CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
This Is the Sound of Globalization
By JON PARELES
New York Times
Published: April 15, 2005
WOULD that the state of world music were the state of the world. In
the music, boundaries are wide open, curiosity leads to cooperation,
memories are long but the lessons of history are positive ones. In
the world, well …
World music, that happily vague category, encompasses raw field
recordings and slick non-Western pop, traditional music and countless
twists on traditionalism; the term is also applied to everything from
crosscultural fusions to club music with exotic samples to new-age
meditation albums. No matter. The broad rubric holds a wealth of
music that is now more accessible than ever before. And while major
labels have largely lost interest in world music, independents have
been busy, while listeners are no longer dependent on the shelf space
or classification skills of local record stores.
With the Internet, CD’s manufactured abroad are a few clicks away
at large retailers or dedicated specialists like the Latin-music
experts at descarga.com. Digital distribution brings the music
even closer. World music has its own clearinghouse for downloads at
calabashmusic.com, where it’s easy to stock an iPod with music from
Uzbekistan or Curacao or just read up on them. Subscription services
like Rhapsody and eMusic have a surprising amount of international
offerings.
And the Smithsonian Institution has just gone online with the
ethnographic answer to iTunes: smithsonianglobalsound.org,
with museum-quality annotation and royalties paid to
musicians. Information and recommendations are also available at
sites like worldmusiccentral.org and afropop.org.
What follows is just a dip into the cornucopia of world-music albums
released over the past year or so. These albums are the perfect
antidote to xenophobia, and a reminder that creativity doesn’t stop
at national borders or language barriers. (Prices range from $13.49
to $18.49 for one CD, to $17.95 for a two-CD set.)
Argentina
Tango isn’t the only accordion music out of Argentina. The accordionist
Chango Spasiuk (whose grandparents were Ukrainian immigrants to
Argentina) plays chamame, music from northeastern Argentina, where
it meets Brazil and Paraguay, forging his own compositions from folk
materials. His mostly instrumental album “Tarefero de Mis Pagos: Songs
>From the Red Land” (Piranha) sometimes points toward South America,
sometimes toward Europe. Mr. Spasiuk’s pieces often draw on a brisk
six-beat Argentine rhythm, underlined by percussion from Argentina and
beyond; they can also hark back to polkas and waltzes. Pieces like
“Scenes From Life on the Border” are a step removed from their folk
roots, but with a group that includes both Mr. Spasiuk’s accordion
and the smaller tango accordion, the bandoneon, there’s still plenty
of huffing and hooting.
Armenia
Purity and a haunted, resolute stillness pervade Hasmik Harutyunyan’s
“Armenian Lullabies” (Traditional Crossroads). The words to the
songs are about rocking a child to sleep, but the music barely
sways. Ms. Harutyunyan sustains the almost glacial melodies in a voice
both kindly and doleful, and for most of the album, she is accompanied
by only an instrument or two; there are long stretches that her voice
shares with only one unchanging note from a reed flute. The effect
is so intimate and timeless, it’s hard to imagine the dreams of the
child listening.
Brazil
Brazilian pop revels in scrambling past and present, which makes for
some delightfully disorienting pop on Paula Morelenbaum’s “Berimbaum”
(Universal Music Latino) and Silverio Pessoa’s “Batida Urbanas:
Projeto Microbio do Frevo” (“Urban Beats: Project Microbe of Frevo”
(Companhia Editora de Pernambuco).
Ms. Morelenbaum, who sang for a decade with the bossa nova titan
Antonio Carlos Jobim, sends bossa novas and sambas into an electronic
hall of mirrors on “Berimbaum.” It’s a collection of songs by
the poet and songwriter Vinicius de Moraes, and her nonchalant
voice is backed by a mixture of live musicians and samples that go
ricocheting between lounge music and breakbeats, often multiplying
into precise echoes. Bebel Gilberto has also been exploring this zone
of electro-bossa, but Ms. Morelenbaum and her crafty producers have
plenty to add.
Mr. Pessoa, who was a prime mover in the group Cascabulho, takes
wilder leaps. He has been re-examining the music of northeastern
Brazil, first forro and now frevo, carnival songs in a style somewhere
between a samba and a military brass band. His album remakes frevos
from the 1950’s and 60’s as mutating, hallucinatory tunes that might
use the old oom-pah, a dub-reggae undertow, the whistling swoop of
a synthesizer or a brash rap in Portuguese. He’s clearly fond of the
old songs and ready to shake them up completely.
Congo’s best-known music is soukous, the rumbas that bounced
across the Caribbean and back and, in Africa, turned into smoothly
irresistible dance tunes with sweet voices and pealing, twining
lines of guitars and horns. Kekele is an alliance of musicians who
have played in some of Congo’s best-known bands, and on “Congo Life”
(World Music), they feature acoustic instruments – guitars, woodwinds,
marimbas – in pristinely recorded soukous that’s no less danceable
for its gentle arrangements. But Congo holds other music, too. Konono
No. 1’s “Congotronics” (Crammed Disc, also available as a download
at ) introduces a 25-year-old band that amplifies thumb
pianos, called likembes, through homemade equipment built from, among
other things, magnets out of junked cars; its percussion includes
whistles, pots and pans. Rooted in trance music of the Bazombo people,
from where Congo meets Angola, Konono’s songs are amped-up, distorted
call-and-response chants with dizzying plinking patterns that just
grow fiercer and more jubilant as they stretch out.
Cuba
In hard economic times, Cubans have learned to make a few resources
go a long way, and on Pedro Luis Ferrer’s “Rustico” (Escondida),
the music uses a minimum of instruments: the bright-toned Cuban
guitar called the tres, some hand percussion, three or four voices
and perhaps a second guitar. Mr. Ferrer or his daughter Lena, who
has a gorgeously forthright voice, sings lead vocals.
The music is as elegant and ambitious as it is austere. The
self-invented genre Mr. Ferrer calls chaguisa draws on old rural Cuban
styles and music from across Latin America, and the songs merge the
naturalness of folk tunes with lyrics full of ideas, from a song that
chides selfish husbands to one that sympathizes with an Andean cocaine
grower but could also be a veiled protest about conditions in Cuba:
“How will I live,” he sings, “if my money is worthless?” The music
has a gentle lilt and a steely core.
Ghana
James Brown’s funk stirred up African music, stimulating all kinds of
bands with scrubbing guitars and pushy horn sections. “Ghana Soundz:
Afro-Beat, Funk and Fusion in 70’s Ghana Volume 2” (Soundway) collects
hybrids from Ghana, where the funk meshed with the modal lope of that
nation’s own highlife music and with the Afrobeat percolating nearby
in Nigeria. With a few English lyrics amid the African languages, it’s
an album of sweaty, homegrown funk that’s danceable from end to end.
Greece
Knife fights, hashish smoking, damnation and mourning are the stuff
of rebetika, the songs that were once heard in tavernas in Greek port
cities. The melodies are pithy and straightforward, though they draw on
modes from across the Balkans and Middle East; the instrumentation is
sparse, often just a bouzouki or a smaller lute called a baglama. But
on the collection “Rebetika: The Rough Guide” (World Music Network),
which includes recordings from the 1920’s to the 80’s, the voices –
cocky and scarred, mournful and knowing – leap out with a fervor
that’s clear even on scratchy vintage tracks.
Haiti
In Haiti and France, Emeline Michel has long been known as a pop star
and songwriter with a supple voice and a strong social conscience. Her
eighth album, “Rasin Kreyol” (Times Square), places her hopes and
worries about Haiti in sleek pop arrangements that stay rooted in
rhythms from across that country. She merges modern funk with the
easygoing compas and the galloping carnival beat of rara, so her
earnest messages arrive in joyful grooves. And in songs like “Mon
Reve” – with a voodoo drumbeat, a breathy Guinean-style flute and
Ms. Michel’s mostly wordless voice – her idealism rings out.
India
In both blues and raga, the notes between an instrument’s frets are
essential, so perhaps it was inevitable that an Indian musician would
take up the slide guitar. On “3: Calcutta Slide-Guitar” (Riverboat),
Debashish Bhattacharya plays three instruments he designed: a
hollow-necked four-string slide ukulele, a 14-string slide guitar
and a 22-string guitar with sympathetic strings. The structures and
rhythms come from North and South India, and in classic raga style the
music evolves from reflective melody to fast, flamboyant, tabla-driven
improvisations. And every so often, there’s a hint of deep Delta twang.
Iran
In Persian classical music, stately shared melodies open into
flurries of passionate improvisation. The Masters of Persian Music
are an alliance of four first-rate Persian musicians: Kayhan Kalhor
on kemancheh (spike fiddle), Hussein Alizadeh on tar (lute), Mohammad
Reza Shajarian on vocals, and his son, Homayoun Shajarian, on vocals
and tombak (hand drum). The two-CD set “Faryad” (World Village) is a
live concert so rapt that the applause at the end of each CD comes
as a shock. Instrumental melodies alternate with mystical poetry
sung in galvanic, ululating voices; hushed moments swell into almost
shattering crescendos. The music crests, returns to dignified melody
and crests again, as if formality can barely contain it.
Poland
Traditional Polish songs, with their cutting vocals and meshed fiddles,
are the foundation of the Warsaw Village Band’s repertory. But
while their lineup is primarily acoustic – hand drums, hammered
dulcimer, violins, cello – their sensibilities are modern. They hear
dance-club drive and trancey echoes in the songs, and on “Uprooting”
(World Village), they use recording-studio techniques to heighten the
central drones and eerie percussive sounds in their songs. Hints of
reggae rhythm and guests like a scratching disc jockey should further
infuriate purists.
Portugal
The fado, once considered musically conservative and politically
associated with Portugal’s dictatorship until the 1970’s, has been
revitalized by a new generation of singers who have been drawn to
the way fado (“fate”) merges grand, tragic emotion with the delicate
picking of the Portuguese guitarra. Young singers are holding on
to fado’s acoustic instrumentation while modestly stretching its
parameters. “The Rough Guide to Fado” (World Music Network) juxtaposes
current and past generations of fadistas, revealing more orchestration
and less restraint among the elders. A young fado singer, Ana Moura,
has a smoky alto that separates her from the many higher-voiced
emulators of Amalia Rodriguez, the much-mourned queen of fado who died
in 1999. Ms. Moura’s songs hold mixed messages on “Guarda-me a Vida na
Mao: Keep My Life in Your Hand” (World Village); though the lyrics are
filled with fado’s typical sufferings, the music often turns buoyant.
Reunion
The Indian Ocean island of Reunion, which lies between Madagascar
and Mauritius and is an overseas department of France, has a Creole
culture that mingles the bloodlines of French colonists, slaves from
Africa and Madagascar, immigrants from India, China and Malaysia and
assorted pirates and mutineers. On the album “Mapou” (World Music
Network), Rene Lacaille’s music reflects it all, as brisk six-beat
rhythms carry his accordion, his quick-strummed ukulele, his jovially
raspy voice and melodies with more than a hint of French chanson. While
La Reunion is remote, Mr. Lacaille is cosmopolitan, tossing electric
guitar, saxophone and Caribbean percussion into his arrangements. But
there’s still a rustic charm in his songs about fishing, cooking,
rhythm and rum.
South Africa
When missionaries got to South Africa, they found local harmony-singing
traditions that meshed magnificently with gospel hymns, creating a
hybrid that has grown more South African over the generations. The
Soweto Gospel Choir, 26 singers picked from churches around the Soweto
township near Johannesburg, is both meticulously arranged and gutsy,
from its hearty bass harmonies to soloists whose sharp-edged voices
leap out of the choir. Its album “Voices From Heaven” (Shanachie) is
geared for outsiders, with a few familiar English-language songs and
an unnecessary pop finale. But most of the album uses just voices, or
voices and percussion, in songs that are as dynamic as they are devout.
Turkey
In the 1960’s, before world music had its own place in stores,
it was packaged as sultry exotica like “How to Make Your Husband a
Sultan: Belly Dance With Ozel Turkbas,” which has been reissued on
CD by Traditional Crossroads. Although Ms. Turkbas does sing on one
track, the album is actually a well-recorded showcase for a Turkish
gypsy clarinetist, Mustafa Kandirali, who bends notes all over the
place and leads a very frisky Turkish band; one track, formerly an
LP side, is an uninterrupted 17-minute suite. Ms. Turkbas’s belly
dance instructions, with photographs, are in the CD booklet.
Zimbabwe
Thomas Mapfumo was one of the pioneers of Zimbabwean rock, tranferring
the patterns of thumb pianos to picked electric guitars. He was also
a voice for the revolution that overthrew white minority rule in what
was called Rhodesia and led to the authoritarian government of Robert
Mugabe, which Mr. Mapfumo has gone on to criticize so sharply he has
become an expatriate, living in Oregon. There’s a calm authority in his
voice; since the 1980’s, there have also been thumb pianos in his band
alongside the electric guitars and keyboard. His latest studio album,
“Rise Up” (Calabash Music), is available only as a digital download
from , and after a logy start it’s a good
introduction to his music, particularly if a downloader skips a few
tracks. But there’s a better one, also available for the first time
exclusively as a download: “Afropop Presents Thomas Mapfumo Live,”
a vivid live recording (from the Manhattan club S.O.B.’s in 1991)
that brings out every neatly interlocking part and the music’s precise
but ecstatic momentum.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress