Chants des Ema

 

TIMOR . CHANTS DES EMA

collection CNRS Musée de l'Homme

SONGS OF THE EMA

Chant du Monde, 1979,  LDX 74693

This prestigious series has covered many countries and areas introducing us to peoples far removed from us. Timor is probably one of them. Here Brigitte Clamagirand is our guide to the Ema people living in Central Timor which is part of Indonesia. She spent some time there in 1966 and 1969-70 among them.
There were 50.000 Ema at the time of her visits. The text (in French and English) written by Clamagirand focuses on musical culture  and says nothing about the political and social situation of the  Ema. But she mentions the word cantiga which refers to the Portuguese period of colonization; this former colony became East Timor so perhaps some Ema do live there too. EastTimor has been independant since 2002 after a violent war with the Indonesian government between 1975and 1999; I suppose that might have affected the Ema.
The Ema sing mainly for daily activities or social events. They use instruments like jew's harps made of bamboo or iron and a knotched flute. Each track is well introduced.
This a copy of an album I borrowed somewhere but I didn't scan the photographs only the text.

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PERON HA GWENNEGOU

 

YANN PERON HA GERARD GWENNEGOU

Breizh-Skeudou, ?, 001

 This is a rare document about a great bombarde player Yann Peron who died at the age of 45 in October 1975. He was very well known in his own part of Breizh-Izel (meaning Lower Brittany) were Breton language is still spoken and traditional music very strong. This is the only album of his knowing that he appeared on another album among other musicians. In fact this album was produced after his death by a short-lived label (I think) Breizh-Skeudou (Breton Images) which issued only this one record  as far as I know.  The recordings were not made in studio but were made by somebody whose name is not mentionned on a tape recorder I'd say during an evening between friends. So the sound is what it is but we can listen to Peron's great talent clearly enough.
Gérard Gwennegou, the ''compère'', plays the Scottish bagpipe which was quite the fashion in Western Brittany since the sixties. But the Scottish technique and ornementations are absent and Gwennegou plays it as if it were a biniou koz.
The majority of recorded tunes are dance tunes except for two tracks with a set (heuliad) of marches (A1) and a melody (B4). Among the dance tunes what they call ''fisel'' occurs five times, fisel being a local form of gavotte (gavottenn ar menez).
Peron and Gwennegou wanted in fact to record an album but Peron's sudden illness and premature death  prevented them from doing so.
So I'm sure those who like and know Breton music will enjoy this record while the others will have to listen to it more carefully perhaps.
Text in Breton and French.

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Pangkur Kasmaran

 

PANGKUR KASMARAN 

UYON2 RRI YOGYAKARTA

Irama Nusantara Recordings, 1978, WD 526

If I remember well I got this tape from a friend a long time ago. There is no information about the music only the names of the singers and of the tunes. At the time of digitization I copied each side in one go not knowing really when one song ends and the next begins. Connoisseurs of this kind of music might have a laugh but much later I found the site of the publisher where the timing is mentionned : track A1 is 12'59'' long, track A2 is 16'34'', track B1 16'36'' and track B2 13'11". The site is : https://www.iramanusantara.org in Bahasa and English where you can listen to different types of music produced in Indonesia.
Singers (female and male) are backed by a full gamelan.
RRI stands for Radio Republik Indonesia.
This site https://gamelan.gs/booklet/38-pangkur-two/ might be helpful for novice listeners.

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Bali : musique et théâtre

 

BALI MUSIQUE ET THEATRE

BALI MUSIC AND THEATRE

Ocora, 1971, OCR 60
 

This is the second album made of recordings by G. Fresnais in Bali for Ocora.

Born in Paris Fresnais was not a musicologist but a sound engineer; He worked with the French film maker Alain Robbe-Grillet. He also composed an album called ''des sons de la nature'' (sounds of nature). I don't know why he was part of a recording mission but he was certainly fascinated by the Balinese culture, a culture he studied so that he could write the presentation text. Note that three other albums were issued by EMAC-Butterfly with parts of the recordings made in Denpasar.
The text is detailed enough; the first track sounds quite hypnotic  and close to trance music but is the accompaniment provided for the wayang kulit, the shadow theatre.
Side B about what is called ''gamelan gambuh'' is parted in three different phases of the same spectacle.
Text in French and English.

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Pays Sunda

 INDONESIE SUNDA
MUSIQUES DE L'ASIE TRADITIONNELLE vol. 11

TRADITIONAL ASIAN MUSIC volume 11

Playa Sound, 1972 ?, PS 33515

Jacques Brunet who made these recordings in Java in 1972 was first a concert piano player before becoming one of best if not the best French  connoisseur of traditional and art music from southeast Asia. Between 1963 and 1982 he spent a lot of time in Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Indonesia recording a huge variety of music. All his productions are well presented with lots of details about the musical forms, history of the places concerned and singers and players he recorded. He was present enough on French radios especially France Culture in the eighties; I discovered and got an interest in these musics through  his passionate and exciting radio programmes and albums.
Java was one of his main interests; Sunda is western Java and lies over a third of the island. There was the ancient kingdom of Pajajaran which was very powerful between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries. Hinduism was quite dominant from an early period before competing with Islam from the fifteenth century.
Sunda is known for its very refined music based on suling flute and kacapi zither. Ono Sukarna the suling player was considered as the best flute player in the country. There are also two great singers.
There are seven tracks but during copying track seven was cut into two parts by mistake.
Text in French by J. Brunet. 

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Cheikh Imam : les Yeux des Mots

 

LE CHEIKH IMAM  CHANTE NEGM
الشيخ إمام, أحمد فؤاد نجم

LES YEUX DES MOTS
عيون الكلام

SHEIKH IMAM SINGS NAJM
THE EYES OF WORDS  

Le Chant du Monde, 1976,  LDX 74543

The series ''le nouveau chansonnier international'' was created to introduce French audiences to a range of politically committed singers, in keeping with the spirit of the founders of Le Chant du Monde. Among them Atahualpa Yupanqui, Joan Manuel Serrat or Jose Afonso. Some of these singers have had their work republished but not all as this record shows.
Sheikh Imam (real name : Imam Mohammed Ahmed Issa) has been one of the most powerful voices in the Arab world. Born in 1918 in Egypt he became blind at the age of one. There is lots of information about him in English.
The thing to remember is that he was a kind of moral and political conscience in the Arab world criticising Arab governments on their lack of help to the  Palestinians or their submission to the American imperialism. This has landed him in prison more than once.  He died in 1995.
All the lyrics are by Ahmed Fouad Najm (1929-2013) who spent eighteen years in jail also in Egypt for his attacks on Egyptian and other political leaders.
The first song of this album (when the sun drowns in a sea of mist) was used as a starter by Sheikh Imam for all his concerts from 1973 onwards.
The recordings were not made in studio but in public although the location is not mentionned.
The presentation text in in French only but the lyrics are also in Arabic. 

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Bali divertissements musicaux

 BALI 

divertissements musicaux et danses de transe

musical entertainments and trance dances

Ocora, 1983, OCR 72 

Recorded in the field in 1971 by Gilles Fresnais (with the help of the ORTF Musical Research Group) this album features some traditional Balinese music both profane and sacred. We can listen to gamelan Semar Peguligan with the usual type of instruments but the primary interest of this album is the orchestra called geng gong based on eight  bamboo jew's-harps (geng gong), a small flute, two zithers made also made of bamboo (a similar instrument can be found in Madagascar) and percussions. This orchestra is used to provide some entertainment during banquets. The other interest is the trance ceremony presented on side B.
The text in English is reasonably detailed to understand the progress and significance of such dances.
Ocora has an outstanding catalog of Balinese music but only a small number of these LPs has been reissued on CD so far.

 

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Chant en pays Bigouden

 

 

TRADITION FAMILIALE DE CHANT EN PAYS BIGOUDEN 

Chanteurs et musiciens de Bretgane N°4

 

FAMILY TRADITION OF SINGING IN THE BIGOUDEN COUNTRY

Singers and musicians of Brittany N°4

 

Dastum, 1991, DAS-114 

 

Bigouden country or Bro Vigouden in Breton is a small area west of  Quimper in Southern Finistère. The main city is Pont-l'Abbé. So we are in the Breton speaking part of Brittany in the greater region called Kernew (Cornwall). Singing is still very important in Breton mainly and in French. This tape is a good example of this part of the Bigouden culture with the grandmother Lisette Maréchal, her daughter Marie-Aline Lagadic and the third generation with two young singers Klervi Rivière who is now a well-known traditional singer and Anna Stéphan.

The repertoire is probably local with a certain number of songs about fishermen, sailors and the sea. The booklet that goes with the tape was missing so it's difficult to know better. All songs are in Breton except for A5 and B7 and unaccompanied as it should be. 

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Authentic Music of the American Indian

 

AUTHENTIC MUSIC OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 

Volume I : War Dances and Honor Songs/Volume II : Social Songs and Folk Songs/Volume III : Ceremonial Songs and Chant

INCLUDES MUSIC OF THE FOLLOWING TRIBES !

                      CHEYENNE OMAHA  CROW  TEWA  PAPAGO  PONCA   TAOS   PAWNEE                           APACHE  ZUNI  SIOUX  KIOWA   SHAWNEE  UTE  HOPI  ARIKARA                                       NAVAJO  PLAINS   PIMA  PAIUTE

A THREE RECORD SET

Everest,  1971, 3450/3

A good part of this excellent set was reissued by  Spalax Music in 1994 and Legacy International. But as it is sometime the case some tracks have been excluded:  here 26 tracks out of 40 are available on CD.
So I'm posting the 14 tracks missing because the whole product  gives an good overview of the different types of singing from very different ''tribes'' (Indian talk about nations nowadays). Some of these Native American groups are not really known here like the Tewa and Pima. The others such as Apache, Navajo (Dine) or Sioux are easily found   in the album productions. But what makes the difference maybe with more contemporary albums is the five page booklet full with valuable information for people like us. It gives a real picture of what the Indians were and what they are at the time of recording : ''these remarkable people can drum and sing, joke and laugh - even if some of the jokes are now bitter. They have not given up''.
Everest Records was founded in 1958 and had its own recording material. So I suppose all the field recordings here were their work for there are no credits nor details about the actual recordings except for the solo or lead  singers names.

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Harpes Celtiques

 

HARPES CELTIQUES 1000 ANS D'HISTOIRE 

Conservatoire régional de musique, chants, danses et sports
traditionnels de Bretagne
racines pour demain  

CELTIC HARPS 1000 YEARS OF HISTORY  

Brittany regional music, songs, dances and traditional sports conservatory
roots for tomorrow

Conservatoire régional, 1987, CR 8701

This album features two Breton harp players : Mariannig Larc'hantec and Myrdhin. Myrdhin plays on tracks B1,  B2 and B3 on a metal string harp while Larc'hantec plays a nylon string harp on all other tracks.
The album is a kind of audio version of an exhibition presented by the Regional Conservatory about the history of the harp. France Vernillat, harpist and scholar, wrote the text in French to give a summary of that history starting in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt and ending with mention of Alan Stivell.
M. Larc'hantec had a classical and traditional type of formation. She won the first prize in Killarney in 1974 at the International Panceltic Competition.  She was a celtic harp teacher at the Regional Conservatory at the time of the recording. I find her approach to traditional music a bit too stiff especially on track A8 (gavottes des montagnes). She plays some medieval and Renaissance stuff as well as Irish harp music from O'Carolan, a menuet, a traditional tune from the Hebrides and a sicilienne. She composed the last tune on side B ''Excalibur''.
Tracks A1 and A7 were harmonised by Denise Mégevand who was Alan Stivell's harp teacher when he was a kid.
Myrdhin (real name Rémi Chauvet) is more creative in a way. There are some percussion instruments on his tracks and in the absence of any other information I suppose he also plays them. He tried to go back in a way to the ancient bardic world  when  imagination was valued and music forged links between man and the universe. 

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AL-SAMAH

 

AL-SAMAH/ ARĀKA ṬARŪBAN

This is a copy of a commercial tape I got from a friend who lived in Sana'a for a while. Numerous tapes and their copies were widely in circulation in Yemen the problem being that if the music can be copied the tapes covers were not; so apart from the name of the singer and sometimes the title of the tape nothing is available about the content. Of course it doesn't matter too much for Yemeni people who understand the lyrics and know the singers but for us it's a loss.
Ali Al-Simah (Samah) was a famous singer and lute player in the Sana'a tradition who was active between the sixties and the eighties (my guess) but it's difficult to find information about him.
There is only one darbuka player with him but it's enough to create a wonderful music based on vigourous ud playing.
Thanks to Leonidas plenty of information about Al-Samah in the comments below.

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Arapaho sun dance

 

SOCIAL SONGS OF THE ARAPAHO SUN DANCE

WIND RIVER SINGERS

Canyon Records, 1971, 6080

This album was recorded by Raymond Boley during the summer 1971 at Fort Washakie. There are eight songs without any names or information about them. The Wind River Singers were four male singers and two female singers. According to what I hear the men always start the songs but the women often end them.
The Arapaho were forcibly moved to Wyoming and Colorado but originated from Minnesota and Manitoba states;  they were closed to the Cheyenne and a bit less to the Lakotas. Some Arapaho warriors took part in the battle of Litltle Big Horn in 1876. 
Wind River is one of the reservations where Arapaho are with Fort Washakie build in 1871 and abandoned in 1909.
All the songs are part of the sun dance ritual; there are no information although there is much to say about it. Some details here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Dance and here https://www.notesfromthefrontier.com/post/the-sun-dance-sacred-ceremony

 

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Utriculus

 

UTRICULUS

CANTI E MUSICHE PER ZAMPOGNA E CIARAMELLA

SONGS AND MUSICS FOR BAGPIPE AND SHAWM

Associazione Culturale ''Circolo della Zampogna'', Scapoli. Molise. Italia, 1991, A&A 91

Circolo della zampogna is a  non-profit Italian cultural organization (NGO) that is actively working since 1990 for the safeguarding and promoting of the tradition, both musically and as a handicraft, connected with the zampogna (the bagpipe of the Centre and Southern Italy) and with the ciaramella (or piffero), the folk oboe traditionally played with the bagpipe as it is written on their site : https://zampogna.org/wpsite/
Scapoli has been the center of international bagpiping every year in July with some pretigious pipers from all over the world.
Utriculus (the latin name  for bagpipes) is a quaterly magazine with articles in different languages.
The man who came up with the idea for this cassette was Pietro (Piero) Ricci a famous piper born in 1955 in the province of Molise. He's said to have revolutionised the zampogna. He plays here the zampogna and percussions along with Lino Miniscalco on ciaramella and Mauro Gioielli, vocals. He composed six tunes out of nine; the three other works are Beethoven's Ode to Joy, an Italian version of Silent Night on which he plays a superb accompaniment to the ciaramella and a composition by A.M. De Liguori ''Quanno nascete Ninno''. So it's not traditional music stricto sensu but ideas about how the zampogna can be played nowadays. 

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Re Niliu

                                                                  RE NILIU

NON SULI E NO' LUNA

Madau Dischi, 1984, K 016 

 Re Niliu was formed in december 1979 by Ettore Castagna, Sergio Di Giorgio, Francesco Forgione, Gino Parise, Goffredo Plastino and Emilio Rinaldo in Catanzaro, Calabria. They became one of the most famous bands in the Italian revival. They were also probably one of the first revival band south of Rome.
What was called the ''folk movement''started in northern Italy in cities among young people looking for lost roots. This was typical of highly developped areas like Milan, Rome or Bergame. I believe that this revival started much later in poorer  southern Italy but widespread among young people especially students.
The name of the band was found by F. Forgione after the legend  about King Niliu who suffers from a curse : he can't stay in the sun or he will melt like wax.
This is their first tape/lp. Here is a copy of a tape but the cover and back cover are those of the dics version.
The band is still in activity but has recorded four records only plus one which was never released. The band is of course different now
Calabria is at the tip of the Italian boot and has a rich and somewhat eventful history; the Greek  cities and colonies were quite developped before Rome conquered them; then Normands, Muslims, Albanians settled there at different periods. Griko is a dialect which is still in use among the Greek communities which are the offspring of Greek refugees after the Ottoman conquest in Greece.
One trace of this Greek presence is the lira calabrese related to the ''lira bizantina'' a stringed instrument played with a bow and held between the legs or on top of the knee. The lira was almost extinct when the revival discovered it and saved it.
Re Niliu uses the lira a lot along with the zampogna, the double-flute, guitar etc... 

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Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы 4

 

Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы

Биринчи бөлүм

ANTHOLOGY OF KYRGYZ MELODIES (PART ONE)

Melodiya, 1974, M30-35585-86

 This is the fourth album of this series. All tracks are dombra/komuz solo music. On side A there is one female player M. Kozubekova. As with the previous albums I did not keep the introduction tracks in Kyrgyz; so tracks G1 and H1 are missing.

		Залкар күүлөр
G1		Кириш сөз = Вступительное слово = Introduction Read By – Т. Абдракунов
G2		Кара өзгөй (I вариант) Dombra [Komuz – Шекербек Шеркулов
G3		Кара өзгөй (II вармант) Dombra [Komuz] – Мейликан Козубекова
G4		Такмаза (I вариант) Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
G5		Такмаза (II вармант) Dombra [Komuz] – Муса Молдоканов
G6		Насыйкат Dombra [Komuz] – Жөлөгөн Чымырбаев
G7		Оң насыйкат Dombra [Komuz] – Курманаалы Калботоев
G8		Эл насыйкаты Dombra [Komuz] – Эркесары Бекбасаров
		Эл-жер Жөнүндөгү күүлөр
H1		Кириш сөз = Вступительное слово = Introduction Read By – З. Мамбеталиева
H2		Керме тоо Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
H3		Кер өзөн Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
H4		Кызарт Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
H5		Кең күңгөй Dombra [Komuz] – Ыбрай Туманов
H6		Кең күңгөйүм Dombra [Komuz] – Асанаалы Кыштообаев
H7		Уч коо Dombra [Komuz] – Кара Молдо Орозов
H8		Жай коңур Dombra [Komuz] – Асанаалы Кыштообаев
H9		Кыргыз калкым Dombra [Komuz] – Шекербек Шеркулов

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Traditional Folk Music & ballads of the Maltese Islands

 

TRADITIONAL FOLK MUSIC & BALLADS OF THE MALTESE ISLANDS

Anthony d'Amato, ?; ADC 7008

Malta is an archipelago made of three islands : Malta the biggest one, Gozo (Ghawdex) and between these two the smallest one Comino (Kemmuna). The language is semitic with a lot of other influences mainly Italian. Lying south of Sicily, Maltese traditional music sounds partly  like Southern Italian music with a repertoire of ballads sung in Maltese with guitar accompaniment. On this tape the guitar is also a solo instrument. But this tape is quite disappointing because of the total lack of information; no names and even the number of tracks is wrong : there are twelve of them listed but there are sixteen tracks really. But  maybe I made  mistakes in digitizing. 
Most of them are ballads sung by men with guitar in the local style which is quite distinctive. The other tracks are guitar music sounding more modern. There are other types of music in Malta especially bagpipe (zaqq)  music. The violin was in use too.
The sound recording is not always good and the whole lot looks like a compilation.
Anthony d'Amato seemed to have been the only local label. 

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Nuit précieuse au sérail

 

NUIT PRECIEUSE AU SERAIL

enregistrement réalisé à Topkapi (Istanbul) par Jean-Claude CHABRIER

PRECIOUS NIGHT AT THE SERAGLIO

recording made at Topkapi (Istanbul) by Jean-Claude Chabrier

Arion, 1970, 30 U 097 

This is another album that Arion didn't think suitable for reissue which is surprising when you know it. This recording was made by one of the best French connoisseurs at the time. I already gave some details about him in previous posts.
He wrote the full text (in French only) with a  brief introduction to oriental music in general followed by a presentation of the Turkish-Ottoman art music. He wrote as a conclusion :
''The Orient in not dead. Betrayed and ridiculed by a conceited and jealous West it still has the age-old wisdom and strength of its villagers and nomads to defend itself.../... The “Sick Man” is doing well; he will bury us''.
Unfortunately, what was maybe true in 1970 is not anymore in 2024. Turkey and the Near-East are  experiencing serious problems. But music can help us to feel closer to these cultures. 
This album is  a great way for us  to familiarize ourselves with this superb classical Ottoman music played on instruments like the kanun, the yayla-tanbur or the ney. All the pieces are taksim(s) on specific makam(s) lasting less than six minutes each. All are solos and demand to be listened to carefully; it is a real trip in time and space.
The ney is played by Hayri Tümer a neyzen Chabrier liked particularly (see earlier posts).

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Giora Feidman

 

מוזיקת ​​נשמה  / גיורא פיידמ

GIORA FEIDMAN / "JEWISH SOUL MUSIC''

Hed-Arzi, 1972, BAN 14297

My father (who went  abroad    for his work sometimes) brought back this exceptional album when I was still a kid in the early seventies.
G. Feidman was born in Argentina in 1936 in a musical family originating from Bessarabia. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather were musicians playing mostly for weddings. He went to Israel when he was twenty and stayed there as a professional musician with the Israel Philarmonic Orchestra. He became a renowned clarinet player and his discography is huge.
Here he plays with Ami Frenkel on electric bass and Yossi Levi on guitar, a perfect combination that highlights Feidman's powerful playing. Most of the tunes are traditional including superb melodies like Yah Ribon or Shalom Aleichem. I think it's difficult not to enjoy his music, the dynamics and mastering on the instrument above all his work on the reed. 

 

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