CITYFOLK MONTHLY - April 2006

The Inca Empire did not have an especially long run on the world stage, from about 1438 to 1533, but it certainly was vast--encompassing the modern countries of Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, and parts of Chile, Argentina, and Colombia. With a population of roughly 15 million, the Inca Empire was about the size of the 13 original American colonies in 1776. And yet the forces of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro conquered the empire with essentially a single battle.

The Spanish conquest of the Incas inaugurated the all-too-common colonial process of political, social and cultural oppression. Though the Spanish colonists and their Catholic clergy did their best to obliterate the Inca culture, it has shown a remarkable resilience and capacity for adaptation, particularly the region's musical traditions. Those traditions are probably the oldest in Latin America.

Panpipes are the most characteristic and widely known element of the music of the Andes (think groups like Inti-Illimani or Sukay), but they don't tell the whole story. The earliest ensembles in the region likely consisted of drums, panpipes (known locally as antaras or zampoñas) and notched-end wooden flutes (quenas) and accompanied singers and dancers. Large marching bands of panpipes and drums existed before the Spanish conquest and their musical descendants are still active in the area around Lake Titicaca.

Traditional music from the Andes today consists of several closely related styles. Many people in the U.S. were first exposed to this sound by the 1970 Simon & Garfunkel hit "El Condor Pasa," a yaravi (a kind of slow, sad song from pre-conquest times) composed in 1781 to mark the death of the last member of the Incan royal family.

Huayno music, described by one critic as "an unmistakable dance rhythm reminiscent of a hopped-up waltz," is the music of the Quechua people, the descendants of the Inca. This style is native to the mountains of Peru, but has spread throughout the region since the 1950s, when the Quechua started coming down from the mountains for jobs in cities like Lima.

The more traditional of the orquestas típicas that play this style use violins, harps, guitars and charangos (a mandolin-like instrument made from an armadillo shell), but urban groups have also added saxophones, trumpets and clarinets to the mix. Leading vocalists in this style include Flor Pucariña, Picaflor de los Andes, Florcita de Pisaq and El Jilguero de Huascarán, the most renowned singer in the genre.

Instrumentation in the Andes is a mix of pre-Columbian and modern. Drums, bamboo panpipes and flutes (often made today from PVC pipe rather than wood) date to before the conquest, but stringed instruments such as guitars, charangos and violins were introduced by the Spanish. The large 36-string Andean harp, played by few people today, is thought to be a blend of the Spanish harp and the Celtic harp brought to the area by Jesuit priests. In parades and processions, harpists often sling the instrument onto their shoulders and play with an unbelievable backhanded style.

Chicha is a hybrid musical style that appeared in Lima in the 1960s as a fusion of huayno music from the highlands, urban cumbia and rock. By the 1980s, chicha was ubiquitous in urban Peru, and while the style's connections to traditional music are obscured somewhat by the electric guitars, basses and keyboards, it would be wrong to consider this musical development outside the tradition. Belem was the first of the chicha bands to have recordings released internationally.

Recordings of traditional music of the Andes are numerous and relatively easy to find with a bit of research. The more authentic folkloric albums, often field or informal recordings of little-known musicians, can be found on such labels as Arhoolie, Folkways, Nonesuch and Lyrichord. More polished--and more accessible to unfamiliar ears--are albums by such traditionally oriented "concert bands" as Inti-Illimani, Rumillajta, Awatinas, Bolivia Manta, the Andean-American band Sukay and Inca Son, an outstanding Boston-based ensemble that will perform at this year's Cityfolk Festival.

Founded in 1989 by Peruvian musician and dancer Cesar Villalobos, Inca Son first appeared in Dayton in the late 1990s at the National Folk Festival. The group has recorded 10 albums; has had several hit records in Peru; has toured extensively throughout Latin America, Europe, Canada and the U.S.; and contributed music to the acclaimed PBS series Columbus and the Age of Discovery.

At the tender age of 9, Anupama Bhagwat's career began, when her uncle gave her a sitar. Within four years, she began formal training, and has now played all over the world. The amazing thing is that thanks to love, she has made her home right here in Dayton since 1997! Each year she spends about five months in India, further honing her skills while visiting friends and family. Cityfolk is pleased to present Ms. Bhagwat at the Cityfolk Festival on Saturday, July 1.

RECORDING I'M LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW: I listen to a lot of music every day. I listen to Indian Classical Vocal and Instrumental, and yesterday I heard two young kids playing Vivaldi's compositions on the Violin. But all day Ilisten to a variety of music. I just now heard a live recording of the famous Sitarist, Pandit Nikhil Banerjee who is a contemprory of Ravi Shankar.

LAST THREE BOOKS I'VE READ: The Da Vinci Code

by Dan Brown, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda, and Wise and Otherwise by Sudha Murty

FAVORITE LIVE MUSIC EXPERIENCE: Oh there are quite a few. One of them is Zakir Hussain and The Rhythm Experience performing in Columbus in 2004.

FAVORITE COMFORT FOOD: However much I try myself to get used to the Pizza, or the chalupas, I still think Indian food still remains my Comfort food.

FAVORITE PASSTIMES: To watch movies, to listen to spritual discourses and to read books. And of course catch up with my sleep, whenever I can (since I travel a lot).

DREAM VACATION: Hmm lets see... Alaska, Hawaii, Himalayas. I would love to spend a good time in Himalayas.

MATERIAL CULTURE: GUNSMITHING

One of the craftspeople invited to participate in Out of the Fire: Made from Metal is Willie Boitnott, an unassuming man from rural Miami County, Ohio. Boitnott and his son Richard specialize in making a little bit of history: muzzle loading firearms, to be exact. The pair builds the guns from scratch, using plans and methods from the 1800s.

For many years, Boitnott traveled the world as the armorer for the United States' International Muzzle Loading Rifle Team. Son Richard is also an expert shot on the rifles, and has set records at National competitions to prove it.

When plans were made to reenact Lewis and Clark's expedition, Bob Anderson--a descendent of one of the crew members and a member of Willie Boitnott's Masonic Lodge--complained to Boitnott one day that there was noone to build replicas of the guns that been used. Boitnott said, "We can build 'em." Anderson had original blueprints, which were copies of an English pattern of the era.

They made eight copies of the 1803 rifle, .54 flintlocks which had a thirty-three and a half inch barrel and weighed around nine pounds. These were used mainly to hunt game to feed the crew on their journey. The Boitnotts also made two brass blunderbusses, which weigh in at 35 pounds each. These were mounted as swivel guns on the bow of the expedition's flagship. The blunderbuss was not very accurate; the racket it made was intended to impress the Native Americans they met along the way. Most of the guns they made for the reenactment are now in museums and private collections.

Willie and Richard Boitnotts are toolmakers by trade. In the 1940s, the elder Boitnott (now in his 80s) learned how to make rifles from a gunsmith in Washington Court House who was steeped in historic gunmaking methods. In many cases, he had to first make the tools needed to make the muzzle loaders that were his main interest, and made the stocks from walnut trees growing on their farm. It was tough to find the rare parts, and times were lean so there wasn't much money to buy what was needed. As so often happens, the limitations led to ingenuity and creative solutions.

Their family history includes soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. The grandfather on the Confederate side was also a gunsmith. Willie built his son's first gun, but when he outgrew it, he took up the trade to make himself a new one. The father-son team's simple pride in their work is plain to see.

Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, has been called the most "African" place in all of the Americas. As a center of the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, millions of Africans were sold into slavery in this city on Brazil's northern coast. And while the slave trade is now only a painful memory, the culture of the Africans who suffered there remains as vibrant as ever. Its blending with the prominent European and native cultures present in Brazil has created one of the most exciting and enchanting concentrations of traditional arts in the world.

My wife, Natalie, and I had the good fortune to travel to Salvador this past February, where we were overwhelmed by the powerful presence of music, dance and art, all tied directly to the traditional art forms that took root centuries ago in Africa. From the teenaged boys on the street corners performing the centuries-old blend of dance and martial arts known as capoeira, to the groups of traditional drummers playing for pleasure on the beach, to the amazing spectacle of the internationally known Ballet Folklorico de Bahia, the presence of the arts everywhere point to a culture in which the arts are not an entertainment, but a central component of daily life.

The Pelourinho, the historic colonial center of Salvador, is the hub of much of the traditional culture and, in the lead up to the amazing spectacle of Carnaval (which began only days after our departure) the neighborhood was a circus of street performers, marching Samba bands, men with guitars on street corners singing Bossa Nova, children in colorful costumes, and staged concerts in every square.

This magnificent exhibition is organized by a confederation of "blocos" -- neighborhood cultural organizations, each with a distinct identity -- who seek to preserve the traditional African culture, but whose work and influence extends well beyond the boundaries of artistic expression. Through their work educating poor children and organizing around issues that effect residents of their neighborhoods, the blocos are not only important tools with which to preserve their cultural traditions, but powerful instruments for building strong neighborhoods and communities. Each bloco forms a Samba band: a group of neighborhood residents who march through the streets in colorful traditional costumes, playing Samba rhythms on a wild variety of drums, pieces of metal, and virtually anything that can be beat with a drumstick. These Samba Bands create the centerpiece of the celebration of arts that happen every day in this amazing community.

It is often said that the some of the richest art forms come from the intersection of distinct cultures. Whether it's the gumbo of races and traditions that have made New Orleans a standard bearer for the best in American traditional arts, or any number of places around the world where the sharing of the best of our cultural traditions with our neighbors has resulted in spectacular new forms of expression, it's clear that the arts can help build unity amongst the most disparate communities.

Brazil has become known around the globe as home to some of the world's greatest music and dance -- everything from Samba and Bossa Nova to chorinho and maxixe -- and there may be no better place to explore the great arts of Brazil and the beautiful manner in which it is weaved into the daily life of its people, than Salvador de Bahia.

Look for more on the music of Brazil in future editions of Cityfolk ENews.

The passing of Oscar Treadwell at the age of 79 on April 2 marked the end of an era for local jazzlovers. For someone like me discovering the music in the 1970s, finding his program at the left end of the dial on WGUC seemed like unbelievable luck. Decades before you could access every radio station on the world wide web, here was someone with the kind of authority, knowledge and voice you assumed must be part of some national feed eminating from the east coast. But there he was, straight out of Cincinnati, five nights a week between midnight and 2 am. It wasn't surprising to learn that he had a deep history with jazz. He championed the then new music called bebop in the late-1940s on radio stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania including WDAS in Philadelphia. The musicians didn't forget it. Wardell Gray, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk all saluted Oscar with music named in his honor.

By the mid 1990s when jazz radio was beginning to get trimmed or cut completely from many stations,
Oscar's tenure at WGUC came to an end, followed by a short run at WVXU. Last fall, years after doing his last show and donating his CD collection to the Cincinnati Public Library, WVXU brought him back for a Sunday night show, which for the first time was archived and made available on the WVXU website. Finally, the world could access what southwestern Ohio audiences had been able to enjoy regularly for years.

Beyond his his tastefully done program, which traced every corner of the jazz tradition while blending in
his great love of poetry, Oscar was a very nice guy. Every time Cityfolk came calling he came through. He was part of the 1987 Tradition in Transition panel, which included Willard Jenkins, Chuck Nessa and keynote speaker Albert Murray. He also gave pre-concert talks and conducted a session on jazz and poetry, part of Cityfolk's summer jazz teacher training workshop at Antioch College in 2000.

You can hear the opening notes of Monk's "Oska T" when Jazz With OT airs at 9:00 PM on Sunday nights (recently taped programs are continuing to air for the first time) on WVXU at 91.7 FM. Its a chance to savor a one-of-a-kind voice we were lucky to have in our own backyard.

From time to time, stories on NPR, in the New York Times and in other places catch the eye (or ear) of the Cityfolk staff. These are stories about traditional music, handicrafts, ways of life...stories that deepen our understanding and appreciation for the folkways of the world. We will keep bringing as much of this to Dayton as we can; in the meantime, take a listen to this:

If you find a story that you'd like to share with other Cityfolk ENews readers, please send us the link and we'll put it the hopper for possible inclusion.

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