Les musiciens de la forêt

 

GABON / LES MUSICIENS DE LA FORÊT VOL. 1

THE MUSICIANS OF THE FOREST 

Ocora, 1981,  558569

 Ocora had several series including this one entitled ''living traditional music''; and in this series there were several categories here the first one entitled ''music from the oral tradition''. 

Gabon is a small country  with less than 2,5 million people in 2023 (9 inhabitants per square kilometre). But as it is often the case in Africa the population is quite diversified with mostly bantu groups like the Fang, the Punu-Echira, the Vili or the Myene; the only other non-bantu people are the Pygmies who settled there before the Bantu.
This album is the work of Catherine Oneto and Hugues Poitevin, two people who fell in love with the locals. They recorded some ritual music sung and played with the eight-string harp ngombi by Nzé Menvié (seen on the cover) a Fang farmer, sculptor and crafstman in his sixties at the time of the recordings. So this ritual music was not performed during a religious ceremony. Part of this repertoire belongs to what is called bwiti that the Fang have adopted from the Tsogo at teh beginning of the twentieth century only. But the aim of Oneto and Poitevin was to help Menvié and the villagers in agricultural and cultural terms. For that they created an association which is helped by the Gabonese government. 
This is not a an ethnomusicology record so the notes are brief.
These recordings were made in 1979 in mono but published in stereo.
Text in French only. I don't think that this volume 1 was followed by a second one. 

 


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La vina de Balachander

 LA VINA DE S. BALACHANDER

 Prestige  de la musique extra-européenne l'Inde vol. 6

 Disques Espérance, 1978, ESP 165 510

This album was recorded with the help of the Association Française des Amis de l'Orient. This association used to organize lots of concerts during the seventies and the eighties in Paris at the Musée Guimet. Indian artists were the most numerous and some of them started their European career there.
That was not the case for Balachander who was born in 1927 and gave his first concert in 1943. He's a master of the South Indian vina or veena but he started music on the  kanjeera and tabla, then the sitar before discovering the vina.
He plays the raga mayamalavagaula (15th melakarta in the Carnatic system) corresponding to the Hindustani raag bhairavi.
Side B is dedicated to the kriti ''meru samaana'' composed by Tyagaraja in the same raga.
 R. Krishnamurthy joins Balachander on this kriti set to the tala adi.

Text in French only.

 

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Tereza Tarouca

 

 OS MELHORES FADOS DE TEREZA TAROUCA

 RCA, 1978, 098

 Tereza Tarouca (1942-2019) was born Tereza de Jesus Pinto Coelho Telles da Silva but she decided to take her great grand-father's name, Tarouca. She was a cousin of Maria Tereza de Noronha. Born to a musical family in Lisbon she started singing at the age of eleven then began singing fado when she was thirteen. She signed with RCA in 1962.
She always worked with prestigious composers like D. António de Bragança, João de Noronha, Alfredo Marceneiro, Pedro Homem de Mello, Maria Manuel Cid among others. Side A starts with one of her hits Saudade, siléncio e sombra. She was one the great voices of fado.
As the title says this cassette is a compilation and the accompanists are not mentionned.
There is also a LP by the same name with two extra songs.

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António Severino

 

ANTÓNIO SEVERINO

Discosete, 1986, C-379 

A. Severino was a famous fadista from Setubal near Lisbon. He died at the age of 84 this year. Maybe not the most famous here among other great fadistas like A. Rodrigues or Marceneiro he had a long career recording more than 300 songs, not all fados,  most of them dedicated to the sea and sailors. He had no family roots in fado though.
He's accompanied by Jorge Fontes a big name for the portuguese guitar and a small orchestra.

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INDIA II

 

A MUSICAL ANTHOLOGY OF THE ORIENT 

INDIA II

Edited fot the International Music Council by the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation

Bärenreiter Musicaphon, ?,  BM 30 L 2007

This is the second album on India and the seventh one in this anthology with Alain Daniélou as General Editor.
This album is dedicated to the ''music of the dance and theatre of South India'' specifically the Bharata Natyam and only one track on Kathakali.
The Bharata Natyam is danced by women only to the singing and drumming of  several performers. Here the mridangam,the kartals, the flute, the violin and jew's harp are part of the orchestra. Although it's not mentionned I can hear a clarinet on track B2. Bharata Natyam is typical of Tamil country while Kathakali hails from Kerala.
What is quite surprising is that after a succession of different dances with plenty of drumming it is customary to conclude the Bharata Natyam performance with a shlokam where the dancer must follow and mime what's sung in the poem called tevaram on Krishna's love. No drumming but just one singer with his disciple and a shruti box.
Text in English (German and French)
All the albums of this series are mono-recordings.

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Enchanting all the way

 

USTAD VILAYAT KHAN / ENCHANTING ALL THE WAY 

TABLA ZAKIR HUSSAIN

EMI, 1980, ECSD 2857

Ustad Vilayat Khan (1928-2004) was with Ravi Shankar the sitar player the best-known and best-loved sitarist; both had an incredible career although quite different. Here is a site dedicated to his music : https://vilayatkhan.com/vk/
Two  raag are played on this album : mand-bhairav that he created himself and mishra mand which is first a Rajasthan folk melody which he elevates to the rank of classical raga.
He created other new raag like kalavanti or sanjh saravali.
This album is one of the many to his credit.

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DAGAR BROTHERS

DAGAR BROTHERS

KHANSAHIB NASIR MOINUDDIN DAGAR and
KHANSAHIB NASIR AMINUDDIN DAGAR

RAGA - DARBARI KANADA . ADANA
MRIDANG ACCOMPANIMENT . S.V. PATWARDHAN 

Club du Disque Arabe, 1965, EALP . 1291   

This is an album originally made in India for HMV/EMI in 1965; le Club du Disque Arabe (or Artistes Arabes Associés) was a French label based in Paris (125 bd Ménilmontant in the 11th arrondissement) founded in 1972 by Mohamed el Habib Hachlef which was part of the label Pathé Marconi. Of course 95% of the catalogue was made of records from North Africa and the Near and Middle East. But they also had some records from India such as this album which has the same cover and reference number as the original HMV. They just replaced the original stamp by theirs on the back cover.  This label disapearred in 1997.

Now, these two brothers were considered as the kings of dhrupad style. They sing the raag darbari kanada a night raag ''full of majesty and grandeur'' as the text says. Side A is for the alap and side B starts with a dhamar in the same raag followed by the raag adana; adana is also a night raag close enough to darbari kanada but  lighter in spirit and  the note ''ga'' is missing in the ascending scale. Those interested in Hindustani music theory should be happy with this site : https://tanarang.com/raag-index/

The mridang played by master V. Patwardhan is also called pakhawaj. 

The text is in English.

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ETREAMB-NI BAMBOCHERION

 

ETREAMB-NI BAMBOCHERION
BOMBARDE - BINIOU KOZ

 

BETWEEN US CAROUSERS

 

 BAS, 1979, BAS 307

BAS stands for Bodadeg Ar Sonerion or Assembly of Musicians association created right in the middle of World War II in 1943. Here the musicians are bombarde and binioù players. Polig Montjarret and other Breton people got the idea because traditional Breton music (and way of life generally speaking) was fast disappearing after World War I. People in Brittany saw traditional music as ''old stuff'' like the language and   it was time to go forward and be as'' French'' as possible. If the Breton language managed to resist in some parts of the country the fashions from Paris were too strong and attractive for young people to ignore.
So in order to preserve what was left musicwise that group of young musicians organized workshops, musical events, published a lot of score books etc...  They also invented the ''bagad'' or band of bombardes, binioù bras and drums based on the Scottish pipe band model. They have succeeded beyond all hope; BAS still exists and Breton traditional music has been thriving ever since. 

The title of this LP refers to a song for the dance called laridé; bambocherion is in fact  the French word ''bambocheurs'' which refers to people who like good food and wine, who like to party. Breton sonneurs had this reputation to drink too much and live out of the ordinary way of life which was not true most of them being peasants or craftmen; but some of them were certainly free thinkers. 

As the text in French says it was very difficult to choose some couples of sonneurs because there are so  many excellent players. Seven of them were selected including musicians from Lower and Upper Brittany with a good choice of dances, melodies and marches. 

The cover is a picture of the memorial to the sonneurs of Plozenet. 

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Rétrospective du Trophée Per Guillou

 

RETROSPECTIVE DU TROPHEE PER GUILLOU

Bombardes et biniou de la Montagne

Chanteurs et musiciens de Bretagne n°9

---------

RETROSPECTIVE OF THE TROPHY ''PER GUILLOU''

Bombardes and binious of the Mountain

Singers and musicians from Brittany n°9

Dastum Kreiz Breizh, 1995, DAS-123

From this very good series we have here a sound sample of the state of couple musique in central Brittany recorded during the tenth anniversary of this trophy. These recordings were not supposed to be commercialized but Dastum thought it was relevant after all. Over the years other instruments  appeared in addition to the bombard-biniou but since Per Guillou was a ''sonneur'' it was decided that this tape would present bombarde-biniou music only.

Per Guillou (1933-1978) was one of the greatest musicians in his area and beyond. The area is what is called ar Menez or Mountain where the main dance is the gavotten danced in chains (before that it was danced in a circle) based on three parts gavotten/bal/gavotten hence the word ''suite''. Half of the programme here is made of ''suites'' along with five marches and only one melody or slow air.
Guillou who was first an accountant had finally given up this profession and became a sonneur with different partners including Yann Peron (see his LP posted earlier). He was very much appreciated and he played for dancing groups, fest noz, weddings etc.. He could also make instruments but using the old scale that was used by the ancient sonneurs he learned his music from. He also taught music to numerous young players over the sixties and the seventies. Everybody agrees to say that he had a major role in the preservation of the local culture while traditonal music was not as big as it is now. And this tape is a good example of this. 
Booklet in French.

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Clarinettes et anciennes danses populaires du Trégor

 

CLARINETTES ET ANCIENNES DANSES POPULAIRES DU TREGOR

Chanteurs  et musiciens de Bretagne N°5

CLARINETS AND OLD FOLK DANCES FROM TREGOR

Singers and musicians from Brittany N°5

Dastum Bro Dreger/Dastum , 1991, DAS-115

This is part of a special collection dedicated to some singers and musicians from various regions in Brittany that was isssued on cassettes only. Although of great value they were never reissued on compact disc. I already posted several of them here for that reason. But Dastum had decided recently to provide free access to this series on their site : https://www.dastumedia.bzh/
Of course it's in French and partly in Breton and you would need to create an account to access these documents; something maybe not easy if you don't speak French. So I decided to post the other tapes as well.
Here we have an excellent example of what could be the work of somebody who is a musician, a singer, a scholar and collector all at once. Bernard Lazbleiz (his surname means the wolf killer in Breton) is such a man knowing that he also speaks Breton and has been working on Breton culture for decades especially his native area the Tregor or Bro Dreger in Breton.
The music is great and the booklet in French is just perfect. Lazbleiz talks about the clarinet of course, an instrument that was quite in fashion for a century in numerous parts of Brittany often played in pairs like the bombarde and biniou formation. He talks about old players who maintained this tradition with difficulty until the 1950s; as soon as the 1920s just after the war the clarinet was les and less in demand as were the other traditional instruments and the music they provided as well. But during the folk revival in the 70s young people started to play the clarinet again; the music recorded here is mainly played by such revivalists and one musician born in 1932 Marcel Méhu. Bernard Lazbleiz sings and plays the box on sole tracks.
The second part of the booklet deals with dances that disappeared almost but that were also saved from oblivion by revivalists.
The last part deals with the musicians who took part to the recordings. 

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KOНЦEPTЫ B PEГИCTAHE '87

 

KOНЦEPTЫ B PEГИCTAHE

Tpeтий междуиародный музыковедческий симпозиум

САМАРКАНД-87

CONCERTS AT REGHISTAN

Third international musicological symposium

SAMARKAND-87

Melodiya, 1988,  S30 27145 002

It was important for the Soviet authorities to organise major cultural events, particularly musical ones, showcasing the traditional cultures of the peoples that made up the USSR. Leaving aside the purely political aspect, these meetings enabled artists to perform outside their republic and to record and for us it was an opportunity to listen to music that was still rare outside the Soviet Union at the time.
This third edition called on the republics of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kirghizstan.
Side A has Kazakh dombra music, singing and one track by an instrumental ensemble.
Side B has three Turkmen and four Kirghiz items with singing, dutar, temir-komyz and chupo choor.
Of course this is ''soviet'' music with artists who had to perform within a certain framework; most of the pieces of music are compositions with some traditional stuff like a fragment of the epic song ''Korogly''.
Another disc I borrowed in Paris at the Soviet Cultural Centre in the late eighties.

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AHTOЛOГИЯ KAЗAXCKOЙ ИHCTPУMEHTAЛHOЙ MУЗЫKИ (KЮИ)

 

                AHTOЛOГИЯ KAЗAXCKOЙ ИHCTPУMEHTAЛHOЙ MУЗЫKИ (KЮИ)

ANTHOLOGY OF INSTRUMENTAL KAZAKH MUSIC (KIUI)

Melodiya, 1969, GOST 5289-68/D025563-64 

This is the first disc of a series of eight on Kazakh traditional music in the Soviet period. Unfortunately I don't have the other seven albums. This one was borrowed during the eighties from the Soviet Cultural Center in Paris. I don't remember whether the whole lot was available. I didn't scan the cover either. So  the titles of the tunes are mentionned with the audio files.
To have an idea about the full content of this series check that site :

https://www.soundbarmusic.com/product-page/v-a-%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%85%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D1%83%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BC%D1%83%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%B8-%D0%BA%D1%8E%D0%B8-box-set-8lp?srsltid=AfmBOoqmvtgqbnlG5kxSahLAJHRoOcIPtShMKzoHBIT-7MEfgWWurVQ_ 

There are no information about the dombra players or about the concept of''kiu''.  

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India I

 INDIA I 

A MUSICAL ANTHOLOGY OF THE ORIENT
Edited by the International Music Council under the direction of Alain Daniélou

Unesco Collection-Musicaphon Bärenreiter,  ?, BM 30L2006

This series about India has four albums made of recordings by A. Daniélou between 1949 and 1951 for this album. They are all supposed to have been reissued as CD by Auvidis or Rounder as read on some sites. But I never found any of them listed on the main platforms. So I'm posting them here until further notice.

Album I focuses on Vedic recitation and chant. A. Daniélou (1907-1994) wrote the presentation text. While he was considered as ''the specialist'' of Hinduism and Indian music between the 1930s and the 1960s in France, some musiclogists and musicians pointed out errors in his publications. Now many more recent works have a different approach and perception of Indian music. But I suppose most of the short introduction is reliable. He says that ''Vedic chant is probably the oldest known form of psalmody'' and thinks that this kind of chant has been preserved through very strict and complex teaching in spite of social changes and political events. But nobody knows for sure when this collection of texts has been drawn up; some say between 1900 and 1000 BCE, others 3500 BCE ...;  but although everything is written  the transmission has been orally done until now;   brahmans teach young children  through specific and very strict vocal techniques based on tonal stress, a unique way of pronouncing each letter, in order to keep texts unchanged.
Of course all this was based on the cast system that was praised by Daniélou who was much criticised on this subject.

Anyway it is an interesting document to listen to for this ''music'' long predates what is called Hindustani classical music and is believed to have been in practice even before the Aryans arrived in present India. Most of the Rig Veda is sung with three notes except for Sāma Veda which is considered more ''musical''. At least rhythm in Indian classical music is surely related to the Vedic Sankrit poetry.

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LES MENESTRIERS

 

LES MENESTRIERS  DOMINO 

 Disque du Cavalier, 1973, BP 2003

This is the third album recorded by this French group founded in 1969 (see my other posts for more details).
Again, side A is dedicated to tunes and songs from Northern France between the 12th and the 15th centuries. Side B is more european with Renaissance dances from England, Italy and France.
Among the usual instruments they used we can hear the jew's harp on track 5 something that was new at the time among early music bands.

 

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Mnong Gar du Vietnam

 

MUSIQUE MNONG GAR DU VIETNAM
enregistrements de Georges Condominas 

COLLECTION MUSEE DE L'HOMME

------

MNONG GAR MUSIC FROM VIETNAM
recordings Georges Condominas

COLLECTION ''MUSEUM OF MAN''

Disques Ocora, ORTF, 1972, OCR 80

This is the first volume of a series called ''Anthology of Proto-Indochinese Music''. As far as I know there was no follow up.
Georges Condominas was a French ethnologist specialized in South-east Asia. He was born in Haiphong (Vietnam) in 1921 and died in Paris in 2011. He started his field surveys in 1948 at Sar Luk among the Mnong Gar which he studied over a long period. From this experience he published a book (among others) in 1957 translated to English in 1977 : ''we ate the forest of the spirit-stone Gôo''. He was totally committed  to anti-colonialism, to promoting development that respects traditional cultures and he tried to warn the French public of  the Mnong Gar ethnocide. Unfortunately he was not really understood at that time. 

He wrote the texts introducing the music he recorded with enough detail to enjoy what we hear. The gong (that they don't make but buy from other people) is one the main instruments played in bands sometimes with the support of a drum. The mouth organ is in use too.There are songs for funerals, love songs or kind of mythological songs.
Some tracks were recorded in Cambodia among another population close to the Mnong Gar.
Texts in English (and French).

 

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Viet-Nam

             

         MUSIQUE DU VIET-NAM                                    MUSIQUE PROTO INDOCHINOISE

     interprétée par TRAN VAB KHE                           recueillie chez les Moïs des Hauts Plateaux
    MAI THU et Mme MONG TRUNG                                mission FRANTZ LAFOREST 

      Grand Prix du Disque/Académie du                                             BAM, LD 326
                     Disque Français

                       BAM, LD 365

These two 7'' vinyles were published by the French label ''la Boîte à Musique'' established in 1934 by Jacques Lévi Alvarès essentially to issue Jazz and Classical music. But there were also documents like these in their catalogue.
The first one ''Music from Vietnam'' is the work of Trân Van Khê (1921-2015) who was like Mister Vietnamese music in France where he settled in 1949. A musician and singer, a teacher and a writer he was a tireless propagator of his culture. He made several albums since the eighties. He plays here the dan-tranh, dan-co and dan-kim. Most of the tunes presented here were parts of his repertoire until the end.
I don't know the two other artists. 

The second record is totally different and features field-recordings made in 1955 by Frantz Laforest, Louise Berthe and a small crew. Entitled ''Proto-Indochinese music'' it is a beautiful example of good field-recordings although all tracks are short enough. The Moïs are  one of the first inhabitants in Central Vietnam near the Annamitic Cordillera. Moï is in fact a generic name which is rather pejorative for different people like the Jaraï , Banhar, Sedang etc... These people have different instruments like ''xylophone'', jew's harp and the amazing gong bands. The tracks are well introduced but in French only. 

I suppose that these ''tribes'' were living a relatively peaceful life at the time of the recordings. Their environment was then certainly affected by the war and now by modern development in Vietnam in particular with the ongoing deforestation which reduces their living possibilities.

 

     

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These two discs were reissued together by BAM under the title ''Musics of Vietnam''.

Chants et danses des montagnards du Viet-Nam

 

CHANTS ET DANSES DES MONTAGNARDS DU VIET-NAM

RICHESSE DU FOLKLORE N°14

SONGS AND DANCES OF THE VIETNAMESE MOUTAIN PEOPLE 

A WEALTH OF FOLKLORE N°14

Riviéra, 1967, 421.075 P 

This very short but exciting album was made by Maurice Bitter a French ''globe-trotter'' who was active in the sixties and the seventies. At that time France had several men (as it was the case then) who used to travel to very remote lands in order to record local music unheard by French ordinary music lovers. There was a name for them, ''chasseurs de sons'' or ''sound-hunters'' and sometimes they had the opportunity to present their findings on national French radio programmes. Bitter had a programme called ''beyond the seas" that I listened to, late in the evening when I was a kid in the early seventies. He was also a journalist, a writer and a televison producer. He died in 1997.

Here Bitter was very fortunate to have been able to make that trip over to the high plateaux of central Viet-Nam. But he precises that all side B was recorded in difficult conditions although he doesn't specify them. Civil war between North and South Viet-Nam had already begun in 1959 and from 1965 the USA sent massive numbers of GIs and bombed North Viet-Nam heavily. Caught bewteen were the mountain people made up of numerous ethnic groups. Bitter gives no information about their situation when he was there. It was peaceful enough according to the quality of the singing and the playing by these people. In fact we don't know when these recordings were made.
The technical quality is not great though but Riviéra had the right reaction to publish these recordings for a large audience. All the tracks are great in spite of noise interference.
Note that tracks BIII and BIV are together.
Short text of introduction in English about the disc and the tracks.

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Fest Noz Nevez

 

FEST.NOZ NEVEZ  INEDITS

NEW FEST.NOZ    UNPUBLISHED

 

Arfolk, 1974, SB 320, SB 321 

 

Arfolk is one the oldest Breton labels founded in Lorient in 1967 by Jo Gragnic. Following its primary goal the promotion of Breton music  the label recorded different  artists and genre : the traditional kan ha diskan and binioù & bombard music as well as bagadoù, the Breton pipe-bands. When the revival started in Brittany launched by Stivell among others Arfolk also  recorded plenty of folk bands.
Here we have a double album with traditional or so singers and musicians as well as folk groups. There are no information about the songs and tunes or the people. If we believe the label all these tracks are unpublished and were made especially for this album.
The sentence on the cover means ''Breton music is''.
So to help you to follow and enjoy the music I list below what types of dances are presented  here.

disc 1 :
A1 the Pennec brothers play a three-part set from the Fisel country made of fisel-bal-fisel
A2 the Pennec brothers play a particular gavotte from the Pourlet country
A3 Yann Vikel Bourdieg sings a laridé in Breton from the Vannes country with the band           called an Trouzerion Goh (see my earlier post)
A4 Ar Penseerien (the shipwreckers in Breton) play one gavotte from Inner Brittany

B1/B2/B3  the Coulouarn sisters sing  a set (plin-bal-plin) from the Fanch country

B4 the Kergosien brothers play two an dro (the circle). The first an dro  is a peculier one;
      the tune sounds identical to ''estolisan to sperveri'' a wedding song from the Greek island       of Rhodes. I knew the Greek song before getting this album and it stroke me                          immediately. Is it possible that a Breton tune from the Vannes country be more than          similar to a Greek tune without any contacts ? or did these ''sonneurs'' adopted this                wedding song that can be danced to like an dro ? The Greek song is performed by a               traditional female singer and choir with a lyra and a laouto players who were members          of a folk ensemble set up by Simon Karas the great musicologist on the album named in       French ''Voyage en Grèce-Simon Karas'' published by Le Chant du Monde in the 1970s.       I added this track to this album.
B5 the Kergosien brothers play a laridé

 

disc 2 :
A1 Sonerien Du (the Black Pipers/Musicians in Breton) play a set of gavotten-tamm kreiz-         gavotten (ar menez)
A2/A3/A4 the Coulouarn sisters sing a gavotten-tamm kreiz-gavotten
A5 the Pennec brothers play perhaps a set of ''ronds'' from Loudéac with a bal between
B1 the Kergosien brothers play an an dro
B2 the Coulouarn sisters sing a set of gavotten ar menez with a tamm kreiz (litteraly the bit       in the middle) between
B3 the folk band Kouerien Sant Yann play two laridé (round dance from the Vannetais                 country)

Globally this compilation is not the best one but not the worst either. Although Sonerien Du have been one of the big folk bands for decades I'm not that gone on them. To me the best part is the track by Kouerien Sant Yann (the Peasants from Saint John) with an interesting approach to music played by solid musicians. They had three albums out on the Arfolk label. Unlike Sonerien Du the band disbanded in the eighties. Their albums were reissued on different CDs. Alain Pennec was also a member of Kouerien.

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