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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Flûtes Orientales Sacrées

 

FLÛTES ORIENTALES SACREES
DES DERVICHES TOURNEURS
enregistré en Turquie

SACRED ORIENTAL FLUTES OF 
THE WHIRLING DERVISHES
recorded in Turkey

Vogue, 1970, CLVLX 542

I suppose that each of you was struck/fascinated by  some records in his/her youth. This album is one of them. I think I was twelve years old when I got this record as a present.

Recorded in Turkey by Jean-Claude Chabrier with the help of Turkish musicologist Rusen Ferid Kam these recordings were like listening to something from another era. At the time sufi music or rituals were not at the forefront of world music. The text by Chabrier is in French and gives some basic information about Turkish sufism which was useful nevertheless back then. In 1979 he published some fascinating (again) albums in a series called ''Arabesques'' (see my posts) with plenty of information about maqams analysing what the musicians played on discs. Here we don't know about modes and other specificities.

One of the interest of this album is the presence of two great masters : one of the greatest neyzenler Hayri Tümer and vocalist Münir Nurettin Selçuk. Tümer plays four pieces one tekbir and three improvisations. Selçuk sings on his own on track A4 the ''na't'' in Persian and leads the ceremony on track B1 with the neys, the percussion and choir. There is also a short "ezzan'' (Turkish prononciation of the Arabic ''adhan'') and a pesrev led by H. Tümer. According to some connoisseurs Tümer is quite forgotten nowadays. He was recorded solo by Chabrier in the series I mentionned above. I shall post it.

My copy being not in the best shape due to frequent listening,  I used the sound of another source found on archive.org. The original sound recording is not great with some distorsion in ensemble playing but all solos are just gripping. 

 

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Field recordings in Gyimes

 

FIELD RECORDINGS MADE IN GYIMES

(picture not related to the tape)

  This a tape I got from a Hungarian friend who lives in France; I got it approximately at the beginning of the 90s. There are no names or places mentionned. I don't know who made these recordings either. This tape is of course a copy of a copy etc... so there is some noise but the music is clear enough. All tracks are songs mostly a cappella; some are backed by a fiddle and a gardon; the last track is a march.
Gyimes is csángó country in eastern Transylvania nearby Moldavia where the main Csángó population lives. 

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Brenda Wootton

 

BRENDA WOOTTON/LYONESSE

RCA France, 1982,  PL 37656

 

Brenda Wootton (Brenda Ellery 1928-1994) was THE voice of Cornwall and still is maybe. But she also had a voice that everybody loved.
She was born in London to Cornish-born parents but lived in Cornwall when she was six months old onwards. She started singing in school in chapel choirs and village halls; she was involved in the Cornish scene in the early sixties. Then she started singing in Cornish (kernewek) thanks to Richard Gendall  who composed two songs for her to compete at the Killarney Pan Celtic Festival in 1973. That's how she became the singer who represented Cornwall everywhere in the world. She was regularly in demand at the Lorient Festival and became quite famous in France.
This album combines live recordings in France with studio work. The main instrument is the acoustic guitar played by David King. The repertoire is quite large with only one traditional ... a blues. All the other songs are compositions by R. Gendall mainly as long with John Lennon and Paul McCartney's ''here, there and everywhere'' and Mick Jaeger and Keith Richards' ''Honky tonk woman''. There are two songs in Cornish; Cornish is the Celtic language closest to Breton. The last native speaker of Kernewek died at the end of the eighteen century. A linguistic revival occured at the beginning of the twentieth century and in 2010 Unesco decided  to remove Cornish from the list of extinct languages.
The title ''Lyonesse'' refers to King Arthur's kingdom at the Western tip of Cornwall where Land's End is (the cover picture was taken there). It is said that his kingdom is now in the sea but we can sometimes hear the bells of immersed churches ...
Text in French with lyrics in English and Cornish with French translation.

 

 

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YÖRÜK KIZI

 

DAVUL ZURNA ile ZEYBEKLER / ''YÖRÜK KIZI''
Germencikli BASRİ EĞRİBOYUN ve ARKADAŞLARI

 Seda, ?, 008

This tape was bought  in Paris at a local Turkish shop. This is one of the many tapes about the dance and music called zeybek usually associated with the Aegean Sea region but which is present in other parts of Turkey. The title ''the yörük girl'' refers to a nomadic population originally, the Yörüks, whose name means ''those who walk''. Closely related to the Turkmens they claim to be of pure Türk descent. They are almost all settled now and are quite numerous in the Taurus area.
As usual there is no information about the tunes or the performers.
The list of tracks shows 19 tracks but there are only 17 according to what I can hear. Now I don't know about the titles of the two extra tracks in the list. This is the reason why I didn't put any title in the audio file. Maybe real connoisseurs among you might sort that out.

A very good tape anyway if you like davul and zurna music in its traditional aspect.

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L'Orchestre folklorique roumain

 L'ORCHESTRE FOLKLORIQUE ROUMAIN

Benone Damian Nicolai Pirvu Petre Marinescu
Ion Cirstoiu Ion Bata Stanescu Dumitru

Pajtás

Stoof, 1977, MU 7439 

Zamfir was not the only one to play the nai as there was a school for that, I think created by Fănică Luca and many good players were trained there. Maybe N. Pîrvu went to this school; he was a great player who passed away in 2021.
The present band was formed by violin and accordion player Benone Damian in 1970. He started with classical music and the switched to folk music; his first album was in 1951; He died in 2012.
The music is the ''national'' Romanian music promoted by the Romanian state. So no musical surprise or originality but it's well presented and played. Side B is one track where each musician can display his talent on his instrument during the so-called ''parada''.
This album was recorded live and produced in the Netherlands for Electrecord.
Pajtás is a foundation whose purpose is to propagate the best of Hungarian and Romanian music. Pajtás means ''buddy'' in Hungarian.

Short text in English.

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GHEORGHE ZAMFIR VOL.3

 

L'EXTRAORDINAIRE FLÛTE DE PAN DE 

THE EXTRAORDINARY PANPIPES OF

GHEORGHE ZAMFIR VOL.3 

Déesse, no date, DDLX 37

Well, to celebrate the new year 2024 I chose another album by G. Zamfir. The original Romanian issue was published in 1977 so this French edition is probably of the same year. But there is an extra track here (A3) which is not on the original edition. So this is Zamfir with his different panpipes leading an orchestra as well. 

Happy New Year to you all and my best wishes for happiness and music !

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Penjab

SHEHNAEE MUSIC LIVE PART 3 

 HEERA STEREO, no date, H:789

This is a tape from Pakistan brought back by a friend  a good while ago. Penjab is divided between Pakistan and India but the folk music is the same. Here we have shehnaee or shenai music by a player anonymous to me. He's joined by two dohol players, two other players with small percussions and a scottish-like bagpipe player who provides  a drone mostly with a few notes between two shenai melodical lines.

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P. J. Motreff ha L. Ropars

A-BOUEZ-PENN GAND PJ. MOTREFF HA LOEIZ ROPARS

IN FULL VOICE WITH PJ. MOTREFF AND L. ROPARS

Coop Breizh, 1979, 1003

 

Loeiz Ropars was a very important man for the Breton revival. Everybody agrees that he was the ''inventor'' of what is called the fest-noz in its modern form. He became interested in the Breton singing tradition at the end of the thirties but mostly during the war because suddenly the old people with their culture were the only possibility of having some fun in the villages in a Brittany occupied by the Nazis. After the war he wanted to keep alive what he saw  during the occupation and he managed to convince some singers to take part in kan ha diskan competitions. the in 1955 he organized the first modern fest-noz in Poullaouen ie an evening of songs and dances in a hall instead the yard of a farm, with a stage for the singers, one microphone and a entrance fee for the public. He was himself fluent in Breton of course and a fine singer. He died in 2007.
Among the old singers he used to visit and promote was PJ. Motreff born in 1899 in a family of singers. He started singing in 1910 with his mother. The area is what is called Haute-Cornouaille in French (Kernev in Breton) where singing is still very strong for dancing and other occasions. The kan ha diskan (the lead singer starts the first line when the second singer ''replies'' by singing the end of the first line before singing it himself and so on) is also possible outside of dance.
Here what is mentionned as being three different tracks on side A is in fact one track; this the traditional set called gavotte (gavotten or dans-tro in Breton) with the first chain dance followed by a ''bal'' to get some rest before the second chain dance. So there are three tracks on side A. The two other tracks are one song about the first world war (inside the trench) and a song about a murder that happened in the 17th century.
On side B four songs including one composition by Ropars ''Son ar Distrujer'' (song of the destroyer) telling us about all the destruction that was brought by the state in the sixties when the craze was to erase embankments in order to get bigger fields for a bigger production. Now the reverse movement has started after it was obvious that this ''remembrement'' killed local flora and fauna, caused big floodings and didn't help much the farmers in the end. Ropars was very active against such an ''economic progress''.
Text in French by Donatien Laurent, a famous scholar and musicians who died in 2020.

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Souleymane Sidibe

 

SOULEYMANE SIDIBE/BADEYA FOLI

no label, no date, GD052

One of  thousands of tapes in circulation in Mali's music shops and markets. It was brought back by a friend.
There is absolutely no information about this tape. Surely Sidibe can play the kamele n'goni is holding on the cover and he's the main singer. The mixing of old traditional instruments with synthetizers and other Western instruments has been the rule for a lot of singers/musicians. The kamele n'goni (the ''instrument of young men'') is mainly played in the Wassoulou region and is now very present in what is called the revival of Wassoulou music. 
There are in fact eleven tracks but only eight of them have a name. 

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SATANAZET

 

SATANAZET / AN DURZUNEL 

Vélia, 1973,  n° 2230004

Satanazet (the Devils in Breton) was one of the first band in Brittany to mix Breton and Irish repertoires. The band was the gathering two brothers,  Patrig and Dominig (Breton spelling) Molard and four other musicians. Dominique has passed away while Patrig is still in activity on the scottish bag pipe or the uilleann pipe. In 1973 there was no Irish pipes; Patrick got his own set some years later; another member was the accordion player Alain Le Hégarat who was also an uilleann piper later. Among the two musicians who are guests there is Alan Kloatr on wooden and classical flutes one of the first French musicians to have got an English flute used in Irish music.

Seven tracks out of eleven are Breton, two are Irish, one is mentionned as Irish-Appalachian and a fourth one is of Scottish inspiration. All the tunes are traditional except for track B1 (an dro elfenn) a superb composition by Le Hégart who was also member of a bagad and pipe band and track B4 by Youenn ar Mao which is a mixture of Scottish music and American bluegrass.

I must say that most of the second melodic voices played on fiddle or mandolin are not great (often too ambitious in relation to the instrumental level) but this is an interesting document about the Breton revival in the early seventies; Kloatr on flutes is very good as well as the tin whistle, bombard and bagpipe played by P. Molard.
P. and D. Molard as well as A. Le Hégarat were members of Ogham afterwards.

An durzunel means the partridge in Breton and is the name of a song played on B5

This second hand album is not in a top state but  it's not desperate either ...

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Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы 3

   

Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы

Биринчи бөлүм

ANTHOLOGY OF KYRGYZ MELODIES (PART ONE)

Melodiya, 1974, M30 35583, 35584

This the third album of that series with the title ''Епостук дастан күүлөр''. All the tracks are instrumental ones with outstanding komuz players like Sherkulov or Madazimov. Like the two previous LPs this one is a copy made in 1986 and at that time I didn't keep the presentation tracks in Kyrgyz. So the first track is missing (E1).

E1 Кириш сөз = Вступительное слово = Introduction read by – З. Мамбеталиева E2 Чоң казат Dombra [Komuz] – Чалагыз Иманкулов* E3 Алмамбет менен чубак Dombra [Komuz] – Асанаалы Кыштообаев E4 Каныкейдин арманы Dombra [Komuz] – Кара Молдо Орозов* E5 Олжобай менен кишимжан Dombra [Komuz] – Жакшыбай Жээнтаев E6 Кожожаш Dombra [Komuz] – Жакшыбай Жээнтаев E7 Эр табылды жалгызым Dombra [Komuz] – Абдыкерим Мокоев E8 Курманбек Dombra [Komuz] – Болуш Мадазимов E9 Саринжи бөкөй Dombra [Komuz] – Болуш Мадазимов F1 Солтон сары Dombra [Komuz] – Болуш Мадазимов F2 Мендирман Dombra [Komuz] – Шекербек Шеркулов F3 Карагул ботом Dombra [Komuz] – Шекербек Шеркулов F4 Гүлгаакы (I вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Курманаалы Калботоев F5 Гүлгаакы (II вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Алтымыш Мундузбаев F6 Шырдабектин боз жорго Dombra [Komuz] – Асылбек Эшмамбетов* F7 Кет бука (I вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Шекербек Шеркулов F8 Кет бука (II вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Курманаалы Калботоев F9 Мырза уул менен ак саткын Dombra [Komuz] – Болуш Мадазимов
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OGHAM

 

OGHAM . BOKED EURED

Keltia 3,  1976, KEL 02

This Breton band was built around two families, the Sicard and the Molard. The four Molard brothers started to play together some Breton and Irish music when they were still living in Saint-Malo where they come from. The best-known of the four brothers is Patrick Molard who started by studying the Scottish bagpipe and its music including what is called piobaireachd. Then he played the Breton bagpipe, the binioù. At the same time he discovered the uilleann pipes and was one the first uilleann pipers in France. His brother Jacky on guitar here became a renowned fiddle player in Breton and Irish music. Dominique Molard is now a drummer but he plays the bouzouki on this album. The fourth brother Claude has since passed away and played bodhran and guitar. The other family is represented by Padrig on fiddle and whistle,  and Ronan on keyboards.
They wanted to play Breton music with Irish instruments (uilleann pipes, fiddle, flute, whistle, bodhran, bouzouki) or aesthetics, influenced by the Irish folk revival (Planxty, Bothy Band, Na Fili, the Chieftains ...). They were not the first ones to have this idea; the band called Satanazet recorded in 1973 but without any bagpipe. Dominique Molard was there also.   It is interesting to note that Keltia 3 was a label founded by Alan Stivell who wrote part of the notes in French.
So only two tracks out of eight are Irish and Scottish sets; Gloire ui Rodnaich (Rodney's Glory) is a set dance followed by a reel, the Hunter's Purse. The Scottish set is led  by the Scottish bagpipe. The six tracks left are Breton dance tunes and songs played on the instruments.
Ogham was an ancient writing system used by the Celts in Ireland between the IVth and the IXth centuries. This is what is on the cover.
Boked eured is a song sung at weddings and means ''the wedding bouquet''.

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Paucartambo - Indiens Q'eros

 

MUSIQUES DU PEROU/MUSIC OF PERU

Paucartambo Indiens Q'eros  

Ocora-Radio France, 1984, OCR 30 

Made in July and August 1965 these recordings are the work of Pierre Allard and Claude Koenig. Paucartambo is a village which lies at an altitude of  3500 m. P. Allard was there during the annual festivities for the Blessed Virgin Carmen between the 15th and the 17th of July. The whole process is described in the text in French and English and forms side A. Side B is music from the Q'eros Indians  who numbered only 240 at the time of the 1955 census. Their life style and environnent are well presented in the text. The flutes are the main melodic instruments especially the kena. On side A we can also hear a violin and a harp. A very interesting and nice album about indigenous societies in danger of disparition.
this album was never issued on CD and is absent from the current Ocora site and catalogue.

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ROCKING THE CRADLE-Séamus Ennis

 

ROCKING THE CRADDLE

SONGS IN ENGLISH & GAELIC 

SEAMUS ENNIS

Folktracks Cassettes, 1982, FSA-45-169

S. Ennis (1919-1982) was one of the greatest pipers in Ireland. He could also sing in English and Irish and play the fiddle, the flute and the war pipes. He was also known for his works as a collector of songs, tunes and tales all over Ireland in the forties and fifties for the Irish Folkore Commission and later for Radio Eireann.
Some of  the songs  he performs on this tape are delivered with short stories or explanations about them. There are 10 songs in English and 9 in Gaelic.
Unfortunately the production is rather poor as the cover shows : a simple piece of paper perhaps due to a lack of funding.

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SKED

 

SKED

Production Velia, ?, 2230025

Among the numerous Breton bands Sked is probably one of the least know now. Sked (meaning ''glossy'', ''shiny'' in Breton) made only one album maybe in 1975. The band had some musicians who became famous later like Jean-François Sibéril known as Soïg Siberil on guitar and Jean-Pol Huellou on tin whistle and classical metal flute. Others were also very important at that time like Alain Le Hegarat on uilleann pipes who was one of the first Breton people to have discovered Irish music at the end of the fifties; he went to Ireland in 1960 and started with a practice set around 1972. He was born in 1939 and is still with us. He and Alain Trovel (keyboards) recorded a beautiful album with uilleann pipes and organ which was reissued on CD. In the band were also present the Colleu brothers, Philippe on banjo and Yvon on accordion and guitare. Philippe is well known in Brittany and Normandy for his works on the maritime repertoire from these regions. Two more musicians were parts of the band : Brendan Fahy on guitar, bodhran and vocal (but he doesn't sing on the album) and Gunter Buchwald on fiddle.
The repertoire is mostly Breton with two Irish sets; there is also one melody maybe Scottish, Kingussie Flowers. Note that B1 is not the Humours of Lissadel but O'Neill's March and the Battle of Aughrim and is followed by B2 ''an dro''. The interesting thing about Sked is that like other bands they worked on a traditional Breton repertoire with an Irish approach which was quite innovative at that time. 

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RAUL MALDONADO

 

GUITARE ET CHANTS D'ARGENTINE

GUITAR AND SONGS FROM ARGENTINA

RAUL MALDONADO 

SFP, ?, 52005

 Raul Maldonado was born in Argentina in 1937 in a small place in the pampa but lived partly in France where he recorded this album during the sixties. At the age of twelve he met with Abel Fleury, one of the greatest Argentinian composer for guitar. Maldonado plays some of Fleury's works on side A. He also studied guitar with A. Yupanqui and other musicians. He is mostly a solo guitar player but he worked with Los Calchakis as well as other ensembles.
Side B has some compositions by A. de Robertis the kena player.
This is popular kind of music by learned composers and musicians who loved the songs and music of the people of Argentina and promoted them all around the world.

To know more about Maldonado : http://www.raulmaldonado.fr/

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Bogue d'Or 1989

 

CHANTS TRADITIONNELS DE HAUTE-BRETAGNE

BOGUE D'OR 1989

Chanteurs et musiciens de Bretagne n°3

TRADITIONAL SONGS FROM UPPER BRITTANY

GOLDEN CHESTNUT-BAR 1989

Singers and musicians of Brittany n°3

Dastum, 1990, DAS-113 

This is one of the few tapes that Dastum never reissued on CD. As the title shows it is about an annual competition for singers ans musicians in the Eastern part of Brittany where the Breton language was never spoken or disappeared during rhe Middle Ages. But there is another language spoken along with  French , a dialect called Gallo, a Romance dialect. The term ''upper'' means that this part of Brittany is closer to Paris than ''lower Brittany'' and had implied for a very long time that Eastern Brittany was more ''civilized'' than the Western part where Breton is still in use. But of course the Gallo dialect was also considered as a local dialect of no importance which should have disappeared as well for the benefit of French. When the Breton folk revival started it was all about the Breton tongue and history and Gallo was not part of that cultural and political movement. The people of Upper Brittany considered themselves as Breton as the others and managed to set up many associations and bodies in order to preserve their own culture.
One way of preserving that dialect and musical culture was to organize a competition open to all. Here we have the final competition, after the qualifying rounds were over, held in Redon on the 29th of October 1989. It's called ''Golden Chestnut-bar'' because chestnuts are a major product in the local economy.
Singers are quite dominant and the interest of this competition is that everybody being welcome it gives a vivid image of what the local singing was like at the time with children, adults and older people, all singing on their own with sometimes the help of the crowd which respond to the singers when necessary. All the repertoire is traditionnal except for the song on B7 composed by Marie Morin who sings it herself.
The competition involves instrumental music as well with the traditional duet or couple bombarde and biniou and some accordion (diatonic) playing. Two tracks are devoted to the duet with bombarde and biniou with some marches from Redon and Josselin while two more tracks have dances played on the box.To be precise, these instrumental tracks were recorded much later but with the same musicians for technical reasons.

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