musique populaire marocaine vol.1

 

MUSIQUE POPULAIRE MAROCAINE VOLUME 1

Documents recueillis par Jean Mazel 

Grand prix national du disque

MOROCCAN FOLK MUSIC VOL.1 

Documents gathered by Jean Mazel

National record award

BAM-Edition AZ, 1975, BAM 5435 

Jean Mazel was a French ethnologist who specialized on Morocco. He published several LPs and EPs mostly for BAM. Some of the recordings issued on EP were reissued on LPs like this one. This is a reedition of the 1968 issue with a different cover.
Three regions are presented here : the Middle Atlas, the Chleu country and the Great Moroccan South.

As usual with this kind of album most of the tracks are excerpts of longer songs and dances. But these labels like BAM played an important role in the dissemination of music that was far removed from the musical knowledge of the general French public at the time. This LP gives a good picture of the diversity of Moroccan folk music.

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Kertalg '73

 2e FESTIVAL POP'CELTIC

KERTALG 73

Barclays, 1973, 920.452/920.453

The festival of Kertalg in Brittany was an important step in the gathering of all the  ''Celtic'' countries at the beginning of the folk revival in France. After the festival in Brest and before Lorient this festival lasted for three years only. For more details please see my post about the first edition (March 2022).
In 1973 the programming was much more ambitious than for the first edition. This why it is a double album but as said Gwenn Le Goarnic the organiser only a small part of the concerts was selected. Some of the artists were there in 1972 like René Werneer (then Alan Stivell's fiddle player), HappyTraum from the USA and the Goadec Sisters and the Skloferien from Brittany. That second year the ''stars'' were Planxty and Brenda Wootton.  Robin Dransfield was there too as well as two Breton groups Dremmwel and Diaouled ar menez (''horizon'' and ''the Devils of the mountain'' respectively in Breton).
Le Goarnic wrote that she wanted to favour Planxty and Wootton because she thought that they were a revelation to the French public thanks to their talent and personalities. There is a fiddle on some of Planxty's sets : it was R. Werneer who had met with Planxty in Britain at various festivals and who knew their repertoire well enough. That was Planxty's first visit to France; they were in Le Havre the following year as part of an Irish delegation invited by the City council to introduce the public to Irish history and culture. This event was recorded and broadcasted on France Culture (part of Radio France) the same year.
I must mention two other Irish guests who were known as ''Munroe'' (or Monroe) with Micheal O'Domhnaill and Mick Hanly who sang a scottish ''mouth music'' song that became part of Bothy Band's repertoire soon after.

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DON JACINTO PEREZ

 

DON JACINTO PEREZ / EL REY DEL CUATRO VOLUMEN II

THE KING OF THE CUATRO VOLUME 2

Discomoda, 1968, DCM-632

 Bought by my father during a business travel in Caracas, this is the second album of a series of three by the cuatro player Don Jacinto Perez. Born in 1900 to a modest family he moved to Caracas in the fifties where he became known thanks to a daily fifteen minutes radio program where he could demonstrate his talent and his new approach (with different tuning and technique) to a large audience.  His real name was Eduardo Azuaje and he changed it when he became famous. He died in 1974. He's considered by present time virtuosos like Cheo Hurtado as the man who brought the cuatro in the spotlight.
This small instrument with four strings (hence its name) has been part of the classical venezuelan trio with harp and maracas.The cuatro is played in villages and the country traditionally as a rhythmic instrument  accompanying songs and dances. It derives from the Spanish baroque guitar and is found also in the llanos part of Colombia.
Perez is backed by another cuatro, a bass, maracas and a guiro.
Some of the tunes on this LP are part of the CD ''el disco de oro de Don Jacinto Perez''.

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Musique à la cour de Chypre 1192-1489

 

MUSIQUE A LA COUR DE CHYPRE 1192-1489

MUSIC AT THE COURT OF CYPRUS 1192-1489

HUELGAS ENSEMBLE

Alpha, 1978, DB 264

When Guy de Lusignan lost his throne in Jerusalem he had the idea of buying the island of Cyprus from the Templar Knights in 1192. Another version says that it was Richard Coeur de Lion who gave Cyprus to Lusignan after he took it from the Byzantines. From that time the Lusignan family managed to keep Cyprus for itself until it was sold to Venice in 1489. The court was French in its language, habits and culture with influences from France (Ars Subtilior).
Some of the songs are in Latin for the religious ones and in French as it was spoken there during the15th century. They all come from a manuscript ''MS Torino'' in Turin which was written in Cyprus around 1412 and brought to France by Anne de Lusignan.
There are two Greek songs from the collection of Pieris Zarmas. The lyrics in Greek are provided in a Flemish transcription (for example toe mpaloe = tou ballou). Alpha being a Belgian label the presentation text is in French and Flemish (only the French part is scanned). 

The Huelgas Ensemble was founded by Paul Van Nevel in 1971 and had ten performers for this album. There are singers and rebec, recorder, shawm, sacbut players. This ensemble is well known throughout the world for the quality of its work.

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ТАНБУР BA CATO CAДОЛАРИ

 

ТАНБУР BA CATO CAДОЛАРИ

Ӯзбек халқи музика меросидан

MELODIES ON TANBUR AND SATO 

from the musical heritage of the Uzbek people

Melodiya, 1983, M30-44637-38

From the same series as the album posted in July 2021, this LP is dedicated to the lute tambur and his version played with a bow, the sato.
It is also a kind of didactic album with an introduction in Uzbek on the lute and the music. As no tracks are materialized I had to make tracks as cleanly as I could in order to separate the reading from the music.
Three players are recorded : Turg'un Alimatov on tanbur and sato, Riksi Rajabi and Marufjan Tashpulatov on tanbur. The recordings cover the period 1956-1982. Most of the musical examples are about the tanbur, only two tracks illustrate the sato. No titles are given and no names are explicited on the cover. In spite of a poor enough sound quality it is an excellent album with these three masters. Alimatov recorded in France in 1995 for Ocora. He died in 2008.
Text in Russian.

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Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы (1)

 

Кыргыз Күүлөрүнүн Антологиясы

Биринчи бөлүм

ANTHOLOGY OF KYRGYZ MELODIES (PART ONE)

Melodiya, 1974, M30 35579, 35580

This is the first album of a box set  of seven about different aspects of Kyrgyz traditional music. When I got access to these LPs during the eighties I didn't copy all the tracks leaving aside the spoken ones. Album one is dedicated to melodies played on the komuz by several players including Shekerbek Sherkulov.
Side A is divided between ''Kambarkandar'' and ''Botoylor'', side B between ''Kezberder'' and ''Shangyramalar'' corresponding to different types of tunes.
Each section is introduced by a presentation read in Kyrgyz; it is those tracks that are missing.

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the Badlands Singers

 THE BADLANDS SINGERS 

Assiniboine-Sioux Grass Dance

Indian House, 1974, IH 4101

The label Indian House was founded in 1966 in Taos New Mexico. Their catalogue has over 150 titles of authentic Native American musical cultures.
The Badlands Singers gathered in 1972 to revive the Badlands Celebration held at Brockton until the mid 50s. Eight singers were part of this band and they toured extensively during the two years between 1972 and 1974.
The Assiniboine are part of the big Sioux linguistic family. After migrating from the South-East they settled in the USA and in Canada. They call themselves ''Nakota'' and most of them live in reservations. The grass dance is relatively recent and comes probably from men's pow wow dancing originating in the warrior societies on the Northern Great Plains.
Although ''modern'' in style it is a kind of music that might be difficult to listen to but as for other traditions we must not try to compare it to things we know; listening a lot to it allows to understand a bit better and even to enjoy it ! Just listen to the dynamic of the voices and the feeling of power emanating from these performers.

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Bhimsen Joshi

 

BHIMSEN JOSHI 

ragas yaman-kalyan - multani 

EMI - The Gramophone Company of India Limited, 1967, EALP-1321

This is Joshi's fifth album (in mono) recorded for EMI-India. One of the greatest vocalists in the Hindustani classical music he died in January 2011 at the age of 88. Some of his recordings have been re-issued on CDs but I don't think it is the case for this one unless as part of a compilation.
He sings two poems on side A : Ay piya bin kaise taroge (bilampat-japtal) and Eeri ali piya bin (drut-teental). On side B : Gokul gaamka chhora (bilampat-ektal) and Kangan mundariya mori (drut-teental).
Accompaniment by Eknath Thakurdas on harmonium (very discreet) and Chandrakant Kamat on tabla.
In spite of a relatively poor sound quality it is easy to be taken by the Pandit's excellent rendition especially the way he mastered the taans sections.

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