Toni Iordache

 

L'EBLOUISSANT VIRTUOSE DU CYMBALUM

THE OUTSTANDING VIRTUOSO ON THE CYMBALUM

TONI IORDACHE

Orchestre Gheorghe Zamfir

Another excellent album released by that French label Déesse  under Electrecord licence. T. Iordache (1942-1988) was and is perhaps still considered as the king of cymbalum players. From Romani extraction  he came from Southern Rumania near Bucarest and the tunes chosen for this album show that but he used to play tunes from the whole country as it is the mark of any modern Rumanian folk musician. He worked a lot with G. Zamfir. As a virtuoso he was able to hit his cymbalum 25 times per seconds, play complex but well built solos or develop two melodic lines at,the same time.
The text in French at the back gives some information on the instrument and Iordache.

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Musique berbère du Haut-Atlas

 

MUSIQUE BERBERE DU HAUT-ATLAS
Enregistrements de B. Lortat-Jacob et G. Rouget

BERBER MUSIC FROM THE HIGH ATLAS Mts
Recordings by B. Lortat-Jacob and G. Rouget

Disques Vogue, 1971, LD 786

Bernard Lortat-Jacob and Gilbert Rouget were two French ethnomusicologists. Lortat-Jacob has spent time in Morocco and produced wonderful albums for the CNRS. Rouget died in 2017 and wrote an important book in French ''la Musique et la Transe''. His field of interest was mostly black African music from Dahomey/Bénin and Guinea.
This recording is dedicated to the Ayt Mgun and Ayt Bugmmaz in the region of Demnate. They live in the upper valley of the river Tasawt at more than 2000 meters high.
What we hear is the expression of how Berber people are organised socially : the community as a single entity gathered around some values. Of course Islam brought some changes (about music making for example) but the ahwach is the time when they stick to original values of their culture.
The booklet in English is very detailed and informative. The tracks where nearly the whole village is involved are long enough and allow us to understand a bit better what social cohesion means for them. Other types of singing are lmsaq', tamghra and wedding songs.

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Rumanian folk music from Hungary

 

MAGYARORSZÁGI ROMÁN NÉPZENE

RUMANIAN FOLK MUSIC FROM HUNGARY

EDITED BY FERENC SEBŐ

Hungaroton, 1984, SLPX 180 77

F. Sebő is one of the main people who started the revivalist movement in Hungary. He spent some time collecting around in Hungary and Romania with a lot of other people in order to reconnect in a way with the traditional music of Hungarian people everywhere it was possible. So this is a great recording in the field made in 1981 about the Rumanian  minority in Hungary. In fact the revivalism in Hungary was of course interested in its own culture but from the beginning musicians and dancers from Budapest and other big cities were interested in other cultures from the area or the Balkan.
Three villages in Eastern Hungary are concerned here the main one being Micherechi inhabited by Rumanian speakers only while the others villages are mixed. There lived the great fiddler Teodor Covaci born in 1925. There are videos on youtube with Béla Halmos the other big name of the Hungarian revivalism with his long hair and big moustache trying to understand and play what Covaci was playing for him. Halmos looked a bit lost but he managed to keep up with it and used to play this repertoire. He sadly passed away in 2013.
A lot of informers were recorded : musicians on fiddle, kontra, clarinet, ... and singers-dancers. Dance music but also songs for Chistmas and the New Year (colinda), doinas, etc.. are performed.
F. Sebő explains in the booklet (in English, Rumanian and Hungarian) how as a student in ethnomusicology he met Covaci who took him in his wedding band. So  F. Sebő could learn and study peasant tradtions from the inside which is the best way of course if you really want to understand what you're doing. That was before 1981.
The booklet is quite informative with an general introduction about the local music and presentation of the tunes/songs and the performers. There are also scores for all the tunes played and lyrics of all the songs with their translations in Hungarian and English.
A great album and good work from  F. Sebő who produced many other excellent LPs for Hungaroton. Curiously, this label like other big labels decided not to release all its LPs on CD. So I hope to post some of those ''forgotten'' albums soon. 

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Roger Sherlock

 

MEMORIES OF SLIGO/ROGER SHERLOCK

accompanied by Mary Conroy 

Inchecronin, 1978, INC.7419

County Sligo is with counties Roscommon and Leitrim one of the best places for flute music in Ireland.
One of the biggest names is of course Matt Molloy but there are numerous other flute players who are highly respected. Roger Sherlock is one of them. He went to London in 1952 to get some work as many other Irishmen and became an important musician for the community. Brendan Mulkere who wrote the notes gives some details about that part of Sherlock's life. Inchecronin was a label in London in the 70s that's gone a long time ago.
Sherlock's style is traditional of course and is different in a way from contemporary flute playing we know now. But that style is still relevant in Co. Sligo. There are some mistakes or omissions about the titles of some tunes : for track A1 some sources give ''the Turnpike Gate and the Killavil's Fancy'', track A3 ''the Duke of Leinster and the Duke of Leinster's Wife'', track A5 the third reel would be ''the Old Pensioner'', track A7 ''the Queen of May and Anderson's Reel'', track B3 the scottisches are in fact hop jigs ''the Foxhunter's and Comb your hair and Curl it'', track B5 the first reel is ''Dash to Portabello'' composed by Sean Ryan, track B6 ''Tripping to the Well and the Kiss behind the Door'' and track B7 ''the Flowers of the Red Mill and the Streetplayer''. The guitar backing by Mary Conroy is sometimes not very good but it's not too bothering I think. 

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Facio Santillan

 

SORTILEGES DE LA FLUTE DES ANDES avec FACIO SANTILLAN

-------

SPELL OF THE ANDEAN FLUTE with FACIO SANTILLAN

Riviera, 1968 or 1970, 521 087 

I played this LP over and over when I was a teenager trying to learn the kena. I was a beginner at that time and F. Santillan was really a big boost after I discovered bands like Los Calchakis or Los Incas. Born in Argentina in Santiago del Estero he was very popular in France and Germany where he lives now. Argentina was an important place for the neo-folklore type of Andean music since the 50s with musicians like Hector Miranda, Jorge Milchberg or Ricardo Galeazzi.
He's a virtuoso on the kena and he's able to play any tune in any scale. I think this LP was recorded in Paris but the other musicians are not mentionned at all. They play mostly guitars, bass and bombo. The most exciting pieces are tunes from Venezuela and Paraguay where the kena is unknown but adapted for the kena in a masterly manner. Published in a collection called ''Talent'' by the French label Riviera founded in 1951 by Eddie Barclay.

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Ashraf-Zade

 

ASHRAF ASHRAF-ZADE PLAYS
(clarinet)
Popular melodies from Azerbaijan

Melodiya, 1973, 33D-035521-22

Long after the duduk and the zurna the clarinet was adopted by Azeri musicians I suppose about the same time as Armenian players did, perhaps at the turn of the 20th century. Information about clarinet playing in Transcaucasia are welcome. What I know is that those Caucasian clarinet players are as good and exciting as Bulgarian or Greek players. A. Ashraf-Zade is a fantastic clarinet player and is accompanied by Teyub Damirov on garmon, Firudin Nuriev on balaban and Agarza Eybatov on naggara. All tunes are based on modal scales (mugam); regs is the Azeri prononciation of the Arabic term raqs which simply means dance. So once again don't trust the cover and go for it.

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Les Flûtes du Soleil

 

LES FLUTES DU SOLEIL
Documents recueillis et enregistrés par Gérard Kremer

THE FLUTES OF THE SUN
Documents collected and recorded by G. Kremer

Disques Alvarès, no date, C.478

This is another LP by G. Kremer about music in South America (see post 23rd of May). It looks like a compilation of different trips overs the years in Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru. From the 20 tracks 5 are recordings made in Oruro (Bolivia) at the railway station (at 4 o'clock am during the Carnival) of a band of young musicians with kena, charango, guitar and bombo; this is the kind of band we can find anywhere but the other tracks are more interesting especially those from Colombia. This country is well known for it's salsa and cumbia music but here Kremer was able to record indigenous musicians with particular types of flutes like the massi, yapurutu or kamu-purrui. So in the end this is a very mixed kind of album which was good at the time by giving another approach to South American culture to a large public.
Disques Alvarès were in fact the same label as BAM created by Jacques Alvarès in 1934 and bought in 1978 by Disc  AZ.
Unfortunately the disc is not in a very good shape on some tracks.

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INSTRUMENTS FOLKLORIQUES ROUMAINS

 

LES INSTRUMENTS FOLKLORIQUES ROUMAINS
avec l'orchestre de
GHEORGHE ZAMFIR

POPULAR RUMANIAN INSTRUMENTS
WITH G. ZAMFIR'S ORCHESTRA

Disques Déesse, 1972, DDLX 22

Another recording issued by Déesse under Electrecord licence. Again G.Zamfir is leading an orchestra but he has one track with his nai that is the only doina of the album. Toni Iordache on cymbalum and Marin Chisăr on bagpipe and caval were regular members of Zamfir's band. The other soloists are the outstanding Dumitru Zamfira on fluier, Ion Milu on taragot, Ion Şerban on cobza, Gheorghe Rada on fiddle with bugle, Florea Cioacă on fiddle. A very pleasant album where we can appreciate the great virtuosity displayed by these artists.

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Ion Dragoï

 ION DRAGOÏ  accompagné par GHEORGHE ZAMFIR
et ses solistes

ION DRAGOÏ accompanied by G. Zamfir and his soloists

 Déesse, 1972,  DDLX 35

I. Dragoï is a fantastic Rumanian fiddler from Moldavia. From the first note to the last he has us hooked by the ears. Unless you don't like Rumanian music as such, you just can't stop listening to this LP. An important part of the energy we can feel here comes from the little combo led by G. Zamfir who was Mr Panpipe in France at the time. The Swiss ''sound hunter'' and organist Marcel Cellier ''brought'' G. Zamfir to us at the end of the 60s beginning of the 70s and put Zamfir on the right tracks in the Western world. I don't know who got the idea between Cellier and Zamfir but the point is that all the recordings made here were realised with a small orchestra while in Rumania soloists are always accompanied by a huge orchestra. The effect is really great because as it is said all the musicians are soloists and are able to deliver a very intricate type of music. The great cymbalum player Toni Iordache was present, the guarantee that the music will be at its best. They spent only 6 hours in the Europa Sonor studios and the programme was largely decided on the spot. What a lesson !
Déesse or Disques Déesse was a French label which used to release for France some Electrecord recordings. 

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Josephine Keegan

 

JOSEPHINE KEEGAN
Irish Traditional Music
Reels. Jigs.Hornpipes. Airs

Outlet, 1980, OAS 3030

Born in 1935, J. Keegan is a well known fiddler and piano player from Northern Ireland. She was S. Maguire's (McGuire) favorite accompanist and she recorded with Roger Sherlock, Joe Burke among others. This LP is one of her fiddle solo albums where she plays the piano as well. Her style sounds a bit classical  especially for airs. She's also famous for her compositions; some of them are on this LP (see the notes on the back cover) which are published. This LP was part of the Archive Series and the quality of sound is good (not too much reverberation as it is the case on a lot of Outlet issues). 

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Pondiaka Tragoudia

 

ΠΟΝΤΙΑΚΑ ΤΡΑΓΟΥΔΙΑ

PONTIC SONGS

Singers : Nikos Ioannidis, Asimakis Andoniadis, Dina Vasiliadou
Lyra : N. Ioannidis

Fidelity, no date, 6484 308

Here we have an example of how Greek popular music has evolved since the 50's or the 60's. It was a tendency in the whole of Greece to bring in instruments from the Western rock and pop music such as electric guitar, synthethizers or drums. Pontic music followed the same way probably in order to sound more ''modern'' and attract young people. It is Pontic music nevertheless with the lyra at its core and singing in a traditional style. Nikos Ioannidis the lyra player and singer was also the composer of the lyrics and music of this album. We can hear an accordion on some tracks and there is an imitation of the tulum by the synthetizer on track A4.
This kind of rendering  is sometime discredited as not traditional or mitigated but this is what people want to hear and has a value musically. This is an LP for the Pontic community without any other consideration than dancing and having fun.

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