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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Y. Marcus & C. Gibbons

 

YOURA MARCUS & CRISTI GIBBONS

sans titre ...  (untitled ...)

Arfolk, 1979,  SB 373

Youra Marcus was one of the pioneers in the French revival movement at the end of the sixties.  He played the five-string banjo and bluegrass and old-time music. He was a member of the first (probably) French band that specialized in American music with Gabriel Yacoub and Phil Fromont in 1969. The band was called the New Ragged Company. Then he met other important artists during the seventies like Bill Deraime, Patrick Desaunay, John Wright ... He played  in duet with the American banjo player Derroll Adams between 1978 and 1986. He passed away in 2020.
This album was recorded in 1977 and released two years later. Here he's with the female-singer, hurdy-gurdy and autoharp player Cristi Gibbons. There is no information about her on the album but I read on the web that she was at the time P. Molard's wife. I suppose she was American. The other musicians are Christian Gourhan on fiddle, J. Padovani on drums, Lolotte on piano, Dan ar Bras on guitar, P. Beaupoil on bass, Patrick Molard on flute, whistle and Scottish bagpipe, Dominique Molard on bodhran. Youra also sings and plays guitar and autoharp.
The repertoire is mainly American of course with some compositions by Marcus and Gibbons like ''Sans Titre".
On track B1 they play a ''Norvégienne'' which is a Norwegian reinlender similar to the scottish.
There is a mistake on the cover for track A5 where P. and D. Molard play as well. This track called Termaji was P. Molard' and Cristi's composition and refers to the way people in Brittany used to call the magic lantern at the beginning of the XXth century. Termaji was the name of the trio Marcus set up with Molard and Gibbons in Brittany.
There is an interesting arrangement on track B2 where Gibbons sings with Molard's pipe before he plays the tune as a pibroch to the end.
The lyrics in English are on the back cover. 

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Youcef Esseghir

 

FOLKLORE TUNISIEN

ORCHESTRE YOUCEF ESSEGHIR/MEZOUED  YOUCEF ELKAROUI

RBAÏBIYA VOLUME 2

Les Artistes Arabes Associés,  1976, 72612

One of the main characteristics of Tunisian folk music is the use of the bagpipe called mezoued. This bagpipe is also used in parts of Algeria near the Tunisian and Lybian borders. Youcef Elkaroui is very good on it. He plays throughout each song to support the singers along with a strong set or drummers.
Mezoued is a genre in itself.
I've never found the first volume but a compilation is available on Bandcamp (https://lesartistesarabesassocies.bandcamp.com/album/chanson-populaire-tunisienne) where three tracks of  the present album are part of that compilation.
This was an album I borrowed from my local library so it cracks at the beginning of each side but the sound of the music is clear. 

 

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The Distinctive Two

 

THE DISTINCTIVE TWO

Prof. V.G. Jog and Pt Hariprasad Chaurasia

Violin & Flute Jugalbandi

Ragas : Jog . Hansadhwani
Holi Mishra Kafi

Tabla Pandit Mahapurush Mishra 

HMV, 1978, ECSD 2808

This is one of the numerous albums edited by His Master's Voice India  with great names of Hindustani classical music. As said in the presentation text the idea of playing along with another solo partner is not new to Hindustani music. Dhrupad gave many examples of this combination. But mixing instruments like the violin and the bansuri is more recent in the long history of Indian art music.
V.G. Jog and Hariprasad Chaurasia are two amazing exponents of classical music. I find Jog a bit stiff though at times while Chaurasia is just perfect as usual.
Each piece is shortly introduced to with basic information about each raag.
Note that the rhythmic cycle called ''tritaal'' is also  known as  ''teentaal''

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''l'Afghanistan"

 

''L'AFGHANISTAN"

MUSIQUE DE LA ZONE INTERDITE DU NOURISTAN 

 MUSIC FROM THE NOURISTAN FORBIDDEN ZONE

Barclay, 1968, 920 086

Afghanistan as Nepal or India drew a multitude of travellers and adventurers in search of a powerful experience. This was possible in the sixties and seventies before the Russian invasion. And a number of them made recordings in the field throughout the country for Afghanistan was so rich in traditional and popular music that any kind of recordings could do for a good album. Yves Sommavilla was one of them and is presented as a ''keen traveller'' along with François Denis who spent time together in Afghanistan in 1968.
Now, what is really interesting in this album is the music and songs they managed to record in what is called now Nuristan formerly known as Kafiristan the land of the heathens in the north-east. This region was islamised at the end of the nineteenth century only by the emir Abdur Rahman Khan who conquered the area and changed its name.  It was probably difficult to go there even in the sixties and this looks like a ''tour de force'' but they don't explain why Nuristan was forbidden. Although the inhabitants are officially Muslims they nevertheless (at that time anyway) managed to keep some of their ancient beliefs.
There are six tracks : three about Nuristan and three from different parts of the country (Kandahar, Kabul, Chaga-Saray). The most amazing tracks are instrumental music on the flute ''tula'' backed by framed drums. The tula player is excellent and the sound recording is good. Sommevilla says that they recorded this music at night at the Waigel pass (4800 m above sea level). It was then outside  at night in a remote place but the festivities were stopped by the local imam. The Nuristani like the related Kalash had still the custom of singing songs to ancestors when one month after a death the body was replaced by a wooden effigy (track A3).
The others tracks are less exotic with surnay and dohol music, hashish-smoking house music with a singer, a harmonium, two tabla and dambura. The last track was recorded in a hotel in Kabul where  ghijak and zerbaghali players performed for tourists.
Text in French. 

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Tunisie

  

TUNISIE  23 

Musique du Monde, ?, 21-500-42-2

This album  looks like it was a kind of catalogue or special product for the French public or tourists. All the photos being from the Tunisian National Tourist Office I believe the music was also recorded for this Office. All the musicians are anonymous. The French text speaks about the fact that tourists are usually cut  off from the real culture of Tunisia since they all spend their holiday time in special resorts with faked or half-faked displays of music and dance specially made for them so that in the end the tourist goes back to France with a distorted picture of Tunisia and its culture.
So the music provided here is purely instrumental which is a bit strange when we know that singing is quite dominant. But as the text says the goal of this album is not to give details that only ethnomusicologists would enjoy. There is a presentation of the instruments recored here : gasba, zokra, kamun, mezoued, ney and darbuka. Some names of the instruments are badly spelled like ''sitar'' for ''cithare'' or ''nail'' for ney !

This disc bears number 23 in that collection  but  this is the only I have so I don't know about the other references in that collection.
It was distributed by ''Compagnie Française BASF''.
But thanks to Leonidas here is the complete list of all the albums issued in this collection :

https://www.discogs.com/label/263651-Collection-Musique-Du-Monde?page=1

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Rabah Driassa

 

DRIASSA A L'OLYMPIA

في الأولمبيا 

 Les Artistes Arabes Associés, 1975, 72600

 R. Driassa (1934-2021) was a very famous singer and composer in Algeria. He was also a painter. He sang between 1953 and 1990. In 1953 he had the possibility to sing one of his own songs for a radio broadcast in Algiers. Then he began his career at the time of Algeria's independence. He sang diffenrent types of songs from patriotic ones to Bedouin and Sahraoui. Some of his compositions were national hits like ''El Goumri''.
Here he was in Paris at the Olympia a place which saw plenty of  French stars but also foreigners like Driassa who sang for the important Algerian community in the Paris area at a time where some of the Algerian working for Renault or other big industrial plants lived in shanty towns in the suburbs of Paris. Obviously the public was exclusively Arabic speaking only since all Driassa's talking was in Arabic. It was the first time that immigrant people had the opportunity to listen to one of them in that venue.
All the songs were new ones all composed by him except for one. He was backed by a typical orchestra with five violins, a luth, a ney flute and the rhythmic section. But the sound was also enhanced by the use of a quarter-tone  accordion; there is also a bouzouk, a double bass and a small choir.
Frequently singers like to link two songs together; here Driassa links songs on tracks Al and A2, A3 and A4, B1 and B2.

Text in French.

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Juan Vicente Torrealba

 

CONCIERTO EN LA LLANURA (Música Tipica Venezolana)

LOS TORREALBEROS - Al Arpa : Juan Vicente Torrealba

VOL. 1

CONCERT IN THE PLAIN (Tipical Venezuelan Music)

On Harp : Juan Vicente Torrealba

Discos Banco Largo,  ?, QBL - 1204

J.V. Torrealba (full name + Perez) (1917-2019) was considered as the father or one of them of the classical Venezuelan harp music. This volume is the first of a series of three on this label. My father brought it back from Caracas in the early seventies.
The formation is the traditional one with harp, cuatro and maracas; here a double bass is added to double the basses of the harp. Torrealba's playing is quite polished and a bit withheld compared to traditional players in the plains where the strings of the harp are really beaten in a wilder style. But his music is nice nevertheless with a lot of his compositions (eights tracks out of eleven).
Side A has a majority of pasajes with two joropos while side B has what is called caprichos all composed by him.
Eight tracks are part of a compilation published by Gilmar in 1990 but three of the present  tracks were not reissued : B2, B4 and B5. So I hope  fans of Venezuelan harp music will be happy with this post. 

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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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