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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Sean Maguire

 SIXTY YEARS OF SEAN MAGUIRE

IRISH FIDDLE MUSIC

((His original 78 Recordings)

Celtic Music, 1987, CMC 043

S. Maguire (1927-2005) was one of the most outstanding fiddlers of his time. Born in Belfast to a musical family he started the fiddle at the age of 12. Then he joined the Youth Belfast orchestra but turned down an offer to join the Belfast Symphony Orchestra because he felt more attracted to traditional music in the end. At the age of 22 he won the All Ireland Oireachtas Fiddle Championship and his musical career began only to end in 2005. His style is very personal (as it should be) with a mixing of traditional and classical features. He was close at times to the scottish classic fiddle style of Scott Skinner among others. He was extraordinary in the playing of hornpipes like Mathematician/ Golden Eagle on track A4 or of big reels like the Mason's Apron on track B2.
This tape is a compilation of recordings made in the 50's and 60's.

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LAUNEDDAS

 

SARDAIGNE LAUNEDDAS

Luigi Lai, Aurelio Porcu

SARDINIA LAUNEDDAS

Ocora Radio France, 1984, 558611

Sardinia is well known for its rich vocal tradition and for the launeddas. These instruments are very old going back at least  to the 7th century B.C. and have now two chanters and one drone played by one player with circular breathing. They probably came from eastern Mediterranean perhaps with some Phoenician settlers. There are about twelve different types of launeddas with different pitches and scales. They are used for religious processions (as shown on the cover) but above all for dance music as it is the case here.
Bernard Lortat-Jacob has been working on Sardinia for years (he's a member of a religious brotherhood there) and knows perfectly Sardinian music be it vocal or instrumental. This album is very impressive thanks to L.Lai and A. Porcu, two masters of the launeddas. As usual the information given is useful although not too technical. The launeddas are really something to play and Lortat-Jacob says that at that time very few players were considered as real masters in dance music.
These triple clarinets are found in Sardinia only in Europe but they were perhaps played in Ireland during the 9h-10th century as the famous celtic Cross of  Scriptures at Clonmacnois, Co. Offaly shows. 

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AENGUS

 

AENGUS

Tara, 1978, Tara 2001

Aengus was an Irish trio with brothers Tony and Jackie Small and Gary O'Briain. This was their first and only album. Tony and Jackie are from Galway and Gary was from Dublin but settled in Co. Clare. Tony died in 2013. They are joined by super fiddler Maurice Lennon who had won an All-Ireland title in 1977.
Tony was the singer and he sings 4 songs including the Card Game with double entendre about a sexual encounter. The tunes are played by Jackie on uilleann pipes, fiddle and mandolin, Gary on mandocello (and fiddle on some songs). Maurice doesn't play on the songs; track B3 is the reel with which he won the fiddle competition at the age of 17.
The trio seems to have been influenced by Planxty but shortlived. Aengus was part of the Irish revival nevertheless.
M. Lennon joined the famous band Stockton's Wing and is presently living in Toulouse (France). J. Small is currently on the staff of the Irish Traditional Music Archive (www.itma.ie); he was also a producer for the RTE and published CDs about musicians from the past.

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H-BLOCK

 

H-BLOCK/Various artists

no date, HB LP001

H-Block was the other name given to the ''Her Majesty's Prison Maze'' (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre) by prisonners and the Catholic population in Northern Ireland. There many militants and fighters for a unified Ireland spent years in awful conditions. One of the most famous of these IRA members or sympathizers was Bobby Sands who died after a long hunger strike in 1981. But the resistance inside that prison had started 5 years earlier when prisoners refused to wear the prison garment because they considered themselves as political prisoners and not as criminals. So they has only blankets to put on them; one of the songs talks about it. Then there was a hygiene strike among the female and male prisoners etc... until the hunger strike.
Although the official position of the Republic of Ireland was not to interfere in British internal affairs a good part of the Irish people in the south gave help with money during the hunger strike. Some Irish artists felt concerned by the situation in the H-Block and Donal Lunny and Christie Moore produced this tape/album to give all royalties to the Relative Action Committee in order to help the prisoners' families.
Two poems written by prisoners and smuggled out of the jail are read with another poem by Brian Ua Baoill.  C. Moore composed a song and D. Lunny plays bouzouki with Matt Molloy and the duet Tony Linnane and Noel Hill. The slow air on the uilleann pipes is played by Dan O'Dowd. Matt Molloy's musical contribution is quite strong and moving.

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Luzmila Carpio

 

LUZMILA CARPIO

''a people that doesn't sing is a dead people''

Ocora Radio France, 1988, 558 700

Some of the LPs published by Ocora have not been reissued surprisingly. This album by L. Carpio is one of them. She's a singer and charango player from the Quechua people in Bolivia. She was born in 1954 near Potosi and started her career in 1971 at a radio station in Oruro. Like numerous other artists in Bolivia and Peru she considers herself as a fighter for Indian and women's rights. She was ambassador in France in 2006 sent by Evo Morales.
What strikes us is the way she's able to sing very high : this is part of  Andean esthetics in music; women sing that way on the altiplano. She is joined by 2 more female singers and 2 singers and musicians. The kena and the charango are mostly used. The songs are either traditional or composed by Carpio always in Quechua. This is not 'the 'South American'' music we used to know from the 70's with Los Incas and Los Calchakis for example but the expression of a whole people with deep roots in spite of 5 centuries of white-metis domination.

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KOMA DILAN

 

KOMA DILAN/HALAY

KURDISH FOLK MUSIC  

Umut Müzik, no date

Another tape of Kurdish music from Turkey. Here we have a band (koma) very well known which has released a good deal of tapes and CDs. The electric saz player is Şirin Esmer and the zurna player is Aziz Kurtar. There are plenty of groups of this kind in Turkey with musicians and dancers appearing on videos. Koma Dilan has backed some famous singers as well. Once again several songs are put together so I made tracks whenever it was possible. Thus on side A the first track has songs from 1 to 4, track 2 songs from 5 to 9. Side B track 3 has songs 1 and 2, track 2 songs from 3 to 9. This is commercial music in a way but still nice to listen to if you like Kurdish music in its diversity

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