Troubadours des Hauts-Plateaux

 

MUSIQUE AFRICAINE DE BURUNDI
LES TROUBADOURS DES HAUTS-PLATEAUX
enregistrés par Roger Barbaglia
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AFRICAN MUSIC FROM BURUNDI
THE TROUBADOURS OF THE HIGH PLATEAUX
recorded by Roger Barbaglia

 Vogue, 1969, CLVLX 296

The French label Vogue disappeared around 1972. It covered various musical genres including field recordings like this album. In fact this is the soundtrack of a film entitled ''le royaume des 1000 collines'' (the kingdom of 1000 hills) as Burundi is sometime nicknamed. I don't know who Roger Barbaglia was but he was lucky or he knew the country well enough to get the music he wanted.
This album is quite amazing (not the sound quality though) with some examples of rare singing at least at the time of the recordings. One of the highlights of the album is the songs from the kraal a house more or less large where women stay with infants and cows. These women (quite young here) have their own corpus of songs they sing between them, songs that were not supposed to be heard by strangers. Barbaglia talks about the freshness of these songs.
Most of the tracks feature singers young girls and boys as well as men. Tutsis, Hutus and Twas (Pygmies) have several tracks each.
Barbaglia wrote the text in French only with a good introduction to the country and its ethnic groups.
Now there are some discrepancies between what is mentionned on the back cover and what we hear. The first track on side A features a likembe player which is not on the list of tunes. So I named it track A 0.
On B4 the ''2nd harper'' is not the musical arc player mentionned but the same inanga player and singer as on B3. The musical arc player appears on B5.
Then when I copied this album I put tracks B7 and B8 together (I borrowed it from a library).
This LP is a great witness of the diversity and richness of the cultures present in Burundi before the chaos of the 90s. 

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Ethiopia I : Copts

ETHIOPIA I  COPTS

AN ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN MUSIC / 4
Edited for the International Music Council by the International Institute for
Comparative Music Studies and Documentation 

Musicaphon Bärenreiter/Unesco Collection, ?, BM 30 L 2304

 Jean Jenkins (1922-1990) was one of the best ethnomusicologists who worked a lot in the field. Among the countries where she went the most Ethiopia certainly comes first. All her albums are excellent (here recorded in mono) and Ethiopia has a diversity like no other.
Jenkins wrote the text with some historical information and then a description of the liturgy.
 The Ethiopian Church is monophysite like the Armenian or the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch.

Set apart from the other Western and  Eastern churches  for centuries (except the Copts in Egypt) the liturgical chant remained close enough (as far as we know) to the original chanting in the Near East with perhaps some traces of the Jewish chant in the Temple and other features kept by the  early Christian church. When I listen to the debtera who is in charge of the chanting I can hear the same approach as in the old Gaelic way of singing (the sean-nós singing) which was also called  ''the singing of the monks from ancient times''. Maybe it is a coincidence we'll probably never know for sure.
An exceptional document recorded around 1963.

Text in English (French and German) 

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Fleadh Ceoil '75

 

FLEADH CEOIL '75

Dolphin Records, 1975, DOL M.5013 

This album features some of the musicians who took part in the 1975 edition of the All-Ireland Fleadh in Buncrana co. Donegal. Some musicians are quite famous like Jackie Daly or Jim McKillop. Michael Flatley (yes the future Lord of the Dance himself) was there too on flute.
Already some foreign musicians came over but maybe  not in huge numbers like it has been the case since the eighties. Among them a Dutch trio was recorded with metal flute, mandolin and guitar. It looks like they were appreciated as they were given three tracks on this album. Their name King's Galliard sounds quite English to me but they probably played other types of music as well. Two Breton musicians were also recorded on bombarde and scottish bagpipe : Daniel Corcuff and Alan Kloatr respectively. Kloatr was already quite famous as an uilleann piper and flute player. He was a member of Alan Stivell's band. He died in 2018. Here they played a ''gavottenn'' which ends abruptely followed by a Breton march.
It is difficult to know how or where all these musicians were recorded; I'd say in studio, not on stage.
Special mention to Joe Harris on A5 who won the lilting competition.
The work on the titles is very poor with lots of mistakes or approximations; for example on B3 McKernes reel is McKenna's reel; on B9 Jackie Daly's Fancy is in fact the four-part jig the Gold Ring. The title itself is wrong for it should be Fleadh Cheoil (na hÉireann).
Nevertheless there are some good moments especially if you like Irish trad music a lot. 

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Vielles et cornemuses en Europe

 

VIELLES A ROUE ET CORNEMUSES EN EUROPE

HURDY GURDIES AND BAGPIPES IN EUROPE

Alpha, 1975, 34 5016-17

When the folk revival started in Western Europe, in Britain in the sixties and in France, Belgium and Italy mainly in the seventies American music was the trigger that launched it. But at the same time young people were interested in their own tradtions if any and hurdy gurdies and bagpipes because they were both exotic in a way and within reach in certain areas attracted more and more players.
This double album is a good example of what was at work in the early seventies. It was recorded on the occasion of the European reunion of hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe players at Nederokkerzeel  in Belgium. It was a good way to understand the richness of these hurdy-gurdy and bagpipe traditions in Europe. Musicians from Sweden, France, Belgium, Czechoslovaquia and Italy (Sicily) took part in the event.
Some of them (if not all) played a very important role in the preservation or the revival of different instruments. The case of Charles Alexandre is interesting : he was from Brittany but worked and lived most of his life in what is called ''la montagne noire'' (the black mountain) between the French departments Aude and Tarn north of Carcassonne. There between 1965 and 1975 he worked as a scholar and collector on the local bagpipe called ''bodega''  or ''craba''. He was in fact the first one to bring the instrument out of oblivion. Here he plays the bodega and the cabrette à bouche from Auvergne. After him associations and individuals started to make bagpipes, collect tunes and teach the local repertoire.
Note that Irish, Scottish or Breton pipers were not part of the event.
Alpha was a label based in Brussels. I suppose it has disappeared since. 

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Fest Noz in Pederneg

 FEST NOZ IN PEDERNEG

 After ''Klask an Ton'' left a comment about the LP ''Peron ha Gwennegou'' saying he was quite impressed by Yann Peron's talent I proposed to post some more music by Peron; this recording was made in April 1975 in Brittany in the town of Pederneg during what is called a fest noz.
Fest noz can be found anywhere in Brittany now where people pay for dancing to live music.
Originally a feast to conclude hard works  on a farm with some neighbours it became quite something else around 1955 thanks to Polig Montjarret who wanted to preserve what was left of the Breton singing which was quite declining. He managed to convince some Breton speaking farmers to sing again and take part in small evenings; later it became a kind of show with bands along with traditional musicians attracting hundreds of dancers.

Here only ''sonneurs'' (bombarde and bagpipe players) and singers were present. I recorded some parts of this fest noz where the noise made by the dancers is quite present. But it's part of the event.
Unfortunately there are only two tracks with Yann Peron playing with Yann Le Bars on binioù kozh. The other musicians were Daniel Le Noan on bombarde and Philippe Petitpain on biniou bras (scottish bagpipe). There is a track with unidentified sonneurs and a track with singers Bastard father and son.
The two dances which were danced were the ''fisel'' a variant of the gavotte and the plin and almost nothing else. 
Y. Peron died in October 1975; the three others died recently enough barely in their sixties.
D. Le Noan was also a famous reed maker for bombarde and bagpipe. He was very influenced by Peron as we can easily hear.

Once again the sound quality is almost secondary to the general atmosphere with the music almost drowned in the dancers' noise.
The sets are not complete as they can last for 15 minutes or more.

Track 01 : set : fisel-bal-fisel by Y. Peron and Y. Le Bars
Track 02 : plin (idem)
Track 03 : set : fisel-bal-fisel by anonymous players
Track 04 : fisel by D. Le Noan & P. Petitpain
Track 05 : fisel (idem)
Track 06 : set : fisel-bal-fisel by Bastard tad ha mab
Track 07 : set : plin-bal-plin

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DEVENDRA MURDESHWAR

 

DEVENDRA MURDESHWAR FLUTE

EMI, 1972, ESCD.2713

The bansuri has been played since for ever in India but  it has emerged on the international scene fairly recently.  Until Hariprasad Chaurasia started to record and tour a lot the older flute players were  best known to amateurs and specialists. Among them Pannalal Ghosh who died in 1960 was probably the most valuable. Other players nevertheless left their marks on Hindustani music like D. Murdeshwar (1923-2000)  who recorded a few albums for EMI India. He was a disciple of P. Ghosh.

Some information about his apprenticeship and career are given on the back cover. But if you want to know more about this  subtle musician you can visit this excellent  site :
https://davidphilipson.com/music/devendra/

Here he plays raag kedara, raag jhinjoti and a thumri.

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Musica dell'Etiopia

 

MUSICA DELL'ETIOPIA

MUSIC OF ETHIOPIA

Original Ethnic Music of the Peoples of the World

a cura di Lin Lerner & Chet A. Wollner

Albatros,  1975, VPA 8230

Ethiopia is a fascinating country which attracted many musicologists and other researchers. This is an album recorded in the field by Lin Lerner and Chet A. Wollner about whom I know nothing since there are no information in the introductory text by Alberto Paleari.
It is about tribal music from the Wallano, Hanafa, Gamu, Tigre, Adjuran, Gidole, Borana, Burgi and Konso tribes. There is one track about the Falashas those Ethiopians of Jewish faith. Most of the tracks are about collective singing (weddings songs, bringing the cattle to water, greeting song etc...); musical instruments are also featured like cow horn and different types of flutes.
The recordings were made during the summer 1973 mostly south of Addis Abeba.
Text in Italian.
This is a second-hand album.

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Vive Henri IV

 

LES MENESTRIERS / VIVE HENRI IV

THE MINSTRELS / LONG LIVE HENRI IV

Disques du Cavalier, 1973, BP 2005

Unlike the records already posted here, this album by Les Menestriers is devoted entirely to music from the 15th and 16th centuries.
Most of the tunes are quite well-known with pieces by Phalese, Susato or Dowland. Songs are less well-spread like the album's eponymous song Vive Henri IV an anonymous song dated 1588 and here sung to the melody of ''Cassandre'' which was printed by Thoinot Arbeau in his famous Orchésographie. Henri IV was the king of France who put an end to the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants; he was murdered in 1610 by a Catholic fanatic. This song praised Henri's ability to be a solid drinker, a fierce fighter and an ever-ready lover.
On track A7 is  another song rarely recorded (as far as I know) about a lady probably a wealthy one with a strong sexual appetite  who  ask everyday for Martin (a servant ?) himself feeling quite harassed in the end ... Typical of the French Renaissance which produced a lot of songs of a sexual nature. 

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Al-Hammami

 

AHMED AL-HAMMAMI 

''ancient folklore''

 

This  tape perhaps a commercial one which is a copy was given to me as such without any information or cover.
The Yemenite singer Al-Hammami plays the ud as well and is backed by a derbuka player.
 Ali al-Ansi cited al-Hammami as one of his greatest influences.
I hope Leonidas or whoever it is will manage to get useful information about him.

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airs à danser pour cithare

 

AIRS A DANSER POUR CITHARE

sud-ouest de madagascar

 DANCE TUNES FOR ZITHER

southwestern madagascar 

Anthologie de la Musique des Peuples, 1981, AMP 2907

All the albums produced by this label are excellent under the direction of Bernard Dupaigne. This album is no exception. Bernard Koechlin made these recordings in the field between 1967 and 1969. The group of people presented here are the Vezo who live on the coast as semi-nomads travelling by pirogue or schooner. Among the different types of musical expressions the practice of the zither maaru vaani is quite developed and rich. All the pieces are instrumental demonstrating that this instrument is first of all  a solo instrument with a vast repertoire.
As Koechlin says the zither was beginning to lose ground to the diatonic accordion especially where possession music is concerned; but it is still widely played nowadays.
The presentation text in English is very informative.
This is a copy of an album borrowed from a library.

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Musique Malgache

 

MUSIQUE MALGACHE

MUSIC FROM MADAGASCAR

Ocora ORTF, 1982, OCR 24

Madagascar and its music have been the subject of numerous field recordings and some of them were published by Ocora. But this album is not part of Ocora catalogue anymore although it was reissued in 1984.
Charles Duvelle (1937-2017) who recorded the music, wrote the text, took the photos and produced the whole lot was a French ethnomusicologist who took part in the foudation of this label and who created as well his own label Prophet. He started to go to Africa in 1961 on behalf for the Office de Coopération Radiophonique (O.CO.RA)
The present recordings were made in 1963 over a period of two months and Duvelle's goal was to offer a kind of introduction to malagasy music with several instruments (but no valiha) and several ethnic groups. And we can feel the cultural richness of this island for sure.
Each track is well introduced in French and English and complete our desire for more.

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Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы 5

 

Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы

Биринчи бөлүм

ANTHOLOGY OF KYRGYZ MELODIES (PART ONE)

Melodiya, 1974, M30-35587-88

 

 This is the fifth album in this series. I borrowed it from the Soviet cultural center in Paris and as before I didn't copy the tracks in Kyrgyz (here I 1)
Note that this series was reissued on vinyl records in 1984 with a different cover.

 

Арноо Күүлөрү  

I1		Кириш сөз = Вступительное слово = Introduction Read By – Т. Абдракунов
I2		Моңолбай (I вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Асанаалы Кыштообаев
I3		Моңолбай (II вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
I4		Коңур каз (I вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Жөлөгөн Чымырбаев
I5		Коңур каз (II вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
I6		Бекташ Dombra [Komuz] – Асанаалы Кыштообаев
I7		Айкүмүштүн такилет Dombra [Komuz] – Асылбэк Эшмамбетов
I8		Кубагыш Dombra [Komuz] – Эркесары Бекбазаров
I9		Кара теке Dombra [Komuz] – Шекербек Шеркулов
J1		Сараң кыз Dombra [Komuz] – Болуш Мадазимов
J2		Ой керимбай Dombra [Komuz] – Жөлөгөн Чымырбаев
J3		Чегиртке Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
J4		Жанайым Dombra [Komuz] – Алтымыш Мундузбаев
J5		Шүдүңгүт Dombra [Komuz] – Абдракман Кыдырбаев
J6		Кулпенде Dombra [Komuz] – Чалагыз Иманкулов
J7		Мандикер Dombra [Komuz] – Жакшыбай Жээнтаев
J8		Төрөкелдим Dombra [Komuz] – Жөлөгөн Чымырбаев
J9		Эки достун айрылышы Dombra [Komuz] – Жөлөгөн Чымырбаев
J10		Баатыр карагул Dombra [Komuz] – Асанаалы Кыштообаев

 

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JAVA

 

JAVA

gamelans from the sultan's palace in jogjakarta

musical traditions in Asia 

Archiv Produktion, 1973, 2723017

Archiv Produktion is part of the German label Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft mostly known for its prestigious early and classical music catalogue.
But art music from other parts of the world was also of interest for this label as shown by the collection called ''Musical Traditions in Asia''.
The man behind this double album was Jacques Brunet  the French musicologist one of the best specialist in south-east asian music  (see earlier posts). This is a guarantee of quality in both recording and presentation. The text (in English here) starts with a brief historical introduction; then he gives some details about the palace (kraton) of Jogjakarta and the music played there.
The rest of the text is the work of Dr Liberty Manik  starting with an introduction to the music recorded here (instruments, modes etc..) and the presentation of each track. Some of the gamelans still in use are very old dating back to the mid-18th century.The last track features a choir.
All pieces are played in their entirety and recordings were made in September 1972.

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Has tu point vu ...

 

LES MENESTRIERS / HAS TU POINT VU ...

LES MENESTRIERS/DIDN'T YOU SEE ... 

Cavalier, 1974, BP 2004 

 The French band Les Menestriers was a very important group in the field of medieval music. I posted their first album in May 2022 with some details about them. This is the fourth one with again side A dedicated to music from 13th to 15th centuries and side B devoted to Renaissance music. Here two additional musicians are present : Sylvie Beltrando whose ''small harp'' adds a new light to the music and Steve Rosenberg who is the main recorder player.
Their last album was made in 1980 with B. Pierrot as the only member left from the original band.
My copy was played a lot when I was young and is a bit worn out; so I found the present audio files from the Internet. 

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Chants des Ema

 

TIMOR . CHANTS DES EMA

collection CNRS Musée de l'Homme

SONGS OF THE EMA

Chant du Monde, 1979,  LDX 74693

This prestigious series has covered many countries and areas introducing us to peoples far removed from us. Timor is probably one of them. Here Brigitte Clamagirand is our guide to the Ema people living in Central Timor which is part of Indonesia. She spent some time there in 1966 and 1969-70 among them.
There were 50.000 Ema at the time of her visits. The text (in French and English) written by Clamagirand focuses on musical culture  and says nothing about the political and social situation of the  Ema. But she mentions the word cantiga which refers to the Portuguese period of colonization; this former colony became East Timor so perhaps some Ema do live there too. EastTimor has been independant since 2002 after a violent war with the Indonesian government between 1975and 1999; I suppose that might have affected the Ema.
The Ema sing mainly for daily activities or social events. They use instruments like jew's harps made of bamboo or iron and a knotched flute. Each track is well introduced.
This a copy of an album I borrowed somewhere but I didn't scan the photographs only the text.

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PERON HA GWENNEGOU

 

YANN PERON HA GERARD GWENNEGOU

Breizh-Skeudou, ?, 001

 This is a rare document about a great bombarde player Yann Peron who died at the age of 45 in October 1975. He was very well known in his own part of Breizh-Izel (meaning Lower Brittany) were Breton language is still spoken and traditional music very strong. This is the only album of his knowing that he appeared on another album among other musicians. In fact this album was produced after his death by a short-lived label (I think) Breizh-Skeudou (Breton Images) which issued only this one record  as far as I know.  The recordings were not made in studio but were made by somebody whose name is not mentionned on a tape recorder I'd say during an evening between friends. So the sound is what it is but we can listen to Peron's great talent clearly enough.
Gérard Gwennegou, the ''compère'', plays the Scottish bagpipe which was quite the fashion in Western Brittany since the sixties. But the Scottish technique and ornementations are absent and Gwennegou plays it as if it were a biniou koz.
The majority of recorded tunes are dance tunes except for two tracks with a set (heuliad) of marches (A1) and a melody (B4). Among the dance tunes what they call ''fisel'' occurs five times, fisel being a local form of gavotte (gavottenn ar menez).
Peron and Gwennegou wanted in fact to record an album but Peron's sudden illness and premature death  prevented them from doing so.
So I'm sure those who like and know Breton music will enjoy this record while the others will have to listen to it more carefully perhaps.
Text in Breton and French.

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Pangkur Kasmaran

 

PANGKUR KASMARAN 

UYON2 RRI YOGYAKARTA

Irama Nusantara Recordings, 1978, WD 526

If I remember well I got this tape from a friend a long time ago. There is no information about the music only the names of the singers and of the tunes. At the time of digitization I copied each side in one go not knowing really when one song ends and the next begins. Connoisseurs of this kind of music might have a laugh but much later I found the site of the publisher where the timing is mentionned : track A1 is 12'59'' long, track A2 is 16'34'', track B1 16'36'' and track B2 13'11". The site is : https://www.iramanusantara.org in Bahasa and English where you can listen to different types of music produced in Indonesia.
Singers (female and male) are backed by a full gamelan.
RRI stands for Radio Republik Indonesia.
This site https://gamelan.gs/booklet/38-pangkur-two/ might be helpful for novice listeners.

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Bali : musique et théâtre

 

BALI MUSIQUE ET THEATRE

BALI MUSIC AND THEATRE

Ocora, 1971, OCR 60
 

This is the second album made of recordings by G. Fresnais in Bali for Ocora.

Born in Paris Fresnais was not a musicologist but a sound engineer; He worked with the French film maker Alain Robbe-Grillet. He also composed an album called ''des sons de la nature'' (sounds of nature). I don't know why he was part of a recording mission but he was certainly fascinated by the Balinese culture, a culture he studied so that he could write the presentation text. Note that three other albums were issued by EMAC-Butterfly with parts of the recordings made in Denpasar.
The text is detailed enough; the first track sounds quite hypnotic  and close to trance music but is the accompaniment provided for the wayang kulit, the shadow theatre.
Side B about what is called ''gamelan gambuh'' is parted in three different phases of the same spectacle.
Text in French and English.

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