The EAR: Vol. 1, no. 2 (Winter 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.

The Ethnomusicology Archive is pleased to announce the arrival of the Don Ellis Collection, a large and significant addition to our jazz and California music. After being housed and cared for by Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas, for twenty years, the collection has been moved to UCLA, closer to where Ellis often lived and performed.

Professor Steven Loza—former student of Glenn Stuart, lead trumpeter in the Don Ellis bands—suggested to the Ellis family that the Ethnomusicology Archive would be a good home for the collection and was instrumental in paving the way for the move. Tim Rice, Louise Spear, and Maureen Russell continued the negotiations and made arrangements for the move, which took over a year. The collection finally arrived in May 2000, and it took several more months to unpack, sort, and prepare the collection for storage at the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF), where it is housed under state-of-the-art temperature and humidity control and has ideal earthquake and fire protection.

Don Ellis & his 4-valve trumpet

Performer and Composer

Don Ellis (Donald Johnson Ellis) was a jazz trumpeter, drummer, bandleader, touring performer, recording artist, composer, and arranger. He was born in Los Angeles in on July 25, 1934, and died of a heart attack at his home in North Hollywood on December 17, 1978. Though only 44 years old when he died, he left a huge musical legacy.

Ellis performed with many prestigious big bands and jazz groups, including those of Charlie Barnet, Sam Donahue, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Ralph Marterie, Ray McKinley, Stan Kenton, George Russell, and Claude Thornhill. He also led many big bands, jazz orchestras, trios, quartets, and other small combos of his own. He performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, DC, under the direction of Gunther Schuller, the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta.

Ellis became known for his unusual and complex meters, amplified trumpet, electronic distortion, and quarter-tone melodic structures. He often used 9/4, 5/8, 7/8, 9/8, and 19/4 time signatures. He played a quarter-tone trumpet with four valves, which gave subtlety and microtonal effects to his music. In later years he played a "superbone," a combination valve and slide trombone.

His major compositions include Structure for Five Orchestras & Trumpet and Future: Tense!, a musical in three acts. Other well-known titles include "Final Analysis," "The Great Divide," "Pussy Wiggle Stomp," and "Strawberry Soup." Ethnomusicologists might be interested in "Bulgarian Bulge," written in a 33/16 time signature, and "The Tihai," named after the Indian word describing a thrice-repeated rhythmic phrase. Ellis made many television and radio appearances, and he also wrote music for commercials, television series, and movies.

He received Grammy nominations for Live at Monterey (1967), Electric Bath (1968), The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground (1969), and Don Ellis at Fillmore (1970), and he received multiple Grammy nominations for "Theme from The French Connection" (1972). With Don Ellis as arranger and the Don Ellis Big Band as performers, "Theme from The French Connection" won the Grammy for "Best Instrumental Arrangement" in 1972.

Ellis received a Bachelor of Music degree in composition from Boston University in 1956. In 1972 he wrote The New Rhythm Book, which has an accompanying LP, and in 1975 he wrote Quarter Tones: A Text with Musical Examples, Exercises and Etudes.

From September 1963 to June 1964, Ellis was enrolled as a graduate student in the Department of Music at UCLA. In a letter to Down Beat magazine in November 1963, Ellis wrote, "I am continually striving to develop my musicianship to the highest level possible…. It is because of [this] that I am presently studying for a Ph.D. in composition at UCLA, and [I] am a Teaching Assistant there."

The UCLA University Archives has a program of "Compositions by Graduate Students from the Seminar of Dr. John Vincent" which took place in Jan Popper Theater on May 12, 1964. Richard Grayson played piano for Don Ellis’ composition, "Dark White Notes for Piano." Don Ellis played trumpet and Richard Grayson played piano for Neil Klein’s composition, "The Express."

Though we do not know what interaction Ellis had with ethnomusicology students at UCLA, we do know that during the 1963-64 academic year Mantle Hood taught "Music of Indonesia," Boris Kremenliev taught "Music of the Balkans," David Morton taught "Musical Cultures of the World," and D.K. Wilgus taught "American Folk and Popular Music."

In The New Rhythm Book, Ellis writes, "The longest meter I have attempted to date is a piece in 172. But this isn’t so far-fetched as one might think at first, because at the Department of Ethnomusicology at UCLA I learned of one folk song with a 108 beat cycle!" Ellis also comments that he became very interested in folk dancing and attended classes in Balkan dancing at the Intersection, a local Los Angeles club devoted to the folk dancing of other cultures. "The Bulgarian culture, especially," wrote Ellis, "has some truly beautiful and intricate folk dances in all kinds of unusual meters, such as 7, 9, 11, and 33." (The New Rhythm Book, pp. 3, 6.)

Milcho Leviev, a piano player in many Don Ellis bands, recounts, "One day, in 1968, I sent some recordings of Bulgarian folk tunes to Don Ellis. There were different kinds of odd meters in these records and among them a Sadovsco Horo in 33/16. I knew that this meter would excite Don’s curiosity, but what happened was beyond my wildest expectations…. Several months later, I heard [the horo] under the title of Bulgarian Bulge which is on the Underground album. My friends and I in Bulgaria couldn’t believe our ears. Here were musicians, thousands of miles from Bulgaria, playing this music as if it were native to them!" (The New Rhythm Book, p. 92.)

Ellis also talks about other influences. While in Los Angeles, he played with various Latin bands, including that of Rene Bloch. "I became very fond," he said, "of the sound of having 3 and 4 percussionists, each doing something different." Arif Mardin, the Turkish jazz composer, gave him a chart in 9 (divided 2 2 2 3) that was based on a Turkish folk rhythm. "This made me more aware," said Ellis, "that the odd-numbered meters which at first seem so exotic and difficult to us, are really very natural and a part of the folk culture of much of the world." (The New Rhythm Book, pp. iii, 5, 7.)

While at UCLA, Ellis met Hari Har Rao, a disciple of Ravi Shankar, and began studying Indian rhythms. Together, Ellis and Rao wrote "An Introduction to Indian Music for the Jazz Musician" for a 1965 issue of the journal Jazz. "Indian classical music," said Ellis, "possesses the most highly developed, subtle and complex system of organised rhythm in the world. The best and most technically advanced jazz drummer that has ever lived is a rank novice compared to a good Indian drummer when it comes to command of rhythms." (Jazz, 1965, p. 20.)

In 1965 Ellis organized the Hindustani Jazz Sextet, which included Ellis on trumpet, Rao on sitar, tabla, and dholak drums, as well as performers on piano, bass, drums, and sax. They performed regularly at the Club Havana on Sunset Boulevard. In February 1966 the Sextet performed at the Los Angeles Music Center with the Los Angeles Neophonic Orchestra under the direction of Stan Kenton. In a Los Angeles Times review, critic Leonard Feather wrote, "Don Ellis grasped the entire mighty Los Angeles Neophonic Orchestra, stuffed it in his hip pocket, and ran off with the show." Ellis gave an introduction to his composition "Synthesis," and Rao outlined the two basic ragas used in the piece. "This was no mere musical wedding," said Feather, "it was outright polygamy. Indian ragas and rhythms, European classical concepts, American sounds and African touches were all fused in a work that built to a wild, searing climax—in fact, two or three wild, searing climaxes." (Feb. 9, 1966, pt. IV, p. 10.)

In 1967 the 21-piece Don Ellis Band played at the first Los Angeles Jazz Festival, described by Time magazine as "an electrifying performance that brought 4,000 jazz buffs in U.C.L.A.’s Pauley Pavilion to their feet, cheering ‘More! More!’ The articles continues, "The trim, bearded Ellis lunged about the stage whipping the music to a demonic pitch, molding the arrangements on the spot by cueing his men in and out with shouts and hand signals." The same article mentions UCLA, saying, "It was while he was doing graduate work in ethnomusicology at U.C.L.A. in 1962 [sic] that Ellis grasped the jazz potential of the complex, repeated beat cycles underlying Asian and Middle Eastern music." (Time, May 26, 1967.)

On May 14, 1974, Ellis, with a band of ten instruments and a group of four singers, performed at UCLA’s Royce Hall in what was described as a "joyous homecoming." A newspaper review claimed, "The total experience at Royce Hall was awesome as the band built to a frenetic finish that had many of the students in the crowd dancing in the aisles." (Whittier News Press, May 17, 1974, p. 1B.) Ellis also performed at Royce Hall on October 22, 1977, this time with an orchestra of 21 musicians and another "thunderous standing ovation." (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 25, 1977, pt. IV, p. 9.)

In addition to his active performing schedule, Ellis devoted time to teaching. He conducted many classes and workshops at high schools and colleges in Southern California and throughout the country. Posthumously, the National Association of Jazz Educators presented an NAJE Award to Don Ellis in memory of "a native of California whose lifetime has been dedicated to excellence in the teaching and performance of America’s art form—jazz."

UCLA graduate student Wayne L. Perkins worked with the music of Don Ellis, and in 2000 he completed his dissertation in the Department of Music. Volume One of the dissertation is titled "Don Ellis’ Use of ‘New Rhythms’ in His Compositions: The Great Divide (1969), Final Analysis (1969) and Strawberry Soup (1971)." Professor Cheryl Keyes from the Department of Ethnomusicology was one of the dissertation committee members.

Another UCLA graduate student, Fred Selden, played with the Don Ellis Band from 1969 to 1973. Selden has many wonderful memories of the years he spent touring and performing and still feels the Ellis’ spirit when he composes. Selden composed and arranged "Love for Rent," which appears on The New Don Ellis Band Goes Underground album, and "The Magic Bus Ate My Doughnut," which appears on the Don Ellis at Fillmore album. Selden played alto saxophone and various woodwinds on those albums and on Tears of Joy, Connection, and Soaring. Selden is currently writing his dissertation, which he hopes to turn into a jazz method book, in the Department of Music. Ethnomusicology Professors Kenny Burrell and Steven Loza are on his committee.

It is evident that students of jazz and ethnomusicology will find much to learn and enjoy in the Don Ellis Collection. Don Ellis has fans all over the world, and surely more fans will be added as those of us at UCLA learn about the man and his music.

Don Ellis’ sister, W. Kay Ellis-Magee, who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, recently announced plans to provide a Don Ellis Scholarship of $1000 for a jazz trumpet student at UCLA next year. Her generosity and support are greatly appreciated.

The Don Ellis Collection contains 944 folders of music stored in over 200 acid-free boxes. Included are complete scores, parts, lead sheets, and drafts—in ink, in pencil, on manuscript paper, on bond paper, and on Ozalids (from an old printing process). There are over 300 titles, most composed by Don Ellis himself. When items are needed for study, they can be sent from SRLF to the Ethnomusicology Archive within one to two days. Many pieces of music can be photocopied for performance and educational purposes, provided the appropriate paperwork is completed and copying fees are paid.

The collection also includes books, articles, letters, and various papers as well as photographs and slides. There are over 300 reel-to-reel tapes, many with analog cassette or DAT copies; videotapes of concerts, films, television shows, and television commercials; twenty LP titles; ten 45-rpm titles; and six CD titles, with more recording titles to be added as they are available. The Archive also has Ellis’ quarter-tone trumpet, the valve and slide "superbone," two frame drums from India, and costumes worn during performances, such as the white polyester beaded suit worn on the Shirley MacLaine television special in 1977.

As friends and colleagues know, Dr. Ann Schuursma (formerly Ann Briegleb) was head of the UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive from its founding in 1961 until her retirement in 1984. She is currently living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She and her husband, Rolf Schuursma, visited the Ethnomusicology Archive and the Department of Ethnomusicology during the weeks of February 26 and March 19.

Schuursma has been an active member of many organizations, including the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC), and International Association of Sound and Audiovisual Archives (IASA). She compiled directories of sound archives for both SEM and IASA and served as editor of the IASA journal for six years. For the UCLA Institute of Ethnomusicology’s Selected Reports, she wrote "Ethnomusicological Collections in Western Europe—A Selective Study of Seventeen Archives." (Vol. 1, no. 2, 1968.)

Schuursma and Adelaide G. Tusler interviewed Charles Seeger for the UCLA Oral History Program’s Reminiscences of an American Musicologist. Audio copies of these interviews are available in the Ethnomusicology Archive as Tape 12055, parts. 1-9. Schuursma herself was interviewed for the Oral History Program’s UCLA’s Institute for Ethnomusicology, 1961-1974. She has written articles and album notes. Her book, Ethnomusicology Research: A Select Annotated Bibliography, was published by Garland in 1992.

At the suggestion of Dr. Boris Kremenliev, Schuursma began studying the music of Romania in 1969. She received two Fulbright grants and an IREX grant and conducted research in Bucuresti and Cluj-Napoca, Romania, at various times between 1969 and 1979. In 1987 she defended her dissertation, “Colinde cu duba in Valea Muresului, Southwestern Transylvania (Hunedoara Province, Romania).”

On February 26, Schuursma presented an Archive Lecture Hour titled "Reflections on Romania." She discussed her early fieldwork as well as a more recent visit made to Bucuresti and Cluj-Napoca in November 1999. Of special interest were the changes that have taken place since the 1989 "revolution" in Romania. Photographs and tape recordings illustrated her talk.

During her visit, Schuursma deposited in the Ethnomusicology Archive her field recordings collected in Romania in 1971, 1978, and 1979. Included are 30 reel-to-reel tapes made on Nagra and Uher tape recorders. She traveled to several villages in the province of Hunedoara and recorded colinde (carols) at Christmastime. She also went to the province of Moldavia and recorded New Year’s festivities. In addition, the collection contains two tape copies of recordings from the Institutul de etnografie si folclor in Bucuresti—one tape of Mr. Traian Gerge singing on cylinders in 1938 and 1940, and another tape of Mr. Tulachi describing (in Romanian) the construction of the bucium (alp horn). The Archive is making three copies of each reel-to-reel tape on recordable compact disc—one for Schuursma, one for preservation purposes, and one for listening in the Archive.

Field recordings from 1969, collected by Schuursma and Arthur Briegleb, were deposited in the Archive previously and can be found under the number 69.1. This collection contains two reel-to-reel tapes of the alphorn and other instrumental music from Romania.

Julien Jalâl Eddine Weiss was born in Paris in 1953 of a Swiss mother and an Alsatian father. After training in classical European music, he composed for theater and ballet. He became enamored of Arab music after hearing the great Iraqi ud player, Munîr Bashîr, in 1976. Weiss then studied with master musicians from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, and Syria, and became a virtuoso on the qanun. He is now dedicated to the exploration of the music of the Arab, Turkish, and Persian worlds.

In 1983 Weiss founded the Al-Kindî Ensemble in homage to the great Arab musical theorist, Abû Yûsuf al-Kindî, who lived from approximately 796 to 873. In 1995 Weiss bought a 16^thcentury palace in the city of Aleppo in northern Syria, where he now lives and hosts concerts in the traditional style. He performs, both solo and with the Al-Kindî Ensemble, all over the world.

As Regents Lecturer at UCLA, Weiss was in residence from February 26 to March 8, visiting classes and giving lectures, performances, and workshops. On Sunday, March 18, Weiss and the Al-Kindî Ensemble, along with vocalist Sheikh Hamza Shakkûr and the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus, performed in Schoenberg Hall, presenting a program of classical Arab music, traditional songs, and Sufi rituals. In a review of the performance, critic Don Heckman wrote that the "dervishes, often holding their left hands lowered and their right hands raised to symbolize the linkage between heaven and earth, were a marvel to see, perfect visual representations of the spiritual powers of music and dance." (Los Angeles Times, Mar. 20, 2001, sec. F, p. 3)

The Ethnomusicology Archive has several CDs of Julien Jalâl Eddine Weiss, the Al-Kindî Ensemble, and Hamza Shakkûr, which we invite you to study and enjoy.

ARCD 626	Musique classique arabe / Arab Classical Music Al Kindi Auvidis B 6735 (1989)
ARCD 627	Sufi Songs of Damascus Hamza Shakkûr and the Al-Kindî Ensemble Long Distance 662294 (1993)
ARCD 628	Takasim & Sufi Chants from Damaskus Hamza Shakkûr & Ensemble al-Kindî World Network 56.985 (1994)
ARCD 629	L’art sublime du Ghazal, Volume I Poèmes d’amour au Bîmâristân d’Alep / Love Poems in the Bîmâristân of Alep Adib Dayikh and Julien Jalaleddin Weiss Al Sur ALCD 143 (1994)
ARCD 630-631	Le salon de musique d’Alep / The Aleppian Music Room Ensemble Al-Kindî Le Chant du Monde CML 574 1108.09 (1998)
ARCD 632-633	Les Derviches tourneurs de Damas; Liturgie soufie de la Grande Mosquée des Omeyyades / The Whirling Dervishes of Damascus; Sufi Liturgy of the Great Ummayad Mosque Ensemble Al-Kindî and Sheikh Hamza Shakkûr Le Chant du Monde CMT 574 1123.24 (1999)

A collection of cassettes, otherwise unavailable in the U.S., has been given to the Ethnomusicology Archive by Dr. Jean Ngoya Kidula. The cassettes are commercial recordings of Christian gospel music from Kenya. Kidula acquired the cassettes from music stores in Nairobi while conducting her dissertation fieldwork between 1993 and 1997.

Kidula completed her dissertation, "Sing and Shine: Religious Popular Music in Kenya," at UCLA in 1998. She studied the television program, Sing and Shine, and found that the composers and performers created a music that reflected their situational, historical, and cultural identity. Many of the performers on the cassettes have performed on Sing and Shine and are now superstars in Kenya.

After graduation, Kidula taught at the University of Georgia at Athens. She is currently teaching in Kenya. Her article in the Fall 2000 issue of Ethnomusicology, titled "Polishing the Luster of the Stars: Music Professionalism Made Workable in Kenya," also discusses the music on these cassettes and profiles three of the performers—Faustin Munishi, Mary Atieno, and Japheth Kasanga.

ARC 1356	Paulo Na Sila	AIC [African Inland Church] Makongoro Choir
ARC 1357	Bwana Mungu	AIC Mwanza Town Choir
ARC 1358	Shetani Hama	Anne and Japheth Kasanga
ARC 1359	Mambo Ya Ajabu	Douglas L. Jiveti
ARC 1360	Nimtume Nani Isaya	AIC Makongoro Choir
ARC 1361	Murhure Mu Vwoni	Douglas L. Jiveti and Reuben Kigame
ARC 1362	Avazama Yesu	Francis Jumba Llavaza
ARC 1363	Fashion Ni Yesu	Faustin S. Munishi
ARC 1364	Makosa Ni Kosa	Faustin S. Munishi
ARC 1365	Praise and Worship	Mwauras Gospel Singers
ARC 1366	Kwa Viumbe Vyote	Kwaya ya Barabara 13 Ulyankulu
ARC 1367	Tangazo La Ajabu	Tana River Gospel Singers
ARC 1368	Ahadi Ya Bwana	Ushindi Choir, Mary Wambui, Tumempata Yesu
ARC 1369	Sodoma na Gomora	Mary Atieno and IFC [International Fellowship for Christ] Choir
ARC 1370	Halleluyah Tutaimba	Mary Atieno

Again this year, the Ethnomusicology Archive held its own Grammy Awards contest for Best World Music Album. Archive users were invited to listen to the five nominees and vote for the one they thought would win or should win. There was plenty of space on the ballots for comments, and several voters included good reasons why they selected the CD they did.

1) Water From the Well -- The Chieftans [RCA Victor/BMG Classics 09026-63637-2]

The Chieftans, a primarily instrumental group from Ireland, put out their first album in 1964. With some changes in personnel, they have been active ever since, offering interpretations of traditional and contemporary songs. They have traveled throughout the world, performed on television and film, and recorded with a variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, Mick Jagger, Los Lobos, Sting, Van Morrison, and Sinead O’Connor. They won six Grammys between 1992 and 1998. Water from the Well features Paddy Moloney (uilleann pipes, tin whistle, accordion), Derek Bell (harps, harpsichord, piano, tiompán), Seán Keane (fiddle), Martin Fay (fiddle), Kevin Conneff (bodhrán, vocals), and Matt Molloy (flute).

Guitarist/vocalist/composer João Gilberto was born in Brazil in 1931. He grew up with the sounds of samba, but also was inspired by American jazz. In the 1950s he began collaborating with guitarist and composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, and the pair established the bossa nova sound. When American guitarist Charlie Byrd and saxophonist Stan Getz brought bossa nova to the U.S., Gilberto and Jobim became international stars. Voz y violão, Portuguese for "voice and guitar," features João Gilberto singing Brazilian popular music and playing acoustic guitar.

3) Homeland --Miriam Makeba [Putumayo Artists/Putumayo World Music PUTU 164-2]

Miriam Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932 and began a professional singing career in 1950, soon becoming one of South Africa’s most successful performers. She left South Africa in 1959 and came to the U.S. She became both an internationally recognized performer and an outspoken critic of apartheid. Her South African passport was withdrawn, and her records were banned in her homeland. This year, however, the South African government officially honored her with the title "Mama Africa." Homeland is her first new album in six years and includes an updated version of her 1967 hit "Pata Pata."

Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1959, Youssou N’Dour performs both at home and internationally. He has been at the center of the fusion between traditional Wolof rhythms and western electric instrumentation known as mbalax. He has performed with Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, Branford Marsalis, and Neneh Cherry. Joko (The Link) was recorded primarily in Dakar, but shows many western musical influences.

5) Journey With the Sun -- Paul Winter & The Earth Band [Living Music LMUS0038]

Paul Winter, born in Pennsylvania, is a saxophonist, bandleader, and composer who started in jazz but has become interested in world music, the environment, and performing in natural acoustic spaces. He won Grammys for Best New Age Album in 1994 and 1999. Journey with the Sun was recorded in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and celebrates the winter and summer solstices. Performers include Davy Spillane, uilleann piper from Ireland; Arto Tuncboyaciyan, percussionist from Armenia; and Mickey Hart, drummer from the U.S. who plays his RAMU (an acronym for Random Access Music Universe), a computer-linked percussion instrument with a library of sounds from all over the world.

This year, unlike last year, the Archive voters selected the same CD as the Recording Academy voters did. And the winner is—João voz e violão by João Gilberto. Most voters remembered "The Girl from Ipanema," which was sung by João Gilberto’s wife, Astrud Gilberto, on the Verve album Getz/Gilberto. The song became a huge hit in 1963 and remains popular today.

This year, for the first time in Grammy history, there was a category for Best Native American Music Album. Tara Browner, professor from the Department of Ethnomusicology and American Indian Studies Center, commented that the category contained a scattering of different types of Native American music—from traditional old-style music to popular music to newly composed pow wow music—making comparison among the recordings difficult.

1) Tribute to the Elders -- Black Lodge Singers [Canyon Records Productions CR-6318]

Canyon Records was founded in 1951 when Ray Boley was asked by the Phoenix Little Theater to record a Navajo singer named Ed Lee Natay. Since then, Canyon Records has specialized in the production of traditional and contemporary Native American music. The Black Lodge Singers are Blackfeet from White Swan, Washington, and have released 19 albums for Canyon Records. Headed by Kenny Scabby Robe, the Black Lodge Singers are largely drawn from his 12 sons. Tribute to the Elders includes traditional Blackfeet songs and contemporary songs.

The Makoche Recording Co. is located is Bismarck, North Dakota. Joseph Fire Crow spent his early years on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, but was later placed with a foster family in Seattle as part of the Mormon Indian Placement program. As an adult, he reintegrated into his tribe and became a respected flute player. Cheyenne Nation is a mixture of traditional flute and contemporary instrumentation.

The group Lakota Thunder is composed of Lakota drummers and singers from the Standing Rock Reservation bordering North and South Dakota. Veterans Songs honors warriors from the past and present and includes songs about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam.

Located in Boulder, Colorado, Silver Wave Records has been an independent music label for contemporary Native American and new age music for 15 years. Joanne Shenandoah is from the Iroquois Confederacy of the Oneida Nation. On Peacemaker’s Journey she sings original compositions in her native Iroquois language and is accompanied by violin, viola, cello, guitar, bass, and other instruments.

Soar—Sound of America Records—is Native American owned and operated and has been producing traditional and contemporary Native American music since 1989. Gathering of Nations Pow Wow includes 16 drum groups who competed at the event billed as "North America’s Biggest Powwow" in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1999.

The winner was Gathering of Nations Pow Wow. Tara Browner called it the "safe choice." On the Grammy Awards television broadcast on February 21, the award was presented to Tom Bee and Douglas Spotted Eagle, the producers of the album. "We’re overwhelmed," said Spotted Eagle. "That the first people and their music have finally gotten recognition is just tremendous. It’s extremely gratifying to me because it means that young Native Americans, many of whom live some very hard lives, have something else to shoot for now. Their music can get heard, and I think every time this award gets handed out it’s going to open up more ears to this kind of music."

The Best of Broadside 1962-1988: Anthems of the American Underground from the Pages of Broadside Magazine received two Grammy nominations—Best Album Notes and Best Historical Album—for the year 2000. Released as Smithsonian Folkways Recordings SFW CD 40130, The Best of Broadside is a boxed set of five CDs with 89 songs (some never commercially released before now) and 159 pages of notes including graphics from the original Broadside magazine, photographs, and song texts. Tony Seeger, now teaching in the Department of Ethnomusicology, was Director and Curator of Smithsonian Folkways when the Broadside project was conceived and executed.

Seeger stopped by the Ethnomusicology Archive at the end of Fall Quarter to talk about the CD set. "Smithsonian Folkways," he said, "had done lots of reissues of traditional recordings but hadn’t focused on songwriters and what they were doing. I wanted to focus on the creative efforts of songwriters. One of the obvious places to look was Broadside, a small underground magazine of mimeographed sheets distributed among singer-songwriters in the decades between 1962 and 1988." Seeger continued, "I lived through this period, and I knew many of the artists—so I knew it would be easier for me to do this project than it would be for whomever my successor at Folkways would be."

"The 1960s," said Seeger, "was a creative and interesting moment for songwriters whose songs were too radical for mainstream publishers and record labels…and too new for folk music magazines." Seeger recounted, "Sis Cunningham and her husband, Gordon Friesen, radicals themselves, started Broadside with the support of Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds. People worked on the magazine in Sis’ small New York City apartment, sometimes eating there and staying overnight."

The CD notes, on 8-1/2" x 11" pages, are meant to keep the look of the original Broadside. Photographs and drawings are from the original period, but the commentary, according to Seeger, "is all new scholarship." As a part of the research, Jeff Place, archivist for the Folkways Collection and co-producer of the CD set, contacted all of the living songwriters and talked with them about their songs.

Each song is included for a reason—because it was banned on radio or television, because it was important to magazine founder Sis Cunningham, or because Smithsonian Folkways wanted to represent the full spectrum of topics discussed in the magazine. Topics include the perils of nuclear war, the conflict in Vietnam, the struggle for civil rights, union organization, social injustice, women’s rights, and songs about other songwriters. Look for well-known titles such as "Blowin’ in the Wind," "Little Boxes," and "Society’s Child." Performers include Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Janis Ian, Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Phil Ochs, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Malvina Reynolds, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Pete Seeger, El Teatro Campesino, and many more.

Rolling Stone magazine gave The Best of Broadside its highest five-star rating and called it "a grand tribute to a stubborn ideal." (No. 848.) U.S. News & World Report also called it a "top pick" and noted, "The illustrated book is almost as important as the music, giving context to songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ and ‘Mack the Bomb.’" (Vol. 129, no. 16, p. 72.)

You can find The Best of Broadside in the Ethnomusicology Archive under ARCD 461-465.

Students, faculty, and visitors enjoyed several Video Hours hosted by the Ethnomusicology Archive during the Winter Quarter 2001.

Kathleen Hood recently returned from fieldwork in Syria and will begin writing her dissertation on the Druze wedding song repertoire and how it serves to reinforce a collective memory of historical events. In this Video Hour, she compared footage of Druze, Christian, and Bedouin weddings.

Friday, February 2 – "Music from Southern Africa" with Donald Kachamba & Joseph Shabalala

Friday, February 16 – "Music from West Africa" starring Nzingha Camara & Cheick-Tidiane Seck

To celebrate the Year of African Music 1999-2000 and to recognize Black History Month 2001, the Archive presented two "Video Portraits from the Year of African Music." The Video Portraits were dedicated to the memory of Donald Kachamba, who died in January. Each video showing was introduced by Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje from Ethnomusicology and John Bishop from World Arts and Cultures.

On February 2, Mark Eby presented his edited video footage of Jacqueline DjeDje, who created and organized the Year of African Music. Charles Sharp showed video clips of Donald Kachamba, musician and composer of urban dance music genres from Malawi. Emily Quist showed a video of Joseph Shabalala, founder-director of Ladysmith Black Mambazo from South Africa. Lastly, John Bishop showed highlights of concert performances by Donald Kachamba and Joseph Shabalala and the students who studied with them during the Year of African Music.

On February 16, Mark Eby showed a video of Nzingha Camara, who specializes in traditional West African dance forms and directed a dance production at UCLA. Vicente Contreras showed a video of Cheick-Tidiane Seck, originally from Mali but now performing throughout the world, blending local traditions of his Manding cultural heritage with Western popular music. Again, John Bishop showed concert footage, this time of Camara’s dance production and Seck’s concert with UCLA students and local musicians.

Thursday, March 1 – "Multimedia for a Polymath: Harry Smith and His Films, His Collections, and His Famous Anthology of American Folk Music" by Tony Seeger

We billed this presentation as an Archive Multimedia Hour because Tony Seeger talked about a variety of media ranging from 78-rpm records, LP records, compact discs, and a CD-ROM with video clips. The music of the Anthology had a tremendous impact on American music when it was issued in 1952—and for decades afterward. To top off the hour, Tom Sauber, master musician in the old-time music tradition, and Amy Wooley, director of the UCLA AngloAmerican Ensemble, played live music from the Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.

Wednesday, March 7 – “Semester at Sea: An Ethnomusicologist’s View of the Music of the World” by Ankica Petrovic

Ankica Petrovic spent the Fall Semester teaching music courses on a ship in the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program. The ship docked in several countries, and she showed video clips from many of the stops, including puppet theater from Vietnam, Masai dances from Kenya, and popular music from Cuba. She also reflected upon the Semester at Sea experience.

Tony Seeger and Louise Spear participated in the Folk Heritage Collections in Crisis Symposium held at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, on December 1-2, 2000. The symposium was sponsored by the American Folklife Center and American Folklore Society and was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Council on Library and Information Resources, Recording Industry Association of America, and Grammy Foundation.

"The purpose of the symposium," said Peggy Bulger, Director of the American Folklife Center, was to "identify and define common problems, encourage the sharing of best management practices, suggest responses to critical issues, and develop plans to preserve folk heritage recorded sound resources for future generations." Over 100 archivists, librarians, audio engineers, preservation specialists, computer scientists, lawyers, folklorists, ethnomusicologists, oral historians, granting agency representatives, and recording company executives attended—each group bringing different expertise, viewpoints, and solutions to the problem of preserving our recorded sound heritage.

Discussion at the symposium centered on three topics—access, preservation, and intellectual property rights. On the first day, keynote addresses on each topic were presented. On the second day, participants divided into three groups and drew up guidelines and recommendations for each topic.

Virginia Danielson from the Archive of World Music and the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University spoke on "Stating the Obvious: Lessons Learned Attempting Access to Archival Audio Collections." Access is difficult, she noted, because recordings are fragile, require time to process and catalog, and may be sensitive or restricted in nature. She suggested that institutions cooperate, each working selectively from areas of strength, and that we fashion collaborations with specialists such as audio engineers, computer programmers, and subject specialists.

Tony Seeger discussed "Intellectual Property and Audiovisual Archives and Collections." He advocated that archives take proactive stances regarding intellectual property…helping researchers obtain the rights they need…helping artists and communities learn what their rights are…and looking at the impact of new technologies such as the internet with its potential to disseminate information rapidly and widely. He also stressed the need for collectors to resolve ambiguous rights questions…and the need for academic programs to include intellectual property in their courses of study.

Elizabeth Cohen of Cohen Acoustical, Inc., spoke on "Preservation of Audio." She feels that "to delay in the transfer of analog media into the digital domain is to compromise preservation."

In the near future, results from the symposium will be posted on the Library of Congress’ web site. The keynote addresses and discussions will be included in both text and video formats. The web site will also include links to resources, existing guidelines, and organizations. In addition, there will be a white paper discussing the symposium and the results of a nationwide survey on the state of our recorded collections.

Workshops on the three topics—access, preservation, and intellectual property rights—will be held at the annual meetings of the Oral History Association, American Folklore Society, and Society for Ethnomusicology in October 2001. The workshops will be geared toward individual collectors and fieldworkers and those managing small to mid-sized collections of recorded sound.


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