The Connemara accordion 1

 TUILLEADH DEABHAIL AG BOISCÍN

THE CONNEMARA ACCORDION VOL.1

Clό Iar-Chonnachta Teo, 1990, GTD 1040

This local Irish label based in Connemara has a wonderful catalogue but a lot of the tapes they produced haven't been reissued as CDs yet. Here we have a good example of the vitality of traditional music in that part of Ireland with ten accordion players. Two of them are very well known : P.J. Hernon and Johnny Óg Ó Conghaile (Connolly) who recorded several solo albums. The others are local stars displaying equal energy and talent. Inside what we can call a regional style these ten players are in fact different enough from one another which reminds us of the incredible wealth of the Irish musical tradition generally speaking.
I would translate the title in Irish as ''more devils for the box'' but maybe you can find something better.
Each musician is briefly introduced but in Irish only.

I'm looking for the second volume called ''Buail Cois Air''.

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Brij Narayan

 

LE SARODE DE BRIJ NARAYAN

Prestige de la musique extraeuropéenne l'Inde vol. 3 

THE SAROD OF BRIJ NARAYAN 

Magic of  extraeuropean music India vol. 3

Disques Espérance, 1976, ESP 155 537

From this excellent series this is probably the first album recorded by B. Narayan in France under the aegis of the association ''the Friends of Asia''.
Born in 1952, Brij started to study Hindustani music with his father Ram and his uncle the tabla player Chatur Lal. Here is accompanied by Suresh Talwalkar who was first Ram Narayan's tabla player.
Side A presents the raag Shuddh Todi usually played at dawn while side B has the night raag Kaushi-Kanara. Kanara is a region in India and Kaushi would be a variant of raag Kanada with some characteristics of Malkauns.
Text in French only.

 

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Le Génie de la Flûte de Pan

 

GHEORGHE ZAMFIR/LE GENIE DE LA FLUTE DE PAN

THE GENIUS OF THE PANPIPES

Philips, 1973, 6325 047 

Recorded in Paris this is another good album from the first period of Zamfir's French career. Here again he chose five soloists to constitute a taraf closer to the traditional village bands. The dynamics of Romanian music are better expressed with such a format . Side A is one set about traditional tunes from Southern Romania here Muntenia. Side B is divided between the Maramureş (two tracks) and the Banat (four tracks grouped in three).
The cymbalum player is not Toni Iordache but Pantelimon Stîngă. Marin Chisăr the fantastic fluier player was there too but had only one hora. He died in 1994. The other big name was the fiddle player Efta Botocă from Banat who passed away in 1991.
My album was dedicated to my sister and I by the genius himself.

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ΤΣΙΦΤΕΤΕΛΙΑ ME ZOΥΡΝΑΔΕΣ

 

ΤΣΙΦΤΕΤΕΛΙΑ ME ZOΥΡΝΑΔΕΣ

παίζει ό MHTΣOΣ XINTZIOΣ kαί τό σuγκρότημά τou

TSIFTETELIS WITH ZURNAS

Mitsos Hintzios plays and his band

Doraphone, 1977, DOR 101

 The band in question is the ordinary duet of zurnas with a drum we can meet all over the north of Greece and in neighboring countries. But the approach of music can differ from one band to another according to the region I think. While the second zurna usually plays the drone to sustain the first zurna here it plays the full melody along with Hintzios most of the time. When he improvises on the theme the second zurna plays a kind of rif. The daouli (drum) plays all the time. The repertoire comes mostly from Macedonia and Thrace. Nevertheless they have two Pontic dances because of the big presence of Pontic Greek offsprings in Northern Greece since 1923. If you like this kind of music whether it's Greek, Turkish or Macedonian you'll enjoy this album too.
Thanks to Leonidas (see comment) more about this master : https://archive.ert.gr/6962/ (in Greek)

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ROZAJÁNSKA DÜLYNA

 

ROZAJÁNSKA DÜLYNA / VAL RESIA 

Ty Biski zwönavy-Wujže-Pravyce-Te Rozajanske

the bells of San Giorgio-songs-fables-dances

Folklore Resia, 1975 (?), 3 MTCF.R'75

The valley of the river Resia lies in Eastern Italy near the border with Slovenia; it is part of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. There lives a population of Slovenian origin speaking a local dialect considered by linguists as a transition between Carinthian and littoral dialects in Slovenia. Due to a very long isolation this dialect evolved apart from the other dialects into a unic type of language among all the South-Slavic linguistic group. This had brought a Polish linguist to visit several times this area : Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929). He wrote a book ''Resia ed i Resiani; the short text on the cover is an extract of this book.
The inhabitants says in their vast majority that they are not Slovene and refuse to have anything to do with Slovenia or the Slovene in Italy.
All the recordings were made by Arturo Longhino in monophony perhaps visiting some the informants in their homes or bringing them to a studio. The whole album looks like a short monography with an important place given to fables or short stories all said by women. There are seven of them with animals as protagonists. Dancing is traditionally supported by the duet violin and cello like bass. That kind of music is also played in Istria and other parts of Slovenia. Women used to sing together; here four of them sing as a ''koro''.
Longhino gives all the names with Italian and Slovene equivalents. The lyrics of the four songs are also available.
A very good LP especially if you are interested in that area between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea.

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CAVALCATA SARDA

 

CAVALCATA SARDA
CANTI E DANZE DELL'AUTHENTICO FOLKLORE SARDO

SARDINIAN CAVALCADE 
SONGS AND DANCES OF THE AUTHENTIC SARDINIAN FOLKLORE

Stella, 1969, LPS 6067

 Brought back from Sardinia by a cousin of mine, this is a good album for people who know nothing about Sardinian musical traditions. There are organettu, launeddas, choirs, singers with guitar and dances, ''poesia'', ''storia'' etc. There are two tracks that illustrate other types of music : track A7 with an ''ave Maria'' sung in Catalan by a group from Alghero (L'Alguer in Catalan), an area where the majority of the inhabitants still speaks Catalan. This track is technically bad but has always been since the first time I listened to it. Track B7 sounds more like popular dance music based on international pop but sung in Sardinian by Tony Piaceri.
The title of the album is the title of a composition by the organetto player Francesco Bande but I think it refers also to a big annual feast day held in May at Sassari when people put on their traditional clothes and parade through the streets on foot or by carts pulled by oxes and on horses.
Two villages famous for their ''coro'' are part of this compilation : Orgosolo and Orosei. The launeddas player is Giovanni Lai a very famous one but not related to Luigi Lai I think.
There are some good examples of what is called ''canto in re'' and ''muttos'' like track B6 with the exceptional singer Antonio Meloni. 

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Апостол Kucъов

 APOSTOL KISSYOV

RHOPODE FOLK SONGS

Balkanton, 1989, VNA 12529

A. Kissyov was both a singer and a piper. He was instrumental in bringing one hundred bagpipers to the meadows near Rozhen in 1961 along with one hundred thousand participants. He taught hundreds of young pipers.
Here he sings accompanied by either one kaval and two tamburas or two kabagaida. The tracks with kabagaida are the most vibrant I find. Table songs and dance songs alternate enhanced by his nice voice and traditional way of singing.
Text in Bulgarian and English.

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