''l'Afghanistan"

 

''L'AFGHANISTAN"

MUSIQUE DE LA ZONE INTERDITE DU NOURISTAN 

 MUSIC FROM THE NOURISTAN FORBIDDEN ZONE

Barclay, 1968, 920 086

Afghanistan as Nepal or India drew a multitude of travellers and adventurers in search of a powerful experience. This was possible in the sixties and seventies before the Russian invasion. And a number of them made recordings in the field throughout the country for Afghanistan was so rich in traditional and popular music that any kind of recordings could do for a good album. Yves Sommavilla was one of them and is presented as a ''keen traveller'' along with François Denis who spent time together in Afghanistan in 1968.
Now, what is really interesting in this album is the music and songs they managed to record in what is called now Nuristan formerly known as Kafiristan the land of the heathens in the north-east. This region was islamised at the end of the nineteenth century only by the emir Abdur Rahman Khan who conquered the area and changed its name.  It was probably difficult to go there even in the sixties and this looks like a ''tour de force'' but they don't explain why Nuristan was forbidden. Although the inhabitants are officially Muslims they nevertheless (at that time anyway) managed to keep some of their ancient beliefs.
There are six tracks : three about Nuristan and three from different parts of the country (Kandahar, Kabul, Chaga-Saray). The most amazing tracks are instrumental music on the flute ''tula'' backed by framed drums. The tula player is excellent and the sound recording is good. Sommevilla says that they recorded this music at night at the Waigel pass (4800 m above sea level). It was then outside  at night in a remote place but the festivities were stopped by the local imam. The Nuristani like the related Kalash had still the custom of singing songs to ancestors when one month after a death the body was replaced by a wooden effigy (track A3).
The others tracks are less exotic with surnay and dohol music, hashish-smoking house music with a singer, a harmonium, two tabla and dambura. The last track was recorded in a hotel in Kabul where  ghijak and zerbaghali players performed for tourists.
Text in French. 

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Tunisie

  

TUNISIE  23 

Musique du Monde, ?, 21-500-42-2

This album  looks like it was a kind of catalogue or special product for the French public or tourists. All the photos being from the Tunisian National Tourist Office I believe the music was also recorded for this Office. All the musicians are anonymous. The French text speaks about the fact that tourists are usually cut  off from the real culture of Tunisia since they all spend their holiday time in special resorts with faked or half-faked displays of music and dance specially made for them so that in the end the tourist goes back to France with a distorted picture of Tunisia and its culture.
So the music provided here is purely instrumental which is a bit strange when we know that singing is quite dominant. But as the text says the goal of this album is not to give details that only ethnomusicologists would enjoy. There is a presentation of the instruments recored here : gasba, zokra, kamun, mezoued, ney and darbuka. Some names of the instruments are badly spelled like ''sitar'' for ''cithare'' or ''nail'' for ney !

This disc bears number 23 in that collection  but  this is the only I have so I don't know about the other references in that collection.
It was distributed by ''Compagnie Française BASF''.
But thanks to Leonidas here is the complete list of all the albums issued in this collection :

https://www.discogs.com/label/263651-Collection-Musique-Du-Monde?page=1

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Rabah Driassa

 

DRIASSA A L'OLYMPIA

في الأولمبيا 

 Les Artistes Arabes Associés, 1975, 72600

 R. Driassa (1934-2021) was a very famous singer and composer in Algeria. He was also a painter. He sang between 1953 and 1990. In 1953 he had the possibility to sing one of his own songs for a radio broadcast in Algiers. Then he began his career at the time of Algeria's independence. He sang diffenrent types of songs from patriotic ones to Bedouin and Sahraoui. Some of his compositions were national hits like ''El Goumri''.
Here he was in Paris at the Olympia a place which saw plenty of  French stars but also foreigners like Driassa who sang for the important Algerian community in the Paris area at a time where some of the Algerian working for Renault or other big industrial plants lived in shanty towns in the suburbs of Paris. Obviously the public was exclusively Arabic speaking only since all Driassa's talking was in Arabic. It was the first time that immigrant people had the opportunity to listen to one of them in that venue.
All the songs were new ones all composed by him except for one. He was backed by a typical orchestra with five violins, a luth, a ney flute and the rhythmic section. But the sound was also enhanced by the use of a quarter-tone  accordion; there is also a bouzouk, a double bass and a small choir.
Frequently singers like to link two songs together; here Driassa links songs on tracks Al and A2, A3 and A4, B1 and B2.

Text in French.

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Juan Vicente Torrealba

 

CONCIERTO EN LA LLANURA (Música Tipica Venezolana)

LOS TORREALBEROS - Al Arpa : Juan Vicente Torrealba

VOL. 1

CONCERT IN THE PLAIN (Tipical Venezuelan Music)

On Harp : Juan Vicente Torrealba

Discos Banco Largo,  ?, QBL - 1204

J.V. Torrealba (full name + Perez) (1917-2019) was considered as the father or one of them of the classical Venezuelan harp music. This volume is the first of a series of three on this label. My father brought it back from Caracas in the early seventies.
The formation is the traditional one with harp, cuatro and maracas; here a double bass is added to double the basses of the harp. Torrealba's playing is quite polished and a bit withheld compared to traditional players in the plains where the strings of the harp are really beaten in a wilder style. But his music is nice nevertheless with a lot of his compositions (eights tracks out of eleven).
Side A has a majority of pasajes with two joropos while side B has what is called caprichos all composed by him.
Eight tracks are part of a compilation published by Gilmar in 1990 but three of the present  tracks were not reissued : B2, B4 and B5. So I hope  fans of Venezuelan harp music will be happy with this post. 

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Chants à danser de Haute-Bretagne

 

BOURDIN MARCHAND DAUTEL

CHANTS A DANSER DE HAUTE-BRETAGNE

DANCE SONGS FROM UPPER BRITTANY

Dastum, ?, ? 

 These three singers are well known in Brittany especially Erik Marchand who was part of the famous band Gwerz. Gilbert Bourdin passed away in 2022 at the age of 75. He was also a poet and writer but he was a psychologist by trade. Christian Dautel and G. Bourdin have known each other for a long time since they were neighbours in Rennes for their studies. Bourdin was from the area of Pluherlin (near Rochefort-en-Terre) department of Morbihan which is divided between a Breton speaking part in the west and a French speaking part in the east. Along the French language a dialect called Gallo is also spoken; a romance dialect, it is like Breton  less and less used daily.
The repertoire is from Pluherlin with four different types of dances : the ''ridée'' (6 or 8 beats), the ''rond'' (the circle) which is the Gallo equivalent of the Breton ''an dro'' musically but danced a bit differently, the ''pilé-menu'' (to mash finely) a very simple dance that was used to flatten the ground made of earth in a new house/farm and the ''hanter-dro'' (half an dro); all these dances were danced in a circle traditionnally.
These singers have the right kind of voice powerful enough to lead the dancers for hours.
There is no date on the cover but I found 1982 somewhere on the net while somebody tells me it could be 1986.
Note that they figure on a LP ''Chants à répondre de Haute-Bretagne'' with a different programme. 

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