TRAD & FOLK MUSIC ON 33RPM & TAPES
SHEHNAEE MUSIC LIVE PART 3
HEERA STEREO, no date, H:789
This is a tape from Pakistan brought back by a friend a good while ago. Penjab is divided between Pakistan and India but the folk music is the same. Here we have shehnaee or shenai music by a player anonymous to me. He's joined by two dohol players, two other players with small percussions and a scottish-like bagpipe player who provides a drone mostly with a few notes between two shenai melodical lines.
A-BOUEZ-PENN GAND PJ. MOTREFF HA LOEIZ ROPARS
IN FULL VOICE WITH PJ. MOTREFF AND L. ROPARS
Coop Breizh, 1979, 1003
Loeiz Ropars was a very important man for the Breton revival. Everybody agrees that he was the ''inventor'' of what is called the fest-noz in its modern form. He became interested in the Breton singing tradition at the end of the thirties but mostly during the war because suddenly the old people with their culture were the only possibility of having some fun in the villages in a Brittany occupied by the Nazis. After the war he wanted to keep alive what he saw during the occupation and he managed to convince some singers to take part in kan ha diskan competitions. the in 1955 he organized the first modern fest-noz in Poullaouen ie an evening of songs and dances in a hall instead the yard of a farm, with a stage for the singers, one microphone and a entrance fee for the public. He was himself fluent in Breton of course and a fine singer. He died in 2007.
Among the old singers he used to visit and promote was PJ. Motreff born in 1899 in a family of singers. He started singing in 1910 with his mother. The area is what is called Haute-Cornouaille in French (Kernev in Breton) where singing is still very strong for dancing and other occasions. The kan ha diskan (the lead singer starts the first line when the second singer ''replies'' by singing the end of the first line before singing it himself and so on) is also possible outside of dance.
Here what is mentionned as being three different tracks on side A is in fact one track; this the traditional set called gavotte (gavotten or dans-tro in Breton) with the first chain dance followed by a ''bal'' to get some rest before the second chain dance. So there are three tracks on side A. The two other tracks are one song about the first world war (inside the trench) and a song about a murder that happened in the 17th century.
On side B four songs including one composition by Ropars ''Son ar Distrujer'' (song of the destroyer) telling us about all the destruction that was brought by the state in the sixties when the craze was to erase embankments in order to get bigger fields for a bigger production. Now the reverse movement has started after it was obvious that this ''remembrement'' killed local flora and fauna, caused big floodings and didn't help much the farmers in the end. Ropars was very active against such an ''economic progress''.
Text in French by Donatien Laurent, a famous scholar and musicians who died in 2020.
SOULEYMANE SIDIBE/BADEYA FOLI
no label, no date, GD052
One of thousands of tapes in circulation in Mali's music shops and markets. It was brought back by a friend.
There is absolutely no information about this tape. Surely Sidibe can play the kamele n'goni is holding on the cover and he's the main singer. The mixing of old traditional instruments with synthetizers and other Western instruments has been the rule for a lot of singers/musicians. The kamele n'goni (the ''instrument of young men'') is mainly played in the Wassoulou region and is now very present in what is called the revival of Wassoulou music.
There are in fact eleven tracks but only eight of them have a name.
SATANAZET / AN DURZUNEL
Vélia, 1973, n° 2230004
Satanazet (the Devils in Breton) was one of the first band in Brittany to mix Breton and Irish repertoires. The band was the gathering two brothers, Patrig and Dominig (Breton spelling) Molard and four other musicians. Dominique has passed away while Patrig is still in activity on the scottish bag pipe or the uilleann pipe. In 1973 there was no Irish pipes; Patrick got his own set some years later; another member was the accordion player Alain Le Hégarat who was also an uilleann piper later. Among the two musicians who are guests there is Alan Kloatr on wooden and classical flutes one of the first French musicians to have got an English flute used in Irish music.
Seven tracks out of eleven are Breton, two are Irish, one is mentionned as Irish-Appalachian and a fourth one is of Scottish inspiration. All the tunes are traditional except for track B1 (an dro elfenn) a superb composition by Le Hégart who was also member of a bagad and pipe band and track B4 by Youenn ar Mao which is a mixture of Scottish music and American bluegrass.
I must say that most of the second melodic voices played on fiddle or mandolin are not great (often too ambitious in relation to the instrumental level) but this is an interesting document about the Breton revival in the early seventies; Kloatr on flutes is very good as well as the tin whistle, bombard and bagpipe played by P. Molard.
P. and D. Molard as well as A. Le Hégarat were members of Ogham afterwards.
An durzunel means the partridge in Breton and is the name of a song played on B5
This second hand album is not in a top state but it's not desperate either ...
ANTHOLOGY OF KYRGYZ MELODIES (PART ONE)
Melodiya, 1974, M30 35583, 35584
This the third album of that series with the title ''Епостук дастан күүлөр''. All the tracks are instrumental ones with outstanding komuz players like Sherkulov or Madazimov. Like the two previous LPs this one is a copy made in 1986 and at that time I didn't keep the presentation tracks in Kyrgyz. So the first track is missing (E1).
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OGHAM . BOKED EURED
Keltia 3, 1976, KEL 02
This Breton band was built around two families, the Sicard and the Molard. The four Molard brothers started to play together some Breton and Irish music when they were still living in Saint-Malo where they come from. The best-known of the four brothers is Patrick Molard who started by studying the Scottish bagpipe and its music including what is called piobaireachd. Then he played the Breton bagpipe, the binioù. At the same time he discovered the uilleann pipes and was one the first uilleann pipers in France. His brother Jacky on guitar here became a renowned fiddle player in Breton and Irish music. Dominique Molard is now a drummer but he plays the bouzouki on this album. The fourth brother Claude has since passed away and played bodhran and guitar. The other family is represented by Padrig on fiddle and whistle, and Ronan on keyboards.
They wanted to play Breton music with Irish instruments (uilleann pipes, fiddle, flute, whistle, bodhran, bouzouki) or aesthetics, influenced by the Irish folk revival (Planxty, Bothy Band, Na Fili, the Chieftains ...). They were not the first ones to have this idea; the band called Satanazet recorded in 1973 but without any bagpipe. Dominique Molard was there also. It is interesting to note that Keltia 3 was a label founded by Alan Stivell who wrote part of the notes in French.
So only two tracks out of eight are Irish and Scottish sets; Gloire ui Rodnaich (Rodney's Glory) is a set dance followed by a reel, the Hunter's Purse. The Scottish set is led by the Scottish bagpipe. The six tracks left are Breton dance tunes and songs played on the instruments.
Ogham was an ancient writing system used by the Celts in Ireland between the IVth and the IXth centuries. This is what is on the cover.
Boked eured is a song sung at weddings and means ''the wedding bouquet''.
MUSIQUES DU PEROU/MUSIC OF PERU
Paucartambo Indiens Q'eros
Ocora-Radio France, 1984, OCR 30
Made in July and August 1965 these recordings are the work of Pierre Allard and Claude Koenig. Paucartambo is a village which lies at an altitude of 3500 m. P. Allard was there during the annual festivities for the Blessed Virgin Carmen between the 15th and the 17th of July. The whole process is described in the text in French and English and forms side A. Side B is music from the Q'eros Indians who numbered only 240 at the time of the 1955 census. Their life style and environnent are well presented in the text. The flutes are the main melodic instruments especially the kena. On side A we can also hear a violin and a harp. A very interesting and nice album about indigenous societies in danger of disparition.
this album was never issued on CD and is absent from the current Ocora site and catalogue.
ROCKING THE CRADDLE
SONGS IN ENGLISH & GAELIC
SEAMUS ENNIS
Folktracks Cassettes, 1982, FSA-45-169
S. Ennis (1919-1982) was one of the greatest pipers in Ireland. He could also sing in English and Irish and play the fiddle, the flute and the war pipes. He was also known for his works as a collector of songs, tunes and tales all over Ireland in the forties and fifties for the Irish Folkore Commission and later for Radio Eireann.
Some of the songs he performs on this tape are delivered with short stories or explanations about them. There are 10 songs in English and 9 in Gaelic.
Unfortunately the production is rather poor as the cover shows : a simple piece of paper perhaps due to a lack of funding.
SKED
Production Velia, ?, 2230025
Among the numerous Breton bands Sked is probably one of the least know now. Sked (meaning ''glossy'', ''shiny'' in Breton) made only one album maybe in 1975. The band had some musicians who became famous later like Jean-François Sibéril known as Soïg Siberil on guitar and Jean-Pol Huellou on tin whistle and classical metal flute. Others were also very important at that time like Alain Le Hegarat on uilleann pipes who was one of the first Breton people to have discovered Irish music at the end of the fifties; he went to Ireland in 1960 and started with a practice set around 1972. He was born in 1939 and is still with us. He and Alain Trovel (keyboards) recorded a beautiful album with uilleann pipes and organ which was reissued on CD. In the band were also present the Colleu brothers, Philippe on banjo and Yvon on accordion and guitare. Philippe is well known in Brittany and Normandy for his works on the maritime repertoire from these regions. Two more musicians were parts of the band : Brendan Fahy on guitar, bodhran and vocal (but he doesn't sing on the album) and Gunter Buchwald on fiddle.
The repertoire is mostly Breton with two Irish sets; there is also one melody maybe Scottish, Kingussie Flowers. Note that B1 is not the Humours of Lissadel but O'Neill's March and the Battle of Aughrim and is followed by B2 ''an dro''. The interesting thing about Sked is that like other bands they worked on a traditional Breton repertoire with an Irish approach which was quite innovative at that time.
GUITARE ET CHANTS D'ARGENTINE
GUITAR AND SONGS FROM ARGENTINA
RAUL MALDONADO
SFP, ?, 52005
Raul Maldonado was born in Argentina in 1937 in a small place in the pampa but lived partly in France where he recorded this album during the sixties. At the age of twelve he met with Abel Fleury, one of the greatest Argentinian composer for guitar. Maldonado plays some of Fleury's works on side A. He also studied guitar with A. Yupanqui and other musicians. He is mostly a solo guitar player but he worked with Los Calchakis as well as other ensembles.
Side B has some compositions by A. de Robertis the kena player.
This is popular kind of music by learned composers and musicians who loved the songs and music of the people of Argentina and promoted them all around the world.
To know more about Maldonado : http://www.raulmaldonado.fr/
CHANTS TRADITIONNELS DE HAUTE-BRETAGNE
BOGUE D'OR 1989
Chanteurs et musiciens de Bretagne n°3
TRADITIONAL SONGS FROM UPPER BRITTANY
GOLDEN CHESTNUT-BAR 1989
Singers and musicians of Brittany n°3
Dastum, 1990, DAS-113
This is one of the few tapes that Dastum never reissued on CD. As the title shows it is about an annual competition for singers ans musicians in the Eastern part of Brittany where the Breton language was never spoken or disappeared during rhe Middle Ages. But there is another language spoken along with French , a dialect called Gallo, a Romance dialect. The term ''upper'' means that this part of Brittany is closer to Paris than ''lower Brittany'' and had implied for a very long time that Eastern Brittany was more ''civilized'' than the Western part where Breton is still in use. But of course the Gallo dialect was also considered as a local dialect of no importance which should have disappeared as well for the benefit of French. When the Breton folk revival started it was all about the Breton tongue and history and Gallo was not part of that cultural and political movement. The people of Upper Brittany considered themselves as Breton as the others and managed to set up many associations and bodies in order to preserve their own culture.
One way of preserving that dialect and musical culture was to organize a competition open to all. Here we have the final competition, after the qualifying rounds were over, held in Redon on the 29th of October 1989. It's called ''Golden Chestnut-bar'' because chestnuts are a major product in the local economy.
Singers are quite dominant and the interest of this competition is that everybody being welcome it gives a vivid image of what the local singing was like at the time with children, adults and older people, all singing on their own with sometimes the help of the crowd which respond to the singers when necessary. All the repertoire is traditionnal except for the song on B7 composed by Marie Morin who sings it herself.
The competition involves instrumental music as well with the traditional duet or couple bombarde and biniou and some accordion (diatonic) playing. Two tracks are devoted to the duet with bombarde and biniou with some marches from Redon and Josselin while two more tracks have dances played on the box.To be precise, these instrumental tracks were recorded much later but with the same musicians for technical reasons.
A very nice and interesting work under the direction of Juhász Zoltán himself a talented furulya player and piper who played with Muzsikás among others.
As I don't have neither cover nor booklet here are the credits found on Discogs :
| Bálványosváralja (Unguras) | |||||
| A1 | Topán György | A Juhok Nótája | |||
| A2 | Réti Imre | Keserű Víz, Nem Hittem, Hogy Édes Légy | |||
| A3 | Topán György | Máma Péntek, Holnap Szombat | |||
| A4 | Topán György | Kecskés | |||
| A5 | Réti Imre, Topán György | Jaj, De Sokat Áztam, Fáztam, Fáradtam | |||
| Magyarbece (Beta) | |||||
| A6 | Szántó Ferenc | Keserves | |||
| A7 | Szántó Ferenc | Keserves | |||
| A8 | Szántó Ferenc | Pontozó | |||
| A9 | Szántó Ferenc | Keserves És Lassú | |||
| Magyarszovát (Suatu) | |||||
| A10 | Csete Árpád | Két Lassú | |||
| A11 | Csete Árpád | Összerázás | |||
| Szék (Sic) | |||||
| A12 | Székely József | Lassú | |||
| A13 | Székely József | Csárdás És Magyar | |||
| Klézse (Cleja) | |||||
| B1 | Farkas Demeter | Tilinka-Szózat | |||
| B2 | László András | Öreg (Lapos) Magyaros | |||
| B3 | László András | Magyaros | |||
| B4 | László András | Édes Gergelem Éneke | |||
| B5 | László István | Édes Gergelem Tánca | |||
| B6 | Legedi László István | Románca | |||
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| B7 | András József | Két Keserves | |||
| B8 | András József | Kétlépésű Csárdás | |||
| B9 | András József | Egylépésű Csárdás | |||
| B10 | András József | Marosszéki | |||
| Gyimesbükk (Ghimes Faget), Hidegség (Valea Rece) | |||||
| B11 | Tímár Viktor | Kettős És Sirüleje | |||
| B12 | Karácsony Gergely, Karácsony Lázár | Csárdás | |||
| B13 | Tímár Viktor | A Bábáé | |||
| B14 | Karácsony Lázár | Keserves | |||
| B15 | Tímár Viktor | Lassú És Sebes Magyaros |
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PORINGÉ FOLKLORO ANSAMBLIS
Melodiya, 1989, S30 28705 004
VIRACOCHA
LEGENDARY MUSIC OF THE ANDES
Lyrichord, 1974, LLST 7264
This is one of the albums Lyrichord didn't think necessary to include to its download site. This recording was made in the field by J.F. Sheppard in 1972 and 1973 in Peru. The presentation text gives some information about the history of the Incas but very little about the music itself.
It seems that some of the tracks were recorded during cultural events at Cuzco. There are bands of musicians with kena, guitare, violin, mandolin and harp as well as harp solo and an small pipe organ built by a Quechua farmer and tuned to the oldest organ in South America in Cuzco Cathedral.
Track A7 is a bit of a surprise with a Hopi hunting song; nothing is said about the presence of some Northern Indian singers but links between Andean and Native American people were part of a will to highlight the rich culture of the American aborigenes from the Bering Strait to the Tierra del Fuego. A big feast and show called Inti Raymi is held every year in June to revive the Inca empire with historical reconstruction in the ancient capital of the empire. I suppose that some of the music was recorded there by Sheppard.
ГΕOPГИ
ЧИЛИHГИPOB И CTEФAH
ЗAXMAHOB гaйдa
GEORGI CHILINGIROV and STEFAN ZAHMANOV bagpipe
Balkanton, 1978, VNA 10162
LOS INCAS 71
Festival, 1971, FLDX 517
One of the oldest latino-american bands in Europe, Los Incas was created by Jorge Milchberg aka "El Inca" in 1956 along with fellow Argentinians Ricardo Galeazzi and Carlos Benn-Pott.
They were quite prolific in the sixties and seventies when ''latino'' genre was fashionable in France in particular.
Their approach to South-American music was both locally rooted and reworked. They used some field recordings published by Folkways for example in the forties and fifties but with some arragements, nice ones most of the time. They composed a lot as well. Here each track is attributed to El Inca (except for one to Benn-Pott) but I believe he put his signature as an arranger mostly. Either compositions or traditional all the tunes are quite nice.
SONGS OF THE WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE
Canyon Records, 1977, C-6165
This is an album recorded in the field by Raymond Boley at Cibecue, Arizona in 1976. There is a brief introduction about the White Apache reservation and the songs themselves.
It's quite different from what we can hear among the Plains Indians for example. All the songs are led by a lead singer, male or female, and sung then by the group. A small percussion and bells are used to support the songs. Here there are several types of songs like ''horse songs'' or ''crown dance songs''. Horse songs seem to be important enough because there are seven of them out of fifteen tracks. The presentation text says that horses are ''spiritually blessed to ward off evil spirits''.
Canyon Records (https://canyonrecords.com) are still in activity with an impressive catalogue but some of their LPs have not been reissued.
FIELD RECORDINGS MADE IN HUNGARY AND
ROMANIA BY FERENC SEBŐ
cassette
Ferenc Sebő was born in 1947 and is one of the musicians who initiated the Hungarian revival known as Táncház
Mozgalom.
He started as a singer and guitar player during the sixties setting Hungarian poems to music as well as arranging folk songs. He met Béla Halmos and both got closier to traditional music and dancing.
Soon Ferenc travelled in Hungary and Romania (especially Transylvania) recording traditional musicians in the field following a long lineage of musicians and scholars like Bártok, Vikár, Timár etc...
A lot of these recordings managed to be published commercially throughout the eighties onward. But not all were operated and served first as working material.
This is a copy of a tape made by one of the members of the band Dűvő while I was in Hungary in 1984.
The quality is sometimes not very good but it was for me a good way to get to know this Hungarian music a bit better at that time.
There are recordings made in Moldavia (csango fiddle music) and Transylvania (villages of Feketelek and Szék). Most of the musicians are not known to me except István Ádám whose name was mentionned on the tape. Although some musicians introduced themselves (name, age and instrument) it's difficult to understand them.
Lovers of Hungarian music will recognize most of the tunes because they were recorded by revivalist groups and artists or are parts of commercial field recordings. But maybe there are tunes not so known nevertheless.
track 01 : brass band and singing (location unknown)
track 02 : brass band
tracl 03 : solo csango fiddle (Gyimes)
track 04 : two fiddles ('')
track 05 : fiddle and gardon ('')
track 06 : idem
track 07 : idem
track 08 : female singer with two flutes ('')
track 09 : fiddle and gardon ('')
track 10 : idem
track 11 : two fiddles, kontra, double bass (Mezőség, Feketelek/Lacu)
track 12 : cigany tánc ('')
track 13 : sürü csárdás ('')
track 14 : ritka magyar ('')
track 15 : names of the musicians
track 16 : sürü tempo (István Ádám, fiddle)
track 17 : two fiddles (including Ádám), kontra, double bass
track 18 : idem
track 19 : idem
track 20 : idem
track 21 : names of the musicians
track 22 to track 32 : same band maybe as tracks 17 and subsequent
APRES LA MAREE NOIRE
VERS UNE NOUVELLE MUSIQUE BRETONNE
AFTER THE OIL SLICK
TOWARDS A NEW BRETON MUSIC
Le Chant du Monde, 1979, LDX 74703
On the 16th of March 1978 the tanker Amoco Cadiz was adrift due to rudder failure. In spite of many rescue attempts, the tanker drifting towards the coast of Potsall finally opened its hull on the rocks. 300 km of coastline were polluted in the end; It took 6 months to relatively clean the area while the marine wildlife needed over 7 years to recover from the biggest pollution known in Brittany at the time. This catastrophy had also a political aspect : the mayors of the 98 concerned municipalities have joined forces to sue the oil company Standard Oil of Indiana and make them pay for the pollution. In 1992 the company was ordered to pay 225 million francs (around 34 million euros).
During the seventies many things happened in the Breton music revival generated by Alan Stivel among others. There was a desire to create others ways of expression like mixing traditional and jazz music.
Francois Tusques was born in Paris in 1938 and thanks to his parents he discovers jazz through concerts of S. Bechet, C. Luter or R. Urtreger. His career as a jazz piano player starts in the early sixties in Nantes and Paris. After May 1968 he's more and more politically committed and plays with singer Colette Magny. At he beginning of the seventies he thinks that French jazz is at a dead end and he creates the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra which brings together musicians from all backgrounds to present a less elitist style of jazz. This album is a good example of this approach to popular music. All the music is Tusques' works.
Among the musicians we find three traditional Breton bombard and biniou players, one Catalan singer and jazzmen like the Occitan Michel Marre or Jo Maka born in Guinea (1929-1981).
There is only one song ''Caball'' (the Horse) sung in Catalan by Carlos (Carles) Andreu which tells about the situation in Brittany after the oil slick when the local peasants had to collect fuel on the beaches for months. There is one line that sums up what the song is about : ''la llei del profit es la llei del progrès'' meaning ''the law of profit is the law of progress''. Andreu uses a vocal technique from the ''cuantre'' typical of Ibizza.
Most of the tunes are based on Breton ''gavotte des montagnes'' danced in Inner Brittany.
Note that tracks A2 and A3 form a single track (track A3 starts at 9'23")
Text in French.
MYRDHIN, HARPE CELTIQUE
Productions Velia, 1974, 2230010
Myrdhin's real name is Rémi Chauvet born in Brittany in 1950.He has about fifteen albums under his name or associated with other musicians like Pol Huellou or Mariannig Larc'hanteg.
This is his first album during the seventies after Stivell had open a new path for Breton music. Myrdhin plays the harp and sings in French (his own compositions) and Breton (traditional songs) but he wanted to create another approach to the Celtic culture and mythology. He mixes here bits of Irish legends with Breton stuff as well as his own tunes with Irish traditional reels or jigs.
Among the musicians he invited we can notice Patrick and Dominique Molard and Patrick Sicard who were beginning to be very big names in Brittany and beyond.
This album is quite different from what was produced at the time and illustrates well the need for something new and different among young Breton artists.
MUSIQUE NON ECRITE - FOLK -
NON WRITTEN MUSIC
Expression Spontanée, 1976, ES 35
The man behind this album is Gérard Dôle who was one of the pioners of the French folk revival. He was one of the first French musicians to go to Louisiana and meet some of the big names of Cajun music such as the Balfa Brothers. Dôle has been playing Cajun music on the melodeon for decades. At the time of the release of this album he had already produced three Cajun albums in France.
This album is a kind of manifesto; the title ''musique non écrite'' was an expression to name something that was not classical music. He says on the back cover that these three words had the power to get on professors' nerves in conservatories who coudln't understand how one could play without reading a score of music. This is still now the position of some of them. By calling popular music ''non written music'' was to bring French trad and other musical expressions onto the side of ethnic musics from Africa and elsewhere and out of the normal creation process through classical teaching.
For Dôle the main point in the revival was to tell people to pick up whatever instrument and try and do something with it the way they want.
Here we have some of the other pioneers of the French revival like Michel Hindenoch, Patrick Lemercier or Michel Legoubé. The majority of the tracks was recorded by Dôle in his flat in the center of Paris between 1975 and 1976. Two tracks were recorded live including Dewey and Rodney Balfa; one was recorded in Louisiana and another one in the street with a blind accordion player. Tunes and songs from Vendée, Lyonnais, Poitou or Morvan are part of the album along with some Cajun repertoire by French revivalists and Cajun singers.
The label Expression Spontanée (literally spontaneous expression) was a left-wing friendly label founded by Jean Bériac in 1968
MUSIQUE AFRICAINE DE BURUNDI LES TROUBADOURS DES HAUTS-PLATEAUX enregistrés par Roger Barbaglia -------- AFRICAN MUSIC FROM BURUNDI THE TR...
