Mnong Gar du Vietnam

 

MUSIQUE MNONG GAR DU VIETNAM
enregistrements de Georges Condominas 

COLLECTION MUSEE DE L'HOMME

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MNONG GAR MUSIC FROM VIETNAM
recordings Georges Condominas

COLLECTION ''MUSEUM OF MAN''

Disques Ocora, ORTF, 1972, OCR 80

This is the first volume of a series called ''Anthology of Proto-Indochinese Music''. As far as I know there was no follow up.
Georges Condominas was a French ethnologist specialized in South-east Asia. He was born in Haiphong (Vietnam) in 1921 and died in Paris in 2011. He started his field surveys in 1948 at Sar Luk among the Mnong Gar which he studied over a long period. From this experience he published a book (among others) in 1957 translated to English in 1977 : ''we ate the forest of the spirit-stone Gôo''. He was totally committed  to anti-colonialism, to promoting development that respects traditional cultures and he tried to warn the French public of  the Mnong Gar ethnocide. Unfortunately he was not really understood at that time. 

He wrote the texts introducing the music he recorded with enough detail to enjoy what we hear. The gong (that they don't make but buy from other people) is one the main instruments played in bands sometimes with the support of a drum. The mouth organ is in use too.There are songs for funerals, love songs or kind of mythological songs.
Some tracks were recorded in Cambodia among another population close to the Mnong Gar.
Texts in English (and French).

 

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Viet-Nam

             

         MUSIQUE DU VIET-NAM                                    MUSIQUE PROTO INDOCHINOISE

     interprétée par TRAN VAB KHE                           recueillie chez les Moïs des Hauts Plateaux
    MAI THU et Mme MONG TRUNG                                mission FRANTZ LAFOREST 

      Grand Prix du Disque/Académie du                                             BAM, LD 326
                     Disque Français

                       BAM, LD 365

These two 7'' vinyles were published by the French label ''la Boîte à Musique'' established in 1934 by Jacques Lévi Alvarès essentially to issue Jazz and Classical music. But there were also documents like these in their catalogue.
The first one ''Music from Vietnam'' is the work of Trân Van Khê (1921-2015) who was like Mister Vietnamese music in France where he settled in 1949. A musician and singer, a teacher and a writer he was a tireless propagator of his culture. He made several albums since the eighties. He plays here the dan-tranh, dan-co and dan-kim. Most of the tunes presented here were parts of his repertoire until the end.
I don't know the two other artists. 

The second record is totally different and features field-recordings made in 1955 by Frantz Laforest, Louise Berthe and a small crew. Entitled ''Proto-Indochinese music'' it is a beautiful example of good field-recordings although all tracks are short enough. The Moïs are  one of the first inhabitants in Central Vietnam near the Annamitic Cordillera. Moï is in fact a generic name which is rather pejorative for different people like the Jaraï , Banhar, Sedang etc... These people have different instruments like ''xylophone'', jew's harp and the amazing gong bands. The tracks are well introduced but in French only. 

I suppose that these ''tribes'' were living a relatively peaceful life at the time of the recordings. Their environment was then certainly affected by the war and now by modern development in Vietnam in particular with the ongoing deforestation which reduces their living possibilities.

 

     

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These two discs were reissued together by BAM under the title ''Musics of Vietnam''.

Chants et danses des montagnards du Viet-Nam

 

CHANTS ET DANSES DES MONTAGNARDS DU VIET-NAM

RICHESSE DU FOLKLORE N°14

SONGS AND DANCES OF THE VIETNAMESE MOUTAIN PEOPLE 

A WEALTH OF FOLKLORE N°14

Riviéra, 1967, 421.075 P 

This very short but exciting album was made by Maurice Bitter a French ''globe-trotter'' who was active in the sixties and the seventies. At that time France had several men (as it was the case then) who used to travel to very remote lands in order to record local music unheard by French ordinary music lovers. There was a name for them, ''chasseurs de sons'' or ''sound-hunters'' and sometimes they had the opportunity to present their findings on national French radio programmes. Bitter had a programme called ''beyond the seas" that I listened to, late in the evening when I was a kid in the early seventies. He was also a journalist, a writer and a televison producer. He died in 1997.

Here Bitter was very fortunate to have been able to make that trip over to the high plateaux of central Viet-Nam. But he precises that all side B was recorded in difficult conditions although he doesn't specify them. Civil war between North and South Viet-Nam had already begun in 1959 and from 1965 the USA sent massive numbers of GIs and bombed North Viet-Nam heavily. Caught bewteen were the mountain people made up of numerous ethnic groups. Bitter gives no information about their situation when he was there. It was peaceful enough according to the quality of the singing and the playing by these people. In fact we don't know when these recordings were made.
The technical quality is not great though but Riviéra had the right reaction to publish these recordings for a large audience. All the tracks are great in spite of noise interference.
Note that tracks BIII and BIV are together.
Short text of introduction in English about the disc and the tracks.

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Fest Noz Nevez

 

FEST.NOZ NEVEZ  INEDITS

NEW FEST.NOZ    UNPUBLISHED

 

Arfolk, 1974, SB 320, SB 321 

 

Arfolk is one the oldest Breton labels founded in Lorient in 1967 by Jo Gragnic. Following its primary goal the promotion of Breton music  the label recorded different  artists and genre : the traditional kan ha diskan and binioù & bombard music as well as bagadoù, the Breton pipe-bands. When the revival started in Brittany launched by Stivell among others Arfolk also  recorded plenty of folk bands.
Here we have a double album with traditional or so singers and musicians as well as folk groups. There are no information about the songs and tunes or the people. If we believe the label all these tracks are unpublished and were made especially for this album.
The sentence on the cover means ''Breton music is''.
So to help you to follow and enjoy the music I list below what types of dances are presented  here.

disc 1 :
A1 the Pennec brothers play a three-part set from the Fisel country made of fisel-bal-fisel
A2 the Pennec brothers play a particular gavotte from the Pourlet country
A3 Yann Vikel Bourdieg sings a laridé in Breton from the Vannes country with the band           called an Trouzerion Goh (see my earlier post)
A4 Ar Penseerien (the shipwreckers in Breton) play one gavotte from Inner Brittany

B1/B2/B3  the Coulouarn sisters sing  a set (plin-bal-plin) from the Fanch country

B4 the Kergosien brothers play two an dro (the circle). The first an dro  is a peculier one;
      the tune sounds identical to ''estolisan to sperveri'' a wedding song from the Greek island       of Rhodes. I knew the Greek song before getting this album and it stroke me                          immediately. Is it possible that a Breton tune from the Vannes country be more than          similar to a Greek tune without any contacts ? or did these ''sonneurs'' adopted this                wedding song that can be danced to like an dro ? The Greek song is performed by a               traditional female singer and choir with a lyra and a laouto players who were members          of a folk ensemble set up by Simon Karas the great musicologist on the album named in       French ''Voyage en Grèce-Simon Karas'' published by Le Chant du Monde in the 1970s.       I added this track to this album.
B5 the Kergosien brothers play a laridé

 

disc 2 :
A1 Sonerien Du (the Black Pipers/Musicians in Breton) play a set of gavotten-tamm kreiz-         gavotten (ar menez)
A2/A3/A4 the Coulouarn sisters sing a gavotten-tamm kreiz-gavotten
A5 the Pennec brothers play perhaps a set of ''ronds'' from Loudéac with a bal between
B1 the Kergosien brothers play an an dro
B2 the Coulouarn sisters sing a set of gavotten ar menez with a tamm kreiz (litteraly the bit       in the middle) between
B3 the folk band Kouerien Sant Yann play two laridé (round dance from the Vannetais                 country)

Globally this compilation is not the best one but not the worst either. Although Sonerien Du have been one of the big folk bands for decades I'm not that gone on them. To me the best part is the track by Kouerien Sant Yann (the Peasants from Saint John) with an interesting approach to music played by solid musicians. They had three albums out on the Arfolk label. Unlike Sonerien Du the band disbanded in the eighties. Their albums were reissued on different CDs. Alain Pennec was also a member of Kouerien.

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