Saturday, October 30, 2021

17 Macedonian folk dances

 

17 MACEDONIAN FOLK DANCES

EXCITING RHYTHM OF MACEDONIA PLAYED ON TRADITIONAL INSTRUMENTS 

BY THE "MACEDONIAN EARLY MUSIC BAND" OF THE  ŽIVKO FIRFOV 

FOLKDANCE GROUP

Goatbag Records, 1979, GB 1978

As the cover shows the folk dances on this LP are played on kaval, gajda, tambura and tapan. It was recorded in England (for Goatbag Records unknown label to me) by Chris Gunstone who is an ex-member of Blowzabella and is perhaps one of the tambura players. The information about these recordings are a bit confused. Are mentionned (in small print) Mile Kolarov on kaval, Lazo Nikolovski on gajda and Linzo and Kris on tambura; no name for the tapan player. It was produced by C. Gunstone and the band was  recorded with an Uher 4400 during a session in November 1978 before the departure of some members. It is thus a kind of ''field recording'' as it is called on the back cover.
The repertoire is quite interesting and very traditional especially the gajda solo on track B3 (Kukunesh). There is a booklet with the steps of the dances, musical scores and general information about Macedonia but it's not included here. 



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Thursday, October 28, 2021

Azeri Mugams

 

AZERI MUGAMS

Азербайджанские Мугамы

Melodiya, 1980, S 30-17223-24

Here we can listen to Agahan Abdullaev  accompanied by an ensemble under the direction of Bahram Mansurov and Aliguli Ahmedov with Firhuddin Aleskerov on tar, Elman Badalov on kemanche and Vardan Avetisov on daf. Abdullaev sings the mugam rast while Ahmedov sings mahur-hindi.
Another good production by Melodiya for mugam lovers.

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Sunday, October 24, 2021

TÜRKÜLER SEVDAMIZ 3

 

TÜRKÜLER SEVDAMIZ 3

OUR LOVE OF FOLK SONGS 3

TOLGA SAĞ  YILMAZ ÇELIK  MUHARREM TEMİZ  ERDAL ERZİNCAN

 Iber Müzik Yapım

These four singers and bağlama players are members of the Alevi community in Turkey. Of the four of them Erdal Erzincan is maybe the most known in France.Their association started in 1997 and this third tape is the last one. Each singer has his songs and they alternate with group singing and the result is very impressive. The notes are in Turkish only with the lyrics.  

I suppose you can find some information about Turkish-Kurdish Alevi people in English on the internet. I would recall nevertheless that these people are targeted by religious and civil authorities and are sometimes murdered as in the criminal fire of a hotel in Sivas in 1993 where 37 persons died when they gathered for the Pir Sultan Abdal festival. 

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