MUḤAMMAD ABŪ NAṢṢĀR

 MUḤAMMAD ABŪ NAṢṢĀR / YĀ AHL SANꜤĀ’

PEOPLE OF SANA'A! 

BURJ AL-ꜤUŠŠĀQ, no date, 268

This is one of the tapes I got from a friend who spent a few years in Yemen for his studies about the 18th century  Yemenite poetry. As usual I can't read the titles; the information above was given by this friend.
Abu Nassar is a singer and ud player who sings in the tradition of the capital Sana'a. This kind of music is performed at home with friends and everybody (meaning here men) chew some qat for hours. The qat is believed to have been imported to Yemen in the 14th century from Eastern Africa and has been cultivated in Yemen ever since. The lyrics are often old poetry. The influence of Eastern Africa or even Indian Ocean might give this music its specificity. Here Abu Nassar is accompanied by the sahn a copper tray and other percussions.
There are seven songs; thanks to Leonidas for providing the titles in his comment.

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Musiques classiques & populaires d'Afghanistan

 

MUSIQUES CLASSIQUES & POPULAIRES D'AFGHANISTAN

anthologie de la musique des peuples

CLASSICAL & FOLK MUSICS  OF AFGHANISTAN

 anthology of the peoples' music

AMP, 1981, AMP 2901 

 This excellent album is the work of Bernard Dupaigne who worked for the Musée de l'Homme, Paris. The principal instruments played in Afghanistan are displayed here : tanbur, rebab, ghijak, harmonium, delroba etc... During four successive trips Dupaigne visited different parts of the country but all located in Northern Afghanistan : Sar-i Pul, Mazar-i Sharif, Andkhôy, Herat, Tashqurgan, Aqcha, Saltuk. The ethnic groups are Tajik, Uzbek, Aymaq, Hazara and of course Pashtoon. The recordings were made before the Soviet invasion between 1971 and 1973.
The music here is mostly of the folk kind the classical aspect is in fact in some lyrics as it is explained in the sleeve notes in French and English.

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Korean social and folk music

 

KOREAN SOCIAL AND FOLK MUSIC

recorded by John Levy

Lyrichord,  1969, LLST 7211

John Levy (1910-1976) was a British philosopher as well as a recording engineer; he travelled mainly in Europe and Asia and became a connoisseur of some Asian musical traditions like Korean or Tibetan ones.
His massive personal collection of recordings is now housed at the School of Scottish Studies. All the LPs issued by Levy are well documented with a good deal of explanations. This album is one of them.
We can listen to three instrumental sanjo with komungo, ajaeng and hojok. The other tracks feature one male singer and three female singers. There is a very short extract of p'ansori while the other three songs are complete. All tracks have puk or changgo backing. Track A2 is a fantastic ajaeng solo by Han Ilsup. The whole album is outstanding.
Lyrichord is an American label which started in 1950 dealing with traditional and modern world music along with early and classical music. On the central sticker of the album is written : ''exceptional LP records for the discerning listener''. Truly I was never disappointed by any of that label's productions.

This LP has not been reissued as a CD but is available on Lyrichord site for downloading. So I'd mention this album only as a reminder.

Pakistan

 

This tape was brought back from Pakistan by a friend who like me doesn't read Arabic nor Urdu.

This is a typical case of wondering when absolutely no information is available from the cover or sleeve but local languages. However it was a good pick; the music on this tape is nice: one male singer with dotar and some drumming with a lot of reverberation typical of that kind of local productions. There are 5 tracks altogether.

Thanks to ''qp'' I know now that the singer's name is Rehmat Ali who sings in the language spoken around Chitral which lies near the Afghan border in Northern Pakistan. Difficult to know whether the singer is also the dotar player. According to ''qp'' the tape might have been recorded, produced or sold in Gilgit which is in Kashmir in the zone controled by Pakistan.

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