St (between 1st/2nd Aves).

This summer, Annmari’s daughter, Frida, got married to Magnus, in hometown Delsbø, Hälsingland, Sweden and P., (the lady in red), went off to party and play a few tunes at the wedding with the local pickup band.

After the wedding, and a week at fiddle camp, P. was off to some high-flying adventures in Norway, with an old textile pal, Vibeke.  Now Vibeke has a helicopter (how?  why?), a very nice helicopter:

So into the mountains they go, stopping at a cobalt mine:

and the family ‘hytte’ (summer house).

Like all those who love the ARC, no trip is complete without hunting down the rare and wonderful that each culture has to offer.  P.’s gifts included a tee shirt from the Musikmuseet, the Swedish Music Museum, two hard-to-come-by books on Scandi music, (The Polish Dance in Scandinavia and Poland, various authors edited by Märta Ramsten, Svenskt Visarkiv, Sweden, no date, ISBN: 91 85374 36 9. with a CD dated 2003 and Röjås Jonas Kosmos Boda, by Jan Wolf-Watz, (Biström, Sweden, no date, ISBN: 91 89447 97 2, with a CD, about the distinctive fiddle tradition in Boda, in Dalarna, Sweden, as played by iconic fiddler Röjås Jonas), some nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle) emblazoned matches:

and this incredible early whatever LP by The Aloha Hawaians [sic], Beautiful Isle of Somewhere. (Intercontinental Records, Holland, 10.023, 19??).  Now the record inside is the wrong one (by the Happy Hawaiians), but still, one of the best gifts EVER!

And the moral of this story is: May all your children be foreign exchange students – it will fill their hearts with music and make them soar!

b.arc

Harry Bradshaw at the ARC

For fans of Irish music, Harry Bradshaw is something of a household name. Although long an engineer and producer at RTE, what he is probably best known is his work researching and reissuing Irish music recorded during the 78rpm era. Indeed, most of the era’s music was recorded in the United States and shipped back to Ireland; today, that music is often the basis for not only much of what people play, but for how they play it. Harry knows a staggering amount not only about these recordings, but about the people who made it. Although he’s had his hand in many, many projects (all of which are stunning), some of his more seminal collections are those of Michael Coleman, James Morrison, John Feeney, the collected recordings of the Gael Linn label, and of course my favorite, the Flanagan Brothers:

To say that his projects have had a merely “substantial” impact on today’s musicians would be an understatement.

The hits aren’t in danger of stopping, either. Last week, Harry made a presentation at Irish Arts Week that discussed the recently rediscovered cylinder recordings Francis O’Neill made when he was the Chief of the Chicago police. These recordings were thought to have been destroyed, but he found them and is doing yeoman’s work to preserve them and help raise awareness of the collection. He was able to pop on by the ARChive because he just happened to be in the neighborhood doing genealogical research for an entirely different reissue project (ach sin sceal eile, right Harry?). It was our pleasure to have him by.

dtn

——————
For those who haven’t the foggiest about who I’m talking about, have a listen to some examples posted over at the Juneberry 78s site, a neat place set up by a guy who posts mp3s of 78rpm records in his collection as an educational service.
Michael Coleman playing “The Blackbird” set dance.
James Morrison playing “Kitty’s Wedding” and “The Rambler” jigs.
The Flanagan Brothers playing “Paddy in London.”