TRAD & FOLK MUSIC ON 33RPM & TAPES
AHMED AL-HAMMAMI
''ancient folklore''
This tape perhaps a commercial one which is a copy was given to me as such without any information or cover.
The Yemenite singer Al-Hammami plays the ud as well and is backed by a derbuka player.
Ali al-Ansi cited al-Hammami as one of his greatest influences.
I hope Leonidas or whoever it is will manage to get useful information about him.
AIRS A DANSER POUR CITHARE
sud-ouest de madagascar
DANCE TUNES FOR ZITHER
southwestern madagascar
Anthologie de la Musique des Peuples, 1981, AMP 2907
All the albums produced by this label are excellent under the direction of Bernard Dupaigne. This album is no exception. Bernard Koechlin made these recordings in the field between 1967 and 1969. The group of people presented here are the Vezo who live on the coast as semi-nomads travelling by pirogue or schooner. Among the different types of musical expressions the practice of the zither maaru vaani is quite developed and rich. All the pieces are instrumental demonstrating that this instrument is first of all a solo instrument with a vast repertoire.
As Koechlin says the zither was beginning to lose ground to the diatonic accordion especially where possession music is concerned; but it is still widely played nowadays.
The presentation text in English is very informative.
This is a copy of an album borrowed from a library.
MUSIQUE MALGACHE
MUSIC FROM MADAGASCAR
Ocora ORTF, 1982, OCR 24
Madagascar and its music have been the subject of numerous field recordings and some of them were published by Ocora. But this album is not part of Ocora catalogue anymore although it was reissued in 1984.
Charles Duvelle (1937-2017) who recorded the music, wrote the text, took the photos and produced the whole lot was a French ethnomusicologist who took part in the foudation of this label and who created as well his own label Prophet. He started to go to Africa in 1961 on behalf for the Office de Coopération Radiophonique (O.CO.RA)
The present recordings were made in 1963 over a period of two months and Duvelle's goal was to offer a kind of introduction to malagasy music with several instruments (but no valiha) and several ethnic groups. And we can feel the cultural richness of this island for sure.
Each track is well introduced in French and English and complete our desire for more.
ANTHOLOGY OF KYRGYZ MELODIES (PART ONE)
| I1 | Кириш сөз = Вступительное слово = Introduction | |
| I2 | Моңолбай (I вариант) | |
| I3 | Моңолбай (II вариант) | |
| I4 | Коңур каз (I вариант) | |
| I5 | Коңур каз (II вариант) | |
| I6 | Бекташ | |
| I7 | Айкүмүштүн такилет | |
| I8 | Кубагыш | |
| I9 | Кара теке | |
| J1 | Сараң кыз | |
| J2 | Ой керимбай | |
| J3 | Чегиртке | |
| J4 | Жанайым | |
| J5 | Шүдүңгүт | |
| J6 | Кулпенде | |
| J7 | Мандикер | |
| J8 | Төрөкелдим | |
| J9 | Эки достун айрылышы | |
| J10 | Баатыр карагул |
JAVA
gamelans from the sultan's palace in jogjakarta
musical traditions in Asia
Archiv Produktion, 1973, 2723017
Archiv Produktion is part of the German label Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft mostly known for its prestigious early and classical music catalogue.
But art music from other parts of the world was also of interest for this label as shown by the collection called ''Musical Traditions in Asia''.
The man behind this double album was Jacques Brunet the French musicologist one of the best specialist in south-east asian music (see earlier posts). This is a guarantee of quality in both recording and presentation. The text (in English here) starts with a brief historical introduction; then he gives some details about the palace (kraton) of Jogjakarta and the music played there.
The rest of the text is the work of Dr Liberty Manik starting with an introduction to the music recorded here (instruments, modes etc..) and the presentation of each track. Some of the gamelans still in use are very old dating back to the mid-18th century.The last track features a choir.
All pieces are played in their entirety and recordings were made in September 1972.
LES MENESTRIERS / HAS TU POINT VU ...
LES MENESTRIERS/DIDN'T YOU SEE ...
Cavalier, 1974, BP 2004
The French band Les Menestriers was a very important group in the field of medieval music. I posted their first album in May 2022 with some details about them. This is the fourth one with again side A dedicated to music from 13th to 15th centuries and side B devoted to Renaissance music. Here two additional musicians are present : Sylvie Beltrando whose ''small harp'' adds a new light to the music and Steve Rosenberg who is the main recorder player.
Their last album was made in 1980 with B. Pierrot as the only member left from the original band.
My copy was played a lot when I was young and is a bit worn out; so I found the present audio files from the Internet.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
ETHIOPIA I COPTS AN ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN MUSIC / 4 Edited for the International Music Council by the International Institute for Comparativ...
