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Independent
Music Recommendations - Sample on AMAZON
Hard to find good music these days? Here are
some albums worth listening to. These recommendations are completely independent
- AIM accepts no promotional fees or CDs whatsoever. The music rises or falls on its own
merits. 'From
the Collection' features old favorites. 'Honorable
Mentions' are new releases that find their way into
my collection and get played repeatedly. 'Discovery',
AIM's highest distinction, is reserved for those rare occasions when new
releases are among the best of their kind.
Global Drum Project (percussion)
JJ Cale and Eric Clapton (blues)
Prem Joshua & Chintan
(India/electronica fusion)
Henry Martin
(classical piano)
Afro Celt Sound
System
(ethnofusion)
Cesaria Evora (vocalist)
Twelve Girls Band
(Chinese pop)
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Keepers of Tradition
"We're coded ... for rhythms. It's part of our DNA. I mean we really don't have
any choice when we wake up in the morning. We know what we're going to do." -
Mickey Hart on WAMU 88.5-FM
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and long-time collaborator and tablameister Zakir Hussain return with Global Drum Project, a more highly evolved collection of percussion pieces fusing a variety of world traditions. This time, they get deeper into the electronics. Their first project together was Diga Rhythm Band in 1976. Their 1991 Planet Drum album won the first Grammy award for world music and stayed No. 1 on the Billboard world music charts for 26 weeks.
Global Drum Project breaks new ground in several ways. First, the late Nigerian drum legend Babatunde Olatunji appears posthumously on the first track (Baba) via vocal samples lifted from earlier recordings. The last track I Can Tell You More has lyrics. In addition, the Nigerian talking drum is given a larger role. The instrument can vary in pitch, its vocal quality delighting Westerners who have only encountered percussion instruments of fixed pitch. Mickey Hart first heard a talking drum decades ago. "That riveted my imagination. I've been chasing that feeling since 1959," he told WAMU 88.5-FM talk show host Kojo Nnamdi (an excellent interviewer who deserves more recognition).
But what really sets the disc apart from earlier excursions is how it explores the percussive possibilities of loops and samples. The technology has gotten smarter, enabling musicians to interact with it in real time instead of just tweaking soundclips in post-production, Hart told radio listners. Hussain, whom Hart met while studying under Hussain's father, can transform his tablas into a different instrument through sampling technology and produce 20 different tones. For the track Dances with Wood, they mic'd a redwood tree stump. Instead of hearing a single 'thump' as you would expect from a piece of wood, you hear the vibrations and frequencies produced by striking the wood, which signals are then arpeggiated and delayed. The same process produces multiple notes out of a tabla which is more resonant than a piece of wood.
Hussain says that the music on Global Drum Project expresses traditions that go back more than a thousand years. He finds inspiration in the repertoire that has accumulated in India over many centuries, as well as from ambient sounds like the rumbling of trains and the beating of horse hooves.
While Hart, an American, cannot claim such a longstanding tradition, he views rhythm as universal to all human beings. It's in everyone and everything that's alive. "That's the bottom line to life. When the rhythm stops, it's over," he told the radio audience.
He said it is a challenge bringing together musicians from different cultures and traditions. "They have to be prepared to leave some of their traditions behind to form a new rhythm for a new day," he said on the The Kojo Nnamdi Show. How American is that?!!
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JJ
Cale and Eric Clapton
- The Road to Escondido
Real comfortable, like a pair of old shoes. White-boy blues from a couple of old pros. JJ Cale has most of the writing credits on this album and he's just as laid back as he was in the 1970s. Simple stuff, but you want to hear it again and again. Check out Danger and Don't Cry Sister on Amazon.
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Many thanks to Al Santos for bringing this one to my attention. Sitars and tabla with nice electronics and flow. Deceptively simple, it grows on you - mesmerizing.
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Henry
Martin
- Preludes & Fugues (Part 2)
Sample the music at
BridgeRecords.com
Henry Martin's Preludes and Fugues,
Book 2 is an accessible collection of solo piano works in the
tradition of J.S. Bach, nicely spiced with enough dissonance and other modern
elements to keep things interesting. The term fugue refers to the same
line entering in different voices and playing against other voices which
previously carried the line, but which have gone off to do other things. This is
music more from the head than the heart where the beauty resides, not in melody,
but in patterns and sonic towers that please the ear. There's a storytelling and
coherence here that keeps the music from being just a bunch of notes. Martin
moves you through chase scenes, quiet reflective moments, and playful frolics,
taking you to places you've never been before. He uses the full range of the
keyboard, exploring the sonic possibilities of the upper and lower registers. It
doesn't just sit in the middle like a lot of piano music. An antidote to pop
music from a master composer.
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Evora hails from Cape Verde, off the North African coast. She sings with great dignity of pain and separation, captivating many listeners (myself included).
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High energy ethnofusion, complex rhythms, great electronics. Wowed my 20-year old nephew who plays the bagpipes.
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Twelve Girls Band
Toe-tappin', feel-good music from China.
Westernized pop; good introduction to Asian instruments.
© 2007 Christopher M. Wright
All Rights Reserved