The EAR: Vol. 1, no. 3 (Spring 2001)

The EAR is an informal discussion of ethnomusicology archiving at UCLA and in the world. The EAR is issued four times a year, in the fall, winter, spring, and summer quarters. Contributions from readers are welcome and should be sent to the editor, Louise Spear, UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive, 1630 Schoenberg Music Building, Box 951657, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1657; telephone 310-825-1695; fax 310-206-4738; email LSpear@arts.ucla.edu.

UCLA students and faculty were honored and delighted by the presence of Donald Kachamba, a Visiting Artist during the Fall Quarter of 1999. Kachamba came to UCLA as part of the Year of African Music organized by Professor Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje. While in residence, he co-taught two courses with DjeDje—a lecture course titled "Music of Southeast Africa" and a performance course on the music of Southeast Africa. With his quiet manner, words of wisdom, and gentle humor, Kachamba inspired everyone who knew him.

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Donald Kachamba was born in 1953 in the area of Blantyre/Limbe in southern Malawi. He was the younger brother of guitarist Daniel Kachamba. He and his family were members of the Ngoni people an ethnic group which split away from the Swazi of South Africa 150 years ago and migrated in several successive waves to what is now Malawi and southwestern Tanzania. The Ngoni groups which settled in southern Malawi were assimilated by the Chichewa-speaking population. Kachamba spoke Chichewa and English.

His relatives owned land and small houses in Singano Village, about one mile from Malawi’s International Airport at Chileka. From 1957 to 1961, his family lived in Salisbury in Zimbabwe. It was there that Daniel and Donald Kachamba had their first contact with the new South African musical traditions of the time, kwela or pennywhistle jive and various styles of guitar music. As a six-year old boy, Donald began playing pennywhistle in his elder brother’s band in Salisbury.

In 1967 Austrian ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik found the Kachamba Brothers with their band giving street performances near the big market in Blantyre. Kubik began documenting their musical style on audiotape and 16-mm film. By 1970 Donald Kachamba was playing guitar, banjo, and flute in a group of his own which he had formed with his friend Josefe Bulahamu, the rattle player in his brother’s band of 1967. They often played for dance parties near their home.

Kubik continued working with the Kachamba Brothers and was integrated into their band as a rattle player and vocalist, and later as a clarinet player. In 1972 Kubik and the Kachamba Brothers toured East Africa and Europe. Donald Kachamba performed kwela and simanje-manje music on concert and lecture tours throughout Africa and Europe and in Brazil and Venezuela. He also began working with Kubik to document neo-traditional music in the Chileka area, work which continued for many years.

It was with great shock and sadness that the UCLA community learned from Gerhard Kubik that Kachamba died from complications of AIDS and diabetes on January 12, 2001. During the month of February, the Ethnomusicology Archive set up a display in memory of Kachamba and his time with us. Included were photographs of Kachamba teaching in the classroom, performing on stage, and touring in Hollywood, and the letters Kachamba had sent to Amy Wooley after he returned to Malawi. Also included was an unfinished banjo that Kachamba and Wooley were making out of a cake tin and wood.

The Ethnomusicology Archive Video Hours titled "Video Portraits from the Year of African Music," presented on February 2 and February 16 were dedicated to the memory of Donald Kachamba. Many of us had tears in our eyes and joy in our hearts as we watched the scenes of Kachamba teaching and performing with students.

On the day before the first video showing, Professor DjeDje received a faxed letter from Dr. Tiago de Oliveira Pinto in Berlin. He had mounted on the internet a video clip of his students talking with Kachamba in Malawi shortly before he died. We at UCLA deeply appreciated this gesture of sharing memories and honoring Kachamba.

Because Kachamba meant so much to us and we want to honor the gift of music he gave to the world, the Ethnomusicology Archive is establishing a collection of materials relating to Donald Kachamba. We have collected recordings, photographs, slides, and videotapes, including videotapes of Kachamba’s lectures and performances in classes at UCLA and videotapes of his final concert at UCLA. We also have papers by students who took his classes. These materials will be preserved, cataloged, and made available to students and researchers for many years into the future. We welcome ideas and contributions from the UCLA community and the world community.

Following are some of the materials in the Archive readers might like to hear and see:

ARLP 2715	The Kachamba Brother’s Band (1972) Vienna: E. Stiglmayr 120031
ARLP 2323	Donald Kachamba’s Kwela Band (1978) Wiesen: Austro Mechana 0120240
ARLP 5184-5185	Musicians from Malawi (1989) Berlin: Museum Collection Berlin MC 15
ARCD 469	Malawi: Concert Kwela (1991) Paris: Le Chant du Monde CDM LDX 274972
ARCD 470	Donald Kachamba’s Kwela Band Simanje-Manje and Kwela from Malawi (1999) Frankfurt: PAMAP 103
ARCD 720	From Lake Malawi to the Zambezi Aspects of Music and Oral Literature in South-east Africa in the 1990s (1999) Presented by Moya Aliya Malamusi Frankfurt: PAMAP 602
ARVT 161	African Guitars
ARVT 162	Kachamba Brothers 1967
ARVT 163	Namibia and Malawi
ARVT 164	Singano Village \|
ARVT 165	Malawi (Southeast Africa); Donald Kachamba’s Kwela Music Malawi Twist (1978) Göttingen: Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film E 2328
ARVT 166	Malawi (Southeast Africa); Donald Kachamba’s Kwela Music Simanjemanje, Chachacha (1978) Göttingen: Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film E 2329

I shared my first encounter with Donald with Charles Sharp. We three drove to the Anawalt Lumber Company to buy wood to construct two or three babatonis—the string-bass-on-a-box that would provide the rhythmic and harmonic foundations of our musical ensemble. We told the Anawalt employee that Donald needed to buy wood for an African instrument, then waited for Donald to explain what kind and how much. Donald looked at different kinds of wood, measuring by mimicing playing the instrument—it needed to fit comfortably under his knee.

I—and I think, Charles—had little idea of what was needed, so we were fairly ineffectual culture brokers. But Donald slowly, deliberately, quietly worked with us until we had it all. I was afraid that the Anawalt guy would become impatient, but Donald won him over. I think Donald won most of us over.

Many of my efforts in studying African music have been directed to overcoming a fundamental rhythmic deficit. I thought that Donald's ensemble would be a great place to finally hone my percussive abilities—I could play the shaker. The metal shaker played simple, repetitive rhythmic patterns that I was sure I could

master. And on some songs, I did master the part. But I remember one rehearsal when I was playing the shaker and Donald kept looking up at me, smiling knowingly. He stopped the music, came over to me, and took the shaker away. "You should play another instrument, Brian."

My wife and I took Donald on a city tour one Sunday, and we spent some time in Hollywood visiting all the sights that tourists like to see—the famous Hollywood sign, the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the bronze stars on the sidewalk, and Mann’s Chinese Theater with the handprints and footprints of movie stars. Donald loved to look at the early films of Hollywood, so he especially enjoyed seeing all these trappings of the movie industry.

Donald and I stood in front of the Hollywood Wax Museum watching a "mechanical" man painted in silver doing his moves on the small platform inside the door. Sipping on a Coca-Cola, his favorite drink, Donald watched in amazement and said, "It looks so real." After a moment or two the man stopped moving and stood still staring in our direction. Suddenly he stepped down from the platform and began walking toward us. Not quite sure what was going on, I reached out and shook the silver hand while complimenting the man on his mechanical motions. Donald smiled in disbelief and amazement and said, "I did not know that was a man, I did not know that was a man." Like many of us, Donald was fooled by the illusions of Hollywood. It reminded me of how easily we tend to take simple things for granted. Donald had the gift of simplicity, and the gift of life.

When we first met Donald, he showed us some video footage which included him playing a home-made banjo. I asked him if he could teach me how to make a Malawian banjo, and he replied, "Yes, we shall try." Then, when I took him to the store to get materials and tools for the banjo, I asked, "What do we need?" gesturing grandly, proud that I'd brought him to Home Depot where anything and everything could be gotten in one trip. He walked around and found one piece of wood, one tool, and some sandpaper. I said, "Okay, what else?" and he said, indicating the three items, "This." When I repeated, "Yes, but what else?" he said, "We shall see." When we were attaching the head to the pot and it seemed loose, my friend David expressed concern that the spokes should be tighter and Donald said, "We shall see." After all of the spokes were attached and the head was still too loose, Donald cut small notches in the back of the pot and pulled the spokes diagonally until each provided the proper amount of tension. He hadn't been concerned about whether it would turn out okay, nor did he feel the need to explain beyond, "We shall see."

When we were playing together, either in a concert or the studio, Donald never played a piece the exactly same way twice. He rarely made a mistake, and the length of the piece was always different. I believe this to be a part of the "we shall see" ethos. When playing, I find that I make mistakes, drop the rhythm, or sing something wrong when I step out of the moment and am either thinking about what is to come or worrying over something which is already past. As musicians, we speak about "being/staying in the moment."

There is a great deal of talk about everyday life these days—living "in the now," enjoying the journey rather than always worrying about the destination. When I get too caught up in worrying about all the pressures of life, I try and remember to say to myself, "We shall see. Yes, we shall try."

He called McDonald's "my restaurant" because of the name. When we got him a Big and Tasty burger for 99 cents, he said that he wanted to complain. We asked if there was something wrong with the burger, and he said that the burger was fine, but the price was too low and they would have to raise their prices if he were to make a profit.

He adored Laurel and Hardy, and would laugh with complete abandon the minute they would appear on the screen. He seemed to love that they were always getting themselves into trouble.

On November 9 and 10, 2001, the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology will host a symposium to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Ethnomusicology Archive. The theme of the symposium is "What is the Role of the University Sound Archive in the Twenty-first Century?" Special guests from the United States and abroad, including Mantle Hood, Ann Briegleb Schuursma, and J.H. Kwabena Nketia, will give presentations. Everyone is invited to attend! For more information, check the next issue of The EAR or contact the Ethnomusicology Archive.

The Ethnomusicology Archive was pleased to present four Video Hours during the Spring Quarter.

Monday, April 16 – "Bugaku Performance by Japanese Imperial Court Musicians" by Miri Park

In October 1987, when the Crown Prince and Princess of Japan (currently Emperor and Empress) paid an official diplomatic visit to Washington, DC, the court musicians from the Imperial Music Department accompanied them to give a courtesy performance at a welcome banquet held at the White House. On the way back to Japan, the ensemble of court musicians stopped in Los Angeles and gave a public concert at the Japan America Theater.

This video of the Bugaku (traditional Japanese court dance) program, recorded during the dress rehearsal preceding the actual concert, includes rare live footage of Bugaku performance by Japanese Imperial Court musicians. The dance pieces presented here have never been published as a commercial video recording in Japan or any other country.

Miri Park’s M.A. thesis, completed in the Department of Ethnomusicology, is titled "The Chordal Transition and Hand Movement of Playing Sho, a Japanese Mouth Organ: Theory and Practice."

This video, produced by Ideas in Motion, portrays the 35-member Sekar Jaya troupe’s 1985 Bali tour to perform at the Bali Arts Festival at the invitation of the Balinese governor-at the time, an unprecedented honor. The video features concert footage and examines the role of music in Balinese life. It has won several national awards and has been shown often on the Learning Channel and PBS.

Michael Tenzer, Professor of Music at the University of British Columbia, is teaching in the UCLA Department of Ethno-musicology during the Spring Quarter. He co-founded the Gamelan Sekar Jaya in Northern California in 1979 and served as its first musical director.

Monday, April 30 – "Brazilian Percussionist Airto Moreira Performs with the Boston Pops" by Airto Moreira

The great Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira guest stars and solos with the Boston Pops Orchestra in this video presentation of "Through the Forest." Inspired by the rain forests of the Amazon and the life of activist Chico Mendes, this composition combines musical elements from Brazil, Europe, and the U.S. "Through the Forest" was composed by Pat Holenbach and supervised by John Williams. The conductor is Keith Lockhart. Moreira will talk about how percussion and the human voice can be used along with a philharmonic orchestra to deliver a beautiful and effective musical message.

Airto Moreira was born in a small village in south Brazil and grew up singing and playing percussion. He performed regularly in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro before moving to the U.S. with his wife, singer Flora Purim. He has performed with many great artists including Cannonball Adderley, Joe Zawinul, Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Carlos Santana, Quincy Jones, and Herbie Hancock. He tours throughout the world and has played on many movie soundtracks. He has at least 30 solo albums to his name, and he plays on many more. He has put out instructional videos and books and often gives workshops. This year he is teaching in the Department of Ethnomusicology.

Balinese dancer / choreographer I Wayan Dibia and U.S. percussionist / rhythm dancer Keith Terry have been collaborating for over twenty years, in the United States and Indonesia. Their work combines body music, kecak, saman, rhythm dance, drums, flutes, gongs, rocks, bamboo and voice. Keith will be showing video excerpts from BODY TJAK / THE CELEBRATION, their 1999 performance piece for a twelve-member ensemble of musicians and dancers from North and South America and the Indonesian islands of Bali, West Java and Sumatra.

Keith Terry is on the faculty of UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures where he currently teaches Body Music and Intercultural Communication in the Arts. He is the director of the percussion ensemble, Crosspulse. He recently returned from teaching a workshop in intercultural collaboration at STSI in Denpasar, Bali.

Amy Catlin installed an exhibit titled "After the Earthquake…Applied Ethnomusicology! – Exhibit on Music and Musicians of Kacch – Kutch – Kachchh – Cutch." Catlin and her husband Nazir Jairazbhoy were doing fieldwork in India when the devastating earthquake struck on January 26, 2001.

Kacch is a semi-island at the westernmost part of India, an arid district in the state of Gujarat known especially for its artistic folk traditions, highly developed court culture, and longstanding sea trade with the outside world. The exhibit contains books, CDs, videos, photographs, and photocopies of many headlines and articles about the earthquake from The Times of India. There are also cane flutes, cowry shell ornaments, silk sari cloth, small leather goods, and men’s caps with mirror work, embroidery, printing, weaving, and appliqué.

A most touching part of the exhibit is a letter to the Jairazbhoy’s from Umesh Jadia, an ethnomusicologist from the Kacch Museum in Bhuj. "The great loss to Kutch," he writes, "is its cultural, historical heritage. We have lost Kutch Museum…and so many monuments. I am sorry to say that I have lost all the musical recordings in audio video forms…. All tapes are terribly broken by heavy stone fell down upon them, and besides some were severely damaged by the cleaning machine while removing the wreckage from the streets." He continues, "Some years ago I collected some good pieces of ocarina from South America, and they all broke down in great pressure of falling down the walls of my house. I have lost some pieces of Jew’s harp collected from Siberia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia in the earthquake. It was my desire to make a museum of Jew’s harps."

The Jairazbhoy’s will return to Kacch this coming winter to study the effects of the recent earthquake on the musicians of Kacch and to apply their ethnomusicological training to find ways to help musicians adjust to the drastic changes this catastrophe has made in their musical lives. They have offered to deliver to Mr. Jadia any ocarinas and jew’s harps that readers might wish to donate.

The Ethnomusicology Archive was pleased to receive a review of The EAR from Dr. Nissio Fiagbedzi, retired professor from the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana in Legon. Fiagbedzi also taught at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, Anambra State. Available in the Archive are both his thesis from the University of Ghana, "Sogbadzi Songs: A Study of Yeue Music" (1966) and his dissertation from UCLA, "The Music of the Anlo: Its Historical Background, Cultural Matrix, and Style" (1977). His principal research effort has been directed toward finding theoretical paradigms for the study of African music. Fiagbedzi called The EAR "one of the most welcome recent publications dedicated to the worldwide dissemination of information in music," and he delighted in our call for readers to listen to and review recordings. "What an invitation," he said. "One couldn’t, shouldn’t wait to be asked once more, should one?" Thank you, Dr. Fiagbedzi, for your enthusiasm and support!

On February 12, 2001, the Department of Ethnomusicology was pleased to host the UCLA Premiere of The Key from Spain: The Songs and Stories of Flory Jagoda, a 40-minute film co-produced by Ankica Petrovic, Vlatko Petrovic, and Mischa Livingstone, and distributed by The National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University.

According to legend, when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, they took with them the keys to their homes and synagogues hoping that one day they would return. They never did, but their Spanish cultural heritage remained a powerful influence in their lives. In this uplifting tale of survival and continuation, acclaimed Sephardic folksinger, Flory Jagoda, tells the story of her life growing up in a musical family in rural Bosnia. As the "keeper of the flame," Flory has single-handedly revitalized a cultural heritage on the brink of extinction. In a celebration of life itself, she sings with warmth and passion, both old songs and new, delighting audiences with her song and moving them with her story.

The film was warmly received, and the Ethnomusicology Archive is glad to announce that we now have a videotape copy available (ARVT 182) for those who want to see it again…or see it for the first time. The Archive also has three CDs of Flory Jagoda’s music.

ARCD 365 – Kantikas di Mi Nona / Songs of My Grandmother (Global Village CD 139)

ARCD 422 – Memories of Sarajevo; Judeo-Spanish Songs from Bosnia (Global Village CD 143)

The Winter 2000 issue of The EAR summarized the Folk Heritage Collections in Crisis Symposium held at the Library of Congress in December 2000. More detailed information is now available in book form and on the World Wide Web. In addition to the keynote addresses by Virginia Danielson, Elizabeth Cohen, and Anthony Seeger, there are responses to the presentations and summaries of the discussions. Also included are a list of 27 recommendations for access, preservation, and rights management and the results of a nationwide survey of unpublished ethnographic audio collections. The information here is important for fieldworkers as well as archivists.The Archive’s copy of Folk Heritage Collections in Crisis (Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2001) is in the reference case under TS2301.P3 F64 2001. The text can also be read at http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub96/contents.html and http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub96/pub96.pdf.

The Fall 2000 issue of The EAR featured recordings published by the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, and the Winter 2001 issue listed recordings nominated for Grammy Awards in the Best World Music Album category. Many readers listened to these recordings in the Ethnomusicology Archive. Following are some of their varied comments.

Naše Pjesme; Music from Gabela, Hercegovina, Yugoslavia
Recordings and notes by Dieter Christensen
Museum Collection Berlin MC 2 (c1990)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARLP 5173

The two most interesting songs on the recording are, for me, #8 on side 2, a ganga titled "Nahinska," and #8 on side 1, a lullaby called "Uspavanke."

There are several gangas (Balkan singers) on this recording, but the "Nahinska" has some very unusual vocal undulations in the middle of each verse. It is hard to describe, but it is very different from the usual ganga "cries" and it's worth listening to if only for that.

In almost all the songs on the record, pauses between the verses are quite long and are sometimes used for

what sounds like a small talk. The lullaby is particularly interesting in that respect since after the first verse, the woman starts talking to someone who is in the room with her, and, although the words are not really clear, her annoyance is very obvious. It sounds like "Hey, don't do that! Don't you see that I'm trying to sing?" And then she takes a breath and continues singing as if nothing happened.

For those of you into the narrow melodic range, microtonal intervals, and a love for "aaii's" and "ooii's" at the beginning, middle, and end of everything, this is the perfect record.

*UCLA students will recognize Superdevoiche as the name of the Department of Ethnomusicology’s Balkan vocal ensemble led by Angela Rodel.

Orient/Occident; Music from Southeastern Europe
Recordings and notes by Wolf Dietrich
Museum Collection Berlin MC 3 (c1983)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARLP 3379

This is an interesting and valuable attempt to draw historical links through diverse musical practices found in a swath of regions ranging from Northeastern Turkey to the east, the Island of Krk off the coast of Croatia to the West, the Greek Island of Olymbos to the South, and the eastern border region of Romania to the North. Dietrich has been recording music from the Balkans since the 1970s, and this album is in some ways the most interesting of his compilations. In the past, many of his recordings have been somewhat uneven attempts to represent diverse traditions from a particular area, sometimes using a small range of artists to perform from traditions which do not provide an adequate aural portrait of those areas. Here, however, he has culled his archives to make some interesting historical claims and links. There are some valuable and rare recordings here, and the notes and map make this an asset as an educational resource.

He has organized his 2 record set to create an aural representation of distinct shared historical influences. Side A presents two instrumental traditions shared in this vast geographic region: bowed lute traditions in accompanying dance and epic poetry; shawm and drum music, usually performed by outsider Rom (Gypsy) professional musicians. In these selections, the inclusion of Turkish Yoruk performance of the bowed kabak kemani (gourd fiddle) is an example of a rare genre and performance; while the lahuta bowed fiddle accompaniment to Albanian epic poetry and horon Black Sea fiddle are somewhat mundane examples of performances which have been recorded by other musicians in better quality and fuller examples elsewhere. On the other hand, the Macedonian zurla (shawm) example of nibet (found in Turkey as nobet; here cited as from the Arabic nuba) and the example of high-pitched karamuza shawmusic for Greek religious festival or panijiri are important and rare documents of little-known and heard traditions.

On side B, Dietrich attempts to portray a variety of Ottoman Turkish influences in extant urban traditions. Along with well-known genres such as the Bosnian sevdalinka and a Turkish uzun hava, he also has provided a Greek klephtic song in an unusual older style of vocal production. He has also represented female professional performance with a wedding song example from Turkey, in which the female singer and domlek performer is accompanied by her husband on a metal version of the ud, known as cumbus.

Side C contains examples of what Dietrich claims are relatively "pure" older traditions which have continued in rural settings, performed by non- or semi-professional peasants. These examples include calendrical cycle ritual music, shepherding music, and dance music. Among these outstanding examples are one of Yoruk (Turkmen minority) throat singing and the intriguing sounds of the double-piped tsambuna bagpipe from the Greek island of Euboa. Overall, these 13 examples represent 3 types that Dietrich has compiled: 1) music of shepherds and nomads; 2) vocal music for the village community; 3) peasant music of Istria and Quarnar.

Side D is devoted to music provided by Rom (Gypsy) professional culture brokers and other outsiders and the influence of Central European aesthetics. Perhaps the most provocative selections of this album, here Dietrich has provided a recording from Tatar-Rom musicians from Dobrudja; a wedding version of the composed dance piece, Azize; a polka and czardas performed by a Rom Hungarian professional band located in Croatia, and a concluding section of a wedding tsiftetelli dance from now-famous Greek Rom clarinetist Vasilis Saleas, recorded in 1980.

This 2 record set contains a rich array of sounds from the complex and intertwined mosaic which characterizes the Balkans and Turkey. In so doing, Dietrich has made sonic portrait of complex historical linkages. In an era in which former boundaries are contested and redrawn, this type of recording is a welcome break from albums which present music as reified representations of supposed national homogeneity. In his extensive reach, Dietrich has also presented a riveting array of human social sounds, such as a lament recorded during a funeral with crying intermixed in the song text, a Christmas ritual song sung by an Albanian Christian minority woman in Greece, and a humorous satirical song which pokes fun of the heroic genre which it also represents.

There are extensive notes which makes this album a welcome resource for teaching as well as learning more about the musical traditions of this complex region. There are a few caveats about these notes, however. The information on the cumbus is misleading, as Dietrich represents this metal version of the ud as a recent popular phenomenon, when in fact it was popular since the 1920s (not 1930, as Dietrich claims) and has since fallen into disuse in urban and upper class genres since the 1980s. Other examples bear some comparison to hear their contextual meanings; the Turkish wedding performance of Azize is fairly mediocre except for the fact that it demonstrates a local adaptation of the use of the trumpet. Often Dietrich's own bias towards unmediated traditions skews his presentation of information. He describes the Tartar-Rom performance style of a Crimean tartar dance as "dirty playing"; terminology which

throughout the Balkans has been used to negatively characterize Rom style with the "clean" style of playing of majority and government-approved musicians. Some additional research would have been helpful: the wedding song from the Greek island of Zakynthos is derived from a composition by the Ottoman tanbur musician and composer, Tanburi Cemil Bey, known as Cecen kizi; a tie-in of the suite-like shawm zurla performance of nibet to Turkish Ottoman mehter tradition of nobet would shed some further light on how these Ottoman traditions have been adapted by local musicians. Overall, however, this is a recording which is valuable for its sonic content as well as informative notes, and is well-worth a listen as well as a read.

Music of the Pontic Greeks; Northern Greece
Recordings and notes by Christian Ahrens
Museum Collection Berlin MC 5 (c1980)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARLP 3380

Warm and nostalgic memories were ignited the first time that I listened to these selections on Pontic music. I jotted down my impressions as I first listened to these selections and was even amazed after reading the liner notes that some of my gut feelings had turned out correct.

My paternal grandparents were from the Black Sea City of Ordu, which is within the Pontus region of Turkey. The Pontic Greeks who left Ordu at the beginning of the 20^th century settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and its surrounding areas. I grew up in Grand Rapids with these Pontic Greeks. My maternal ancestry is from Cappadocia, which is located in central Turkey. My mother’s first cousin also married a Pontic Greek, my Uncle Eugene who plays the kemenché. They live in the city of Mesimeri (in the Chalkidiki area of northern Greece just one hour from Thessaloniki) where three-quarters of the population are Pontic. Their son owns a bar/coffee house where my uncle would occasionally gather with other friends who also played the kemenché and they would jam in the coffee house. This was most exciting for me.

The very first song on side one reminded me of my Uncle Eugene playing his kemenché. I could picture him resting his lyra on his left knee while he bowed with his right hand. He would move his head back and forth in rhythm to the music together with the other players.

When I first listened to selection number 3 on side two, it immediately reminded me of my father’s parents. I couldn’t understand this at first. For some reason I could vividly see their images while I heard this song. Later when I read the liner notes, I discovered that the author was not sure whether this selection was from the region of Ordu or Giresun.

Later in life I joined a Greek dance group based out of Detroit, Michigan. We studied authentic Greek dances under the tutorship of the Dora Stratou Dance Troupe in Greece and were taught some Pontic dances from Takis, born in Pontus but residing in Thessaloniki, Greece. Specifically, song number 6 on side one is one of the difficult dances that we learned. In general, Pontic dances are more difficult than other Greek dances. Cretan dances are similar in that they both demonstrated fancy footwork (especially in the faster songs), but Pontic dances use a great deal of shoulder shaking. Another characteristic of Pontic dances is a pattern of foot stomping.

Other selections include pieces played on the touloum (a non-drone bagpipe), floghera (flute), daouli (base drum), violin, and clarinet. Their songs are classified as either dance songs or epi trapezios (songs listened to "from the table"). I hope you all enjoy the music on this LP as much as I did.

Music in the Andean Highlands; Bolivia
Recordings and notes by Max Peter Baumann
Museum Collection Berlin MC 14 (c1985)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARLP 3384

Musik im Andenhochland, a double LP published by the Berlin Archive in the early 1980s, offers some strikingly beautiful recordings of mostly instrumental music from the Bolivian highlands. The regal, expansive, even martial air of siku (panpipe) orchestras is well represented, as are the harsh and breathy sounds and parallel harmonies of various duct- and end-blown flute ensembles common to the altiplano. Rich, thick textures predominate, the result of an Andean musical aesthetic that emphasizes high sounds and overtone blowing. Recorded in the late 1970s by Max Peter Baumann, these field recordings are a needed antidote for the rash of "Andean Music" CDs in local record bins featuring Western harmonies, "cleaned-up" instrumental sounds, and loads of new agey mysticism. None of that here. This cowboy still has his spurs on—quite literally, if you check out the jangling espuelas in the first track of side B.

There are elements, though, of a different kind of essentialism. Baumann’s brief, two-paragraph liner notes emphasize a vision of the Andean Other, where the "pre-Columbian heritage of the Incas" confronts the "effects of Spanish colonial policy" in musical practice to this day, and where Pachamama, the Earth Mother, still lurks behind Catholic festivals in parallel earthy rites. My point is not to dispute such assertions, which in my experience are mostly true, but to question what they leave out of the story of Andean music. As Thomas Turino, Orin Starn, and others have pointed out, the constant drive to connect contemporary Andean experiences with Incan or pre-Incan practices has drained any sense of recent history or agency from depictions of today’s Andean people. Baumann’s emphasis on indigenous, non-mestizo instrumental music (even when voices are semi-audible in the background), his choice not to list individual performers, and his decision not to translate the few lyric songs represented in this collection (song titles like "Puka Uma," or "Red Head" certainly pique one’s interest) makes an aural case for hearing Andean music as a collective survival from the early years of the Conquest—a musical battle of wills between opposing indigenous and Western worlds.

Centuries have passed since the days of Pizarro and Atahualpa, however, and recent works in Andean ethnomusicology have shown that even the most "traditional" of traditional music today is often bound up in national and transnational cultural flows. The "Bolivian Indios" and "campesinos" presented on these LPs, if they are anything like the musicians I have worked with in Ecuador and Peru, are just as likely to be singing about the IMF and World Bank as they are about Pachamama. Baumann’s "modern-day Inca" approach seems to ignore that possibility.

Musicians from Malawi
Recordings and notes by Gerhard Kubik in cooperation with Moya Aliya Malamusi
Museum Collection Berlin CD 15 (c1989)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARLP 5184-5185

This album of two LPs and 47 pages of notes (half in German and half in English) is filled with scholarly information and wonderful music. Special to me are the last five bands, which are devoted to the Kachamba family of musicians. The story song, "Kangalire nkanyanga," is told and sung by Nasibeko J. Kachamba, the older sister of Daniel and Donald Kachamba. Following is a performance on the mouth bow by a young woman named Emery, who had a close relationship with Daniel. Then comes "Vula matambo," with Daniel playing the slide guitar in a hauyani or Hawaiian style, which was learned from gramophone records. Younger brother Donald, about 12 years old, accompanies on a small tin rattle.

"Anifa Love Me," a double-step dance piece, was composed by Daniel and is played by Daniel on guitar, Donald on metal flute, Josefe Rabisoni Bulahamu on one-string bass, and Alfred Ombani on tin rattle. The final song, "Anifa Waiting for Me," is another dance piece with Daniel, Donald, and Josefe. Also of interest are beautiful black and white photographs of musicians and their instruments, including some of a very young Donald with his kwela flute. You will enjoy comparing this music made in Malawi in 1967 with the music made at UCLA in 1999.

Capoeira, Samba, Candomblé; Afro-Brazilian Music in Bahia
Recordings and notes by Tiago de Oliveira Pinto
Museum Collection Berlin CD 16 (c1990)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARCD 230

This excellent collection offers very well-recorded examples of the primary musical expressions of Afro-Brazilian culture as exhibited in the Recôncavo region of Bahia, a unique Northeastern state famous for, among other things, a broad range of folk and popular musics generally associated with African-derived culture. Though the valuable capoeira, samba, and Candomblé tracks recorded in the late 80s in Pilar and Santo Amaro are a joy to listen to (the latter is the home town of beloved pop music icon Caetano Veloso), it is the samba de viola genre (10-12) and the liturgy of cantigas de Angola (15-16) that make this an even more significant release. Both musics are poorly represented in commercially available recordings. Hopefully the Berlin series will include more of these rarely heard repertoires in the future. The otherwise clear, informative notes by Brazilian ethnomusicologist Tiago de Oliveira Pinto occasionally venture into bulky graphics (tables illustrating oversimplified examples of connections between genres), erroneous commentary (samba da viola is much more than "nothing else than a samba with a viola"), and spiteful miscontextualization of others’ research (the author has taken every opportunity to slander Ralph Waddey, from whom he gathers most of his information on samba de viola).

Music from the Mountainous Region of Western New Guinea; Irian Jaya
Recordings and notes by Artur Simon and Ekkehart Royl
Museum Collection Berlin CD 20 (c1993)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARCD 232

A mere one million people speaking 251 languages; penis gourds instead of trousers; a classic anthropological film by Robert Gardner; Michael Rockefeller’s disappearance; a bloody takeover by a foreign power. Despite having one of the richest concentrations of cultural diversity in the world and a fair amount of exotic overseas press, history has conspired to keep the music of the western half of the world’s second largest island concealed within its borders….

At last things are about to change. Artur Simon has published a magnificent set of recordings [six CDs] that document the music of the Eipomek people as it was in 1975, before evangelization put an end to most of their traditional music. Simon also included recordings of other researchers, among them a whole disc of music from neighboring language groups. The recordings are described in detail with a 176-page book in German and English.

Artur Simon and Ekkehart Royl participated in one of the major cultural-scientific projects of this century. Through the group effort of the research team covering a broad range of disciplines, they were able to reach a level of understanding that would have otherwise taken many years of fieldwork. Royl completed his doctoral dissertation based on research he started in this project. Simon has published several articles concerning Eipo music, and followed with this most valuable document, a carefully chosen selection of songs covering most of the song types, complete with contextualization by examples from surrounding language groups.

These paragraphs were excerpted with permission from a more extensive review published by Pacific Review of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 9, no. 1 (Fall 1999), pp. 82-90. For more information about the Pacific Review, go to http://www.ethnomusic.ucla.edu/ethnomusicology/Publications/PREhome.html.

Music of the Nubians; Northern Sudan
Recordings and notes by Artur Simon
Museum Collection Berlin CD 22/23
Ethnomusicology Archive ARCD 612-613

About a quarter the size of the United States, Sudan stands as the largest country in Africa. A poor nation, where the average per capita income is less than $900 a year, Sudan has been hit hard by an ongoing civil war.

Despite these challenges, the Nubian people have managed to inhabit a region in northern Sudan since the sixth century AD. On the two CD set Music of the Nubians: Northern Sudan, the Nubians' hearty culture, agrarian way of life, and deep devotion to Islam are expressed through vibrant musical performances. Recorded between 1973 and 1974, these thirty-three tracks reflect a stunning variety of wedding, work, recreational, and religious songs. From the first four tracks, which feature a solo singer playing a kisir (lyre) to a final performance of schoolgirls singing a song from what was a male-only genre, these recordings offer a generous overview of Nubian musical culture.

Not necessarily a release for the casual "world music" consumer, Music of the Nubians: Northern Sudan is—like all other Museum Collection Berlin releases—a primarily an ethnographic document. An accompanying eighty-page booklet (!) supplements the music, helping the listener to navigate through the lively and devout musical culture of Sudan's Nubians.

João voz e violã – João Gilberto
Verve Records 73145467132 (c2000)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARCD 635

The quiet desafinado (off-key singing) of João Gilberto and his stammering guitar technique (violão gago) that set the standard for bossa nova in the late 1950s has returned to the global arena with the release of João,Voz e Violão (Voice and Guitar). With just his voice and his guitar Gilberto delivers over 35 minutes of classic bossa nova style played as though time has stood still. Released in Brazil in March 2000, the CD received this year's Grammy for the Best Album in the World Music category.

While many of the ten tracks can be found on other Gilberto recordings, here, we are treated to very simplified arrangements of some of Brazil’s most beautiful compositions. Gilberto is stellar as he delivers sensitive renditions of Jobim's "Você Vai Ver" (You Will See) (track 2), Jobim's bossa nova anthem "Chega De Saudade" (No More Blues) (track 10), and "Da Cor do Pecado" (The Color of Sin) by "Bororó" (track 8). He opens the CD with "Desde Que o Samba é Samba," co-authored by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, for their twenty-fifth anniversary CD of the tropicalismo music movement (1994). Once heirs to the bossa nova throne, the two have regularly revisited the bossa nova tradition throughout their careers keeping it alive and helping its transfer to new generations. In an appreciative nod back toward them, João Gilberto performs masterful versions of "Gil's Eu Vim da Bahia" (I Come From Bahia) (track 6) and Veloso's "Coração Vagabundo" (Vagabond Heart) (track 7). The beauty and tension of off-key singing permeates this CD and is brilliantly displayed on the standard "Desafinado" (track 5). With just his voice against the guitar the desafinado is wonderfully exposed, as is his ability to sing slightly ahead of his guitar rhythms. In short, João, Voz e Violão is the living essence of bossa nova.

Produced by Caetano Veloso, last year's Grammy winner, this CD delivers his mentor to the world in what could be the quietest CD ever recorded. As one of the few bossa nova masters still with us, this CD represents the tradition across more than half a century. Although it has been some time since Gilberto's last studio session, the importance of this CD may have been greatly exaggerated and perhaps it is even less deserving of its Grammy than other albums in the category, but for fans of pure bossa nova played flawlessly, dig in and enjoy!

Homeland – Miriam Makeba
Putumayo Artists/Putumayo World Music PUTU 164-2 (c2000)
Ethnomusicology Archive ARCD 636

I grew up listening to Miriam Makeba. I remember seeing Harry Belafonte and her in concert at the Greek Amphitheater in 1964 when I was small. They had just put out the album An Evening with Belafonte and Makeba. Listening to this album as a child, I absorbed the easy rhythms and sweet harmonies of South Africa and learned about the atrocities of apartheid at the same time. Later, in the late 1980s, I purchased a Makeba album, Sangoma, which was made up of songs which she grew up hearing her mother, a healer, sing.

Perhaps since times do change I should not have been surprised that the CD Homeland would be so different from the others. This CD, a collaboration between Makeba and producer Cedric Samson, was less a reflection of her spirit, instead relying on a commercialized American easy listening sound. The instrumental arrangements, which sounded like formulaic r&b, were too loud, drowning out her yet strong and rich voice. The subtle, rounded polyrhythms which mark South African music, were replaced by the boom, boom, boom of American pop. I did like the first cut, "Masakhane," and the funkier, updated "Pata Pata 2000" was lively. The lyrics of several of the pieces told the story of post-apartheid healing, and yet the easy listening arrangements seemed to dilute the message. Miriam seemed somehow, on the sidelines.

I recommend listening to the album An Evening with Belafonte and Makeba, which is available in the Ethnomusicology Archive, so that you will get a broader perspective on Miriam Makeba and her latest CD.

PS – Thank you, Donna, for your gift to the Archive, An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba on RCA Victor LSP 3420, now cataloged as ARLP 5238. We will enjoy the "easy rhythms and sweet harmonies."


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