musiques mexicaines

 

MUSIQUES MEXICAINES

MEXICAN MUSICS

Zapotèque Huichol Nahuatl Séri Purépecha Tarahumara Maya Chontal Mixtèque Lacandon

Disques Ocora, ORTF,  1978, OCR 73

This is an album entirely recorded in the field by Jose Raul Hellmer among Mexico's indigenous population. Back then, out of the 50 million inhabitants 3 million were considered as ''Indians'' who didn't speak Spanish in their daily life. About 50 ethnic groups were known and alive still.
The text in French and English was written by this French mexican music lover and specialist Serge Roterman (sse my post 11th of May 2022). He introduced each tune and song with enough detail to understand the situation of these people at that time. Although the ''indigena'' culture has been under pressure since the 16th century, Roterman thought that some aspects of the musical and ritual original culture were still audible. Some instruments are from the pre-hispanic period while some Spanish instruments were quickly adopted but used differently.
One the most astonishing track is A8 with an extract from the peyotl ceremony ''performed'' by Huichol men.
Ocora could be proud of the publication of such an album because at the time it was quite difficult to get access to Mexican native musics except for the few tapes issued by Folkways in the 60s.

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The Connemara accordion 1

 TUILLEADH DEABHAIL AG BOISCÍN

THE CONNEMARA ACCORDION VOL.1

Clό Iar-Chonnachta Teo, 1990, GTD 1040

This local Irish label based in Connemara has a wonderful catalogue but a lot of the tapes they produced haven't been reissued as CDs yet. Here we have a good example of the vitality of traditional music in that part of Ireland with ten accordion players. Two of them are very well known : P.J. Hernon and Johnny Óg Ó Conghaile (Connolly) who recorded several solo albums. The others are local stars displaying equal energy and talent. Inside what we can call a regional style these ten players are in fact different enough from one another which reminds us of the incredible wealth of the Irish musical tradition generally speaking.
I would translate the title in Irish as ''more devils for the box'' but maybe you can find something better.
Each musician is briefly introduced but in Irish only.

I'm looking for the second volume called ''Buail Cois Air''.

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Brij Narayan

 

LE SARODE DE BRIJ NARAYAN

Prestige de la musique extraeuropéenne l'Inde vol. 3 

THE SAROD OF BRIJ NARAYAN 

Magic of  extraeuropean music India vol. 3

Disques Espérance, 1976, ESP 155 537

From this excellent series this is probably the first album recorded by B. Narayan in France under the aegis of the association ''the Friends of Asia''.
Born in 1952, Brij started to study Hindustani music with his father Ram and his uncle the tabla player Chatur Lal. Here is accompanied by Suresh Talwalkar who was first Ram Narayan's tabla player.
Side A presents the raag Shuddh Todi usually played at dawn while side B has the night raag Kaushi-Kanara. Kanara is a region in India and Kaushi would be a variant of raag Kanada with some characteristics of Malkauns.
Text in French only.

 

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Le Génie de la Flûte de Pan

 

GHEORGHE ZAMFIR/LE GENIE DE LA FLUTE DE PAN

THE GENIUS OF THE PANPIPES

Philips, 1973, 6325 047 

Recorded in Paris this is another good album from the first period of Zamfir's French career. Here again he chose five soloists to constitute a taraf closer to the traditional village bands. The dynamics of Romanian music are better expressed with such a format . Side A is one set about traditional tunes from Southern Romania here Muntenia. Side B is divided between the Maramureş (two tracks) and the Banat (four tracks grouped in three).
The cymbalum player is not Toni Iordache but Pantelimon Stîngă. Marin Chisăr the fantastic fluier player was there too but had only one hora. He died in 1994. The other big name was the fiddle player Efta Botocă from Banat who passed away in 1991.
My album was dedicated to my sister and I by the genius himself.

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ΤΣΙΦΤΕΤΕΛΙΑ ME ZOΥΡΝΑΔΕΣ

 

ΤΣΙΦΤΕΤΕΛΙΑ ME ZOΥΡΝΑΔΕΣ

παίζει ό MHTΣOΣ XINTZIOΣ kαί τό σuγκρότημά τou

TSIFTETELIS WITH ZURNAS

Mitsos Hintzios plays and his band

Doraphone, 1977, DOR 101

 The band in question is the ordinary duet of zurnas with a drum we can meet all over the north of Greece and in neighboring countries. But the approach of music can differ from one band to another according to the region I think. While the second zurna usually plays the drone to sustain the first zurna here it plays the full melody along with Hintzios most of the time. When he improvises on the theme the second zurna plays a kind of rif. The daouli (drum) plays all the time. The repertoire comes mostly from Macedonia and Thrace. Nevertheless they have two Pontic dances because of the big presence of Pontic Greek offsprings in Northern Greece since 1923. If you like this kind of music whether it's Greek, Turkish or Macedonian you'll enjoy this album too.
Thanks to Leonidas (see comment) more about this master : https://archive.ert.gr/6962/ (in Greek)

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ROZAJÁNSKA DÜLYNA

 

ROZAJÁNSKA DÜLYNA / VAL RESIA 

Ty Biski zwönavy-Wujže-Pravyce-Te Rozajanske

the bells of San Giorgio-songs-fables-dances

Folklore Resia, 1975 (?), 3 MTCF.R'75

The valley of the river Resia lies in Eastern Italy near the border with Slovenia; it is part of the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia. There lives a population of Slovenian origin speaking a local dialect considered by linguists as a transition between Carinthian and littoral dialects in Slovenia. Due to a very long isolation this dialect evolved apart from the other dialects into a unic type of language among all the South-Slavic linguistic group. This had brought a Polish linguist to visit several times this area : Jan Niecisław Baudouin de Courtenay (1845-1929). He wrote a book ''Resia ed i Resiani; the short text on the cover is an extract of this book.
The inhabitants says in their vast majority that they are not Slovene and refuse to have anything to do with Slovenia or the Slovene in Italy.
All the recordings were made by Arturo Longhino in monophony perhaps visiting some the informants in their homes or bringing them to a studio. The whole album looks like a short monography with an important place given to fables or short stories all said by women. There are seven of them with animals as protagonists. Dancing is traditionally supported by the duet violin and cello like bass. That kind of music is also played in Istria and other parts of Slovenia. Women used to sing together; here four of them sing as a ''koro''.
Longhino gives all the names with Italian and Slovene equivalents. The lyrics of the four songs are also available.
A very good LP especially if you are interested in that area between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea.

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