Backstage 2006

"Backstage" gives you the background and expertise that makes the music and dance CITYFOLK presents come alive in so many dimensions -- historical, societal, musical, personal and emotional. Look for new Backstages by music expert and writer Jon Hartley Fox two appear about two weeks before each concert.

Jon Hartley Fox, a Dayton native now living in California, has finished his first book, King Of The Queen City: The Story of King Records, to be published next year by the University of Illinois Press. He has been writing about music, pop culture and the arts for over thirty years.

September 17, 2005

NEA Jazz Master Jim Hall with Scott Colley

Jazz legend Jim Hall is what one might call a guitar player's guitar player. He has helped shape two or three generations of guitarists, with such players as Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Mick Goodrick, John Scofield, Mike Stern, and John Abercrombie citing Hall as a major influence. Metheny calls Jim Hall "the father of jazz guitar in many ways. He reinvented what the guitar could be as a jazz instrument." Frisell says of Hall, "There is no generation gap with Jim because he hears the spirit of the music."

Such praise likely makes Hall squirm. He has a different--and somewhat surprising--take on his playing. "The instrument keeps me humble," says Hall. "Sometimes I pick it up and it seems to say, 'No, you can't play today.' I keep at it anyway though. The guitar is still a mystery to me. I'm not sure I have what's called a style, but I have an approach to music, an attitude to allow myself to grow. I don't like to be boxed-in or labeled."

Hall is about the only listener in the world to have any doubts about his sublime guitar playing. The New York Times hails him as the "greatest living guitarist" in jazz, while The Village Voice calls Hall "the poet of the jazz guitar." The Big Apple media trifecta is completed by The New Yorker, which dubbed Hall "the reigning master of the jazz guitar" because he "says more with fewer notes than any living improviser."

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1930, Jim Hall was raised there and in Columbus and Cleveland. He started playing the guitar at age ten and became a jazz guitarist primarily because of two people: Charlie Christian, the great guitarist with Benny Goodman's band in the 1930s, and Django Reinhardt, the Belgian Gypsy whose recordings with the Hot Club of France influenced so many guitarists.

"Charlie Christian literally changed my life," says Hall. "It was instant addiction. He had a combination of musicality and intelligence that is really rare. I wasn't even sure what it was that he was doing, but I knew I wanted to be able to do that." Of Reinhardt, Hall notes, "It seemed like he took wild chances with the music. He added another dimension to my conception of what it meant to play the guitar."

After graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Music with a degree in music theory, Hall moved to Los Angeles to seek his fortune and musical destiny. He quickly found a place within that city''s thriving jazz scene, working and recording in 1955-1956 with drummer Chico Hamilton's landmark "chamber jazz" quintet. Hall subsequently spent three years in clarinet and sax player Jimmy Giuffre's improvisational drummer-less trio, recording during that time with the Jimmy Giuffre trio, valve trombonist-pianist Bob Brookmeyer and pianist Hampton Hawes, among others. Hall made his recording debut as a leader in 1957 with Jazz Guitar: Jim Hall Trio for the Pacific Jazz label.

On the strength of the national and international attention Hall had received for his work in California, he did in 1960 what ambitious jazz musicians have done for decades: moved to New York, the biggest, best and most competitive jazz scene in the world. Hall then launched a period of intense, prolific creativity and collaboration that is astounding to consider even from this historic perspective of forty-plus years later.

Hall first toured with legendary singer Ella Fitzgerald in 1960-1961. He then spent a couple of years working in the dynamic quartet led by tenor sax titan Sonny Rollins. Hall recorded two albums with this band, What's New and the all-time jazz classic The Bridge. From 1962 through 1964, Hall co-led a quartet with trumpeter Art Farmer that recorded a pair of albums for Atlantic, Interaction and Live at the Half Note.

Hall also kept busy as a session musician in the 1960s, cutting a number of albums with alto sax player Paul Desmond, two superb duet albums with pianist Bill Evans (Undercurrent and Intermodulation) and the all-star quintet recording Interplay with Evans, Freddie Hubbard, Percy Heath and Philly Joe Jones. Since the early 1970s, Hall has performed and recorded mostly as a group leader, though he's always up for an interesting experiment or collaboration.

Hall's genius for collaboration is perhaps best demonstrated by three albums he recorded with bassist Ron Carter between 1972 and 1984 (Live at the Village West, Telephone and the essential Alone Together) and Jim Hall & Basses, a series of inspired guitar-bass duets with Dave Holland, Christian McBride, Charlie Haden, George Mraz and Scott Colley. Jim Hall & Pat Metheny, a collection of live and studio duets released in 1999, is also required listening for anyone interested in the art of improvisational creativity.

Besides those albums, Hall has recorded prolifically throughout his career. The subtle, harmonically advanced guitarist has cut nearly thirty albums under his own name, in a variety of formats, styles and settings. He's recorded as a solo artist, with groups ranging from duos to big bands, in the studio and on the bandstand, here in the U.S. and in Canada, Germany, Japan and Denmark. Hall's most recent album is Magic Meeting, recorded live at the Village Vanguard in 2004 with bassist Scott Colley and drummer Lewis Nash.

Bassist Scott Colley joins Hall for tonight's CITYFOLK concert. A native of Los Angeles, Colley is one of the most in-demand bass players in jazz. He's played on more than eighty albums to date, as both sideman and leader, and is also highly regarded as a composer. Colley has performed, toured and recorded with a wide array of jazz luminaries, from Carmen McRae and Dizzy Gillespie to Pat Metheny and Michael Brecker. A member of Herbie Hancock's working trio, Colley also plays with two quartets--one featuring vibist Bobby Hutcherson, the other featuring saxophonist Gary Thomas.

Hall has devoted more of his time and energy to composing and arranging in recent years. This side of Hall is showcased on such 1990s albums as Textures and By Arrangement, which feature vocal ensembles and string arrangements alongside such A-list jazz musicians as Pat Metheny and Joe Lovano. Formal recognition of Hall's skills in this area has come in the form of a New York Jazz Critics Circle Award for "Best Jazz Composer/Arranger" in 1997, the Danish Jazzpar Award the following year, and numerous other honors.

At this point in his career, in his sixth decade as a professional musician, Jim Hall knows what's important in music and what's not. Accolades and awards don't motivate him much. Communication does. "Music is a communication between artist and audience," he says, "a communication in a universal language that speaks to people in a universal way, bypassing all language and cultural differences."

Jim Hall has indeed spoken to people in a universal way. He doesn't have a signature lick and he doesn't play a thousand notes a minute, but that's not the stuff that lasts. Hall is a consummate master of the guitar with a unique and recognizable sound of his own. It comes from the way he approaches the music, from his intelligence and boundless curiosity, from his engagement with the world around him. "Listening is still the key," Hall asserts, and he's still one of the best listeners on the planet.

"Clarity is the thing I'm after," he says of his esteemed and much imitated guitar playing. "I want a picture in my mind of the way a solo looks as I'm playing it. That way I can keep it from becoming boring--to me or the listeners. I get bored very easily, and I think that's one thing that helps me avoid clichés."

It was almost exactly fifty years ago that Hall headed west and started his career playing with Chico Hamilton. Hall's guitar playing has made a major impact upon the musical landscape over the past half century. Even more than his technical virtuosity, what's most impressive about Hall's recordings is his unmatched tone--not what he played so much, but how his perfectly amplified playing sounded. It's warm, round, dry, woody, intimate, and mellow, the sound of pure guitar.

English jazz fans have long called Hall the "Quiet American," but it could be they just don't recognize Midwestern reserve when they see it. While Hall is by all reports a modest and unassuming man, he's also passionate, informed and quite articulate, particularly when the conversation turns to music and its potential to help attain world peace. Hall believes in the power of music to change both hearts and minds.

Jim Hall's lifetime of musical accomplishment was officially celebrated last year, when he received the Jazz Masters Fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts in January 2004. In accepting the prestigious award, Hall spoke eloquently of music and peace.: "The women and men who have received this award in the past have spread peace and love throughout the world, something that governments might emulate. I am pleased to be one of the peacemakers."

Learn more at Jim Hall's website or Scott Colley's website.

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October 7, 2005

Pat Metheny Quartet with Christian McBride and Antonio Sanchez and special added guest David Sanchez

Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny still has vivid memories of his first visit to New York, even though it's been more than thirty-five years now. It was his first time out of Missouri. He was fifteen, with braces on his teeth and--by his own admission--as green as the grass that grows in his hometown of Lees Summit. "I'd never been anywhere," says Metheny of that trip, "and I didn't know anything about anything." He was there to see his future.

He saw it at The Guitar, a jazz club on Tenth Avenue. The superb jazz guitarist Jim Hall was playing at the club as a duo with bassist Ron Carter, and Metheny was there every night of his visit. The teenager's shepherd on these club hops was Attila Zoller, another jazz guitarist who also took Metheny to see club performances by Bill Evans and Freddie Hubbard. "But every night," remembers Metheny, "he took me around to hear Jim because that's the thing I really wanted to hear." The kid was a jazz guitarist from that point on.

No musician in jazz has influenced as many musicians in as many styles over the past thirty years as Pat Metheny. Metheny redefined his instrument, indeed the very idea of the jazz guitar, for a generation. He also helped redefine the jazz band for millions of listeners weaned on rock and largely indifferent to jazz. Metheny has maintained a level of popularity, creativity, artistic integrity and productivity that places him within the very top rank of American musicians, regardless of style.

Metheny has blazed more trails than most jazz musicians of his generation. He was the youngest teacher ever at the University of Miami, at 18. Same thing at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, at 19. Metheny was among the first major jazz players to enthusiastically embrace new technologies, including the synthesizer, the Synclavier and the guitar-synthesizer. Finally, there's the way he re-wrote the Grammy Awards history book.

Though he's only fifty-one, Metheny has already won sixteen Grammy Awards, in several different categories, including "Best Jazz Fusion Performance," "Best Instrumental Composition," "Best Contemporary Jazz Performance, Instrumental," "Best New Age Album," "Best Contemporary Jazz Album," "Best Jazz Instrumental Solo," "Best Jazz Instrumental Performance" and "Best Rock Instrumental Performance."

Metheny's most impressive Grammy legacy, however, was a run of success between 1982 and 1995 that is unlikely to be duplicated, ever, by any artist in any genre. The Pat Metheny Group in those years won an unprecedented seven consecutive Grammy Awards for seven consecutive albums: Offramp, Travels, First Circle, Still Life (Talking), Letter from Home, The Road to You and We Live Here. Metheny won two additional Grammys during that stretch, for the solo album Secret Story and Beyond the Missouri Sky, a duet album with bassist Charlie Haden.

Born into a highly musical family in Lees Summit, Missouri, in 1954, Pat Metheny started his musical journey on the trumpet at age eight. He switched to guitar at twelve and was playing jazz professionally by fifteen in Kansas City area clubs. He wasn't on stage as a "novelty," either. Metheny had serious talent and an insight into music that belied his young age.
Metheny burst upon the international jazz scene in 1974 playing with vibraphonist Gary Burton's boundary-stretching quartet. Metheny spent three-plus years with Burton, during which time he made his solo recording debut in 1975 with Bright Size Life. Metheny launched the Pat Metheny Group with keyboardist (and songwriting partner) Lyle Mays in 1977 and has seen the band grow and evolve into, arguably, the most important and commercially successful jazz band of its time.

Metheny has been quite astute in the management of his recording career. When he left ECM in 1984 Metheny formed a production company that records his music and then licenses the albums to record companies for release. The beauty of this system is two-fold: Metheny has total artistic control over his recordings ("I really have been able to everything I've wanted to do," he notes, "exactly the way I've wanted to do it.") and he retains the ownership of the recordings.

In addition to the recordings with the Pat Metheny Group (PMG), Metheny has displayed his extreme versatility by recording with a vast array of musicians. He's worked with Joni Michell (on her live album Shadows & Light) and recorded and performed extensively with bassist Charlie Haden. He's recorded with players within the jazz mainstream--Sonny Rollins, Michael Brecker and Joshua Redman--and with those who have resided outside it, such as Derek Bailey, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Ornette Coleman (on the record Song X just reissued in expanded form on Nonesuch Records and a tour done in conjunction with the record in 1985).

Metheny's music, particularly with the PMG, has always been accessible, and that's meant as the highest of compliments. That accessibility, however, has cost him some of the critical acclaim he deserves, as there are jazz critics for whom success itself is evidence of artistic compromise. They tend to dismiss Metheny as a "fusion guy." That's nonsense, of course, and Metheny has long since made peace with his relative lack of critical hosannas.

Metheny has never liked the "fusion" label and who can blame him? First, fusion is a process, not a style. Second, all music is a fusion of disparate elements, so what's the point of singling out this particular fusion? Third, the term itself is shorthand for "jazz-rock fusion," an inept bit of labeling used to describe the rock-inflected improvisational music made by such ensembles as Weather Report, Return to Forever, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Tony Williams' Lifetime in the early 1970s. It doesn't mean anything.

"I have been able to just keep my eyes on the music," Metheny says, "and have watched with a certain kind of amusement over the years as people try to struggle to fit whatever my thing is into whatever their thing is. For better or for worse, there is nothing even remotely like it. It is kind of not connected to other things. I have occasionally gone over to somebody else's yard for a while and I enjoy that, but the larger day-to-day stuff that I'm working on and trying to get good at, doesn't really connect with the larger trends and the larger issues."

Metheny was ready for a change of pace after a six-month international tour with the seven-member Pat Metheny Group in support of the album The Way Up. He was looking forward to touring the U.S. with celebrated young bassist Christian McBride and drummer/percussionist Antonio Sanchez, who joined the PMG in 2002. It would be the return of the Pat Metheny Trio.

Those plans changed when the PMG rolled into Montreal in July for the tour's last few shows at the massive Montreal Jazz Festival. Before closing the eleven-day festival with a performance before more than 125,000 people, the PMG did an incendiary set with Puerto Rican saxophonist David Sanchez. The show was so much fun, Metheny scrapped the trio plans and invited the Grammy-nominated sax player to join the upcoming tour. It would be the return of the Pat Metheny Quartet.

And so it is. Metheny has always liked to work with the best musicians, and the three on this tour certainly fit the job description. Bassist Christian McBride is one of the busiest musicians in jazz. Since 1990, he has played on more than 200 albums (with such luminaries as Freddie Hubbard, Betty Carter, Joshua Redman, McCoy Tyner, Joe Lovano and Sting) and recorded six albums as a leader. He has performed in Dayton as leader of his own groups and with Joshua Redman and the Contemporary Piano Ensemble, led by the late pianist James Williams (which was presented by CITYFOLK).

After attracting international attention for his work with pianist Danilo Perez, Mexican drummer Antonio Sanchez joined the PMG three years ago. "With the addition of Antonio," says Metheny, "it was a whole new ball game. We found ourselves with a drummer who is probably one of the most talented musicians of his generation, certainly one of the most talented people this group has ever had." Saxophonist David Sanchez has worked with musicians ranging from Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Haden to Eddie Palmieri and Paquito D'Rivera. His recordings include Obsesión, Melaza, Travesía and Coral.

"To me," says Metheny, "the beauty of jazz as a form has to do with its ability to be malleable by the people that are addressing it to suit their own personalities and their own experiences. People say that my thing is hard to categorize, and that is something I hear a lot, but that's reflective of my personal view of jazz. I just want to find the good notes and try to play the music that I really love that has some kind of meaning to me as a listener.

"I think I probably represent a more left-wing view of what jazz is. I think it is complicated and requires a nuanced definition. It is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments: this, this, and this have to be present and this, this, and this are not welcome. It is much more poetic than that. To me, the goal would be to always honor the music. That is the most important thing."

To learn more, visit the Pat Metheny Group website.

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October 28, 2005

Tannahill Weavers

Scotland gets a bit of a raw deal in the world music sweepstakes. Overshadowed by Ireland in the public perception of Celtic music, Scotland is seen as a soft-focus, mystical kind of place where the music is filled with fairies, ancient spells, mermaids and the like. Let's not even mention the countless kilts and bagpipes jokes. What people don't realize is that some Scottish bands roar like there's no tomorrow and that the bagpipe might just be the perfect rock and roll instrument. Then those people hear the Tannahill Weavers and the truth becomes clear.

Like many bands in contemporary Celtic music, the Tannahill Weavers came out of an informal jam session, a group of people just playing music for fun. Roy Gullane and Phil Smillie formed the band in the late 1960s with the idea of playing traditional Scottish songs and tunes with the intensity and rhythmic power of modern rock. Thirty-five years down the road, the band is hailed as Scotland's premier traditional band and an international standard bearer for Celtic music. The folk magazine Sing Out calls the Tannahill Weavers "as close to perfect as it gets in an imperfect world."

Along with founding members Gullane and Smillie, the current line-up of the Tannahill Weavers includes John Martin (fiddle, cello, viola and vocals), Les Wilson (bouzouki, guitar, keyboards, bass pedals and vocals) and Colin Melville (Highland bagpipes, Scottish small pipes and whistles). Martin and Wilson have been on board for years; Wilson joined the band in 1980, while Martin, a veteran of such bands as Ossian, Contraband and the Easy Club, came along about a decade later. The newest member of the band, Melville joined the fun in 2001.

One of the few good things that can be said about British imperialism was that it created some interesting musical hybrids, including the Cape Breton fiddle tradition, bluegrass, South African township jive and Celtic music, to name just a few. British colonial rule was often harsh, despotic and unfair, with some of the cruelest behavior aimed at its closest neighbors, Scotland and Ireland.

But as hard as the British tried to suppress local customs and traditions in the lands they ruled, the Scots and the Irish managed to preserve a large part of their musical heritage, a miracle of cultural retention born of pride, stubbornness and nationalistic feelings. The music did not survive unchanged, however, but evolved as groups from different cultures were thrown together by the forces of the Industrial Revolution and the forced eviction and relocation of farmers from the Highlands in northern Scotland.

The repertoire of the Tannahill Weavers reflects this cultural duality within Scotland.

Critic Stephen Holden of The New York Times has noted the band's "especially eloquent mixture of the old and the new," but it goes even beyond that. The band's repertoire does indeed span several centuries, but what gives this group its unique power is its ability to synthesize two quite disparate strains into a unified whole.

An Australian writer captured this dynamic particularly well: "In the late 18th and early 19th century, Scotland was in a turmoil of change. Highlanders were being driven from their lands and into the burgeoning Lowland factory systems. This brought two quite distinct cultures together, the Celtic culture of the North and the old Anglo-Scots culture of the Lowlands...It married the mystic beauty of the Celtic music to the coarse, brawling, but vitally human music, poetry and ballads of the Lowlands."

So, on the one hand, we have the Tannahill Weavers' blistering instrumentals, both traditional tunes and those written by members of the band. With a front line of fiddle, flute and Highland bagpipes and a hard-driving rhythm section, the band's reels and jigs explode with a powerful sound that could wake the dead. This is the side of the Tannahill Weavers that draws comparisons with rock bands.

On the other hand, we have the band's songs that showcase Gullane's distinctive lead singing and the group's stirring three- and four-part harmonies. The songs are again a mix of old and new, the new being written primarily by Gullane. The old songs, which range from ballads to lullabies to highly political topical songs, come from a variety of sources. There are traditional folk songs, occupational songs associated with the Scottish weaving industry, epics commemorating long-ago battles and victories and, of course, some songs and poems written by the iconic Scottish bard, Robert Burns.

Once the band found its crowd-pleasing sound, and discovered what could be accomplished with it, there has been little reason to tamper with success. "If we do any experimenting, it's kind of subtle," says Gullane. "We don't want to stray too far from what we realize that people expect of us. We're not going to do anything radical at this stage in our careers. But we do like to experiment."

Roy Gullane, a native of Glasgow who now lives in the Netherlands, is a powerful singer and guitarist and a skilled songwriter. Another Glaswegian, Phil Smillie is a highly talented flutist who has composed many tunes recorded by the Tannahill Weavers. After deciding to turn professional in the early 1970s, Gullane and Smillie were joined by multi-instrumentalists and singers Dougie MacLean and Hudson Swan; this was the band that first recorded as the Tannahill Weavers.

The Tannahill Weavers really began to attract attention when the Highland bagpipes--traditionally a solo instrument--was added to the mix. The band was the first professional Scottish folk group to successfully pull this off, and with such pipers down through the years as Alan MacLeod, Iain MacInnes, Kenny Forsyth and Duncan J. Nicholson, it has played a central role in the integration of the bagpipes into modern Celtic ensemble music.

The band made its recording debut in 1976 with Are Ye Sleeping Maggie?, released by Hedera Records. The Tannahill Weavers recorded three more albums for Hedera before making its U.S. label debut on Green Linnet with Passage in 1983. Green Linnet has released 11 subsequent albums by the Weavers, including the award-winning Capernaum and two collections of earlier work: Best of the Tannahill Weavers 1979-1989 and The Tannahill Weavers Collection: Choice Cuts 1987-1996. The group's most recent album is Arnish Light, released in 2003.

The Tannahill Weavers first toured the U.S. in 1981 and the band has returned regularly since then. Besides performing extensively throughout the U.K., the band has also toured such far-flung locales as Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. From the beginning, the key point of the touring was to connect with young audiences. "It has always been our aim to take traditional Celtic music from the last few centuries and bring it into the modern world," explains Phil Smillie. "It is important to us to make it more presentable to the younger generation. I think we have achieved that, using older music with modern arrangements."

At some point, you may find yourself wondering: what, precisely, is a Tannahill Weaver? It sounds as if it could be the name of a sports team, like the Pittsburgh Steelers or Green Bay Packers, but that can't be right. Does it refer to a weaver of tannahills? And, if so, what's a tannahill? The answer is simple, if not exactly logical, as though the name might have been worked out over a few pints.

The band was formed in Paisley, a city near Glasgow known historically for its role in the weaving industry. So "Weavers" comes from the lads wanting to celebrate that aspect of their regional heritage. The "Tannahill" part is in honor of Robert Tannahill, a poet and songwriter from Paisley who unfortunately worked in the large shadow of his much more famous contemporary, Robert Burns. Oddly enough, Tannahill made his living as a weaver, which makes him the first actual Tannahill Weaver. Not even the great Robert Burns could say that.

To learn more, visit the Tannahill Weavers website.

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November 13, 2005

Konono No. 1

"This is the kind of music that gives the impression of having been flowing since the dawn of civilization, and will continue, somewhere in the ether, even when its agents on earth have danced themselves into their tomb." The Wire (UK)

Unless you come from a stranger world than this one (or have been to Africa lately), it's unlikely you have ever seen a band quite like Konono No. 1. Hailing from an area in central Africa that straddles the border between Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Konono No. 1 incorporates three electrified likembés (thumb pianos), three singers, three dancers, a percussion section that beats on car parts and kitchenware as well as drums, and a sound system so erratic and prone to feedback and distortion, it has come to be viewed over time as an integral part of the sound, almost a
member of the band.

Konono No. 1 was founded more than 25 years ago by Mawangu Miniedi, a virtuoso musician who plays the likembé, a traditional instrument that consists of several flat strips of metal attached to a wooden resonator. The instrument has been electrified by Miniedi, who used scavenged magnets from car alternators to create microphonic pickups. The band uses three different likembés--bass, medium and treble--as its primary melody instruments. These often sound surprisingly similar to electric guitars, the more often encountered lead instrument in this part of Africa.

Working at outdoor cafes in the Congolese capital of Kinshasa, the band started out playing a repertoire based to a large extent on Bazombo trance music and show-casing polyrhythmic drumming, call-and-response chanting and the droning, hynoptic likembés. The band needed to be heard over the constant roar of the traffic and so put together their sound system. And then that system began to play an active role in the development of the unique Konono sound.

In what can only be described as an act of inspiration, Miniedi decided against trying to fix the problems caused by his pieced-together sound system. He decided instead to accept the "problem"--the feedback, hum and distortion--and discover a way to make it fit within the music. His solution, born of optimism and limited resources, was brilliant, and it's a wonderful twist of fate that Konono's shoddy equipment has come to benefit the band.

A marvel of ingenuity and creative recycling in an impoverished war zone, the system is a fire marshal's nightmare that nonetheless gets the job done. The microphones are carved from wood and rigged with salvaged wiring and magnets. The speakers are gigantic metal cones about the size of large trashcan lids, mounted on tall, spindly stands that look impossibly overmatched. The band's vocalists sometimes sing through colonial-era megaphones called lance-voix, or voice throwers. Everything is plugged into homemade amplifiers powered by car batteries, and there are wires everywhere, in an are-you-sure-that's-safe kind of way. It's very humbling‹or at least should be‹to American musicians who take shiny new equipment for granted.

The band made its recording debut in 1978, as the Orchestre Tout Puissant Likembé Konono No. 1, with a lengthy cut on the multi-artist compilation Zaire: Musiques Urbaines à Kinshasa. A live album, Lubuaku, followed in 2004. Konono's first "studio" album, Congotronics, was issued earlier this year by Crammed Discs as the first release in the Belgian label's series of albums documenting the ongoing fusion of traditional Congolese music and electronic experimentalism. The CD was released in the US this summer.

Vincent Kenis, the Brussels-based producer who recorded Congotronics (outdoors on an Apple laptop computer), first heard Konono on a French radio station in 1980. He thought the band represented a local, indigenous African variant of punk music. 25 years later, he seems mildly surprised that many world music fans see the band in somewhat similar terms, though not nearly as approving.

"They say this is rock and not traditional African music," Kenis says of those fans. "But the public that doesn't care about African music immediately catches on to this music. African music is not only pretty voices recorded in Europe and America. It can also be very violent and very special and very inventive."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but one of the recurring themes in the music of Konono is death. As the band explains about its song "Lufuala Ndonga," the chanted lyrics are "about collective death and also about a person who died alone. It's all about death." But it's more ritual than it is grim or morbid, as many of the songs are rooted in the improvised matanga music that is traditionally played at gatherings during extended mourning periods following a death.

The New York Times calls the music of Konono No. 1 "harsh and otherworldly...a brutal, neotraditional genre musicians call tradi-moderne." Western critics, both here and in the UK, generally have been dumbfounded, even awestruck, on first hearing Konono. Not even a familiarity with other African music--not even other music from the Congo or even from other neighborhoods in Kinshasa--can fully prepare a listener for this sonic experience.

But the Anglo-American music scribes rose to the challenge, finding eloquent prose to describe this indescribable music. The Guardian (UK) was most surprised by how atypical this music was, how the band members "seem determined to turn all concepts of classic Congolese pop upside down. There are no lilting guitars, harmony vocals or gentle dance rhythms here, but rather a furious and complex onslaught that could well appeal to followers of experimental rock and electronic dance styles."

All About Jazz strayed from its usual turf to review Congotronics, believing the album too good, and too important, to be ignored, regardless of its style. "They don't call this trance music for nothing," said the review. "Played loud, like it's meant to be, it will take you to another sphere...A throbbing slab of mutant roots meets lo-tech/hi-decibel electronica heaven...insanely wonderful."

There has also been an unexpected convergence with the parallel universe of modern noise-rock, electronica, trip-hop and other freethinking branches of the rock family tree, and that has brought many new fans to Konono. As members of the band explained in the new CD's liner notes, their music "accidentally connected them with the aesthetics of the most experimental forms of rock and electronic music."

Konono No. 1 dances a fine line between tradition and the avant-garde. The band presents a sonic picture abstract enough that listeners hear in it an infinite variety of similarities and points of connection. Critics have compared Konono with an unlikely array of musicians, including German industrial-rock pioneer Kraftwerk, rock violist John Cale, Texas psycho-punk legends the 13th Floor Elevators, reggae producer Lee Perry, the Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, the Ramones, and among more recent acts, Tortoise, the Ex and the Dead C.

This appearance is part of Konono No. 1's first U.S. tour, a cross-country swing with stops in New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The band made its first tour of Europe earlier this year. Just imagine this band at the airport. It makes one laugh just thinking about airport security screeners puzzling over the band's equipment: flattened
hubcap cymbals, brakedrum snares and all.

Dale Shaw of the BBC understood perfectly the deep, mysterious appeal of Konono's music. "It could really be from anywhere, any time," he wrote. "This music comes from somewhere unknown and offers hope that there are worlds of music out there, unexplored and waiting to be discovered."

A band from this part of Africa that doesn't feature the guitar, or several guitars, is unusual indeed. Music this powerfully weird, bizarre and timeless is also pretty unusual.

Konono No. 1 is the perfect antidote for the been there, done that blues, a tonic for those who think they've seen it all. One of the biggest benefits of world music is that it constantly reminds us that for all its flaws, this world is a truly amazing place. Konono's music is wild and raw, but it leaves in its wake a feeling of hope and possibility, a sense that it's still worth looking over the next hill.

To learn more, visit the Crammed Discs website.

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December 2, 2005

Mavis Staples

Confession being good for the soul, let's start with one: Mavis Staples is my all-time favorite singer of those who still walk this earth. Her full-throated contralto is a voice of singular power and expressive ability, a marvelous force of nature that embodies the whole idea of soul. Whether singing sacred or secular music, Mavis Staples is in a class by herself.
Hers is a voice for the ages.

Mavis Staples was born in Chicago in 1940 into an extraordinarily musical family. Her father, Roebuck Staples, known universally as "Pops," was born in Mississippi in 1915 and was part of the "Great Migration," moving north to Chicago in 1935. Pops and his wife Oceola raised five children, all of them singers: one son, Pervis, and four daughters, Cleotha, Yvonne, Cynthia and Mavis.

Pops Staples had been a blues guitarist in his youth and had also played with the gospel quartet the Golden Trumpets. When he began organizing his family group in the late 1940s, both blues and gospel (and a healthy dose of country music) would shape the group's sound. Pops was frustrated by the unreliability of the adult musicians he worked with and probably felt that working with his family could only be an improvement.

"Daddy got disgusted," recalls Mavis. "He came home, went into the closet and got that little pawnshop guitar. He sat us all down on the floor in a circle and said, 'I'm going to sing with my children.' And we did that ever since. 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken' was the first song our father taught us."

Pops made excellent use of his "little pawnshop guitar," turning the reverb and vibrato up to ten, and becoming one of the very few electric guitarists in any style of music with an unmistakable, instantly identifiable sound.

As the Staple Singers (the final letter of the family's surname was dropped when used for the group), Pops and his children began performing in churches on Chicago's south side. Pops did a lot of the lead singing, but little Mavis did the rest, even when she had to stand on a chair to reach the microphone. It was obvious from an early age that Mavis Staples had a rare talent.

Mavis soon gained a mentor, inspiration and life-long friend in legendary gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. Mavis was eleven when she met her idol, after the Staples Singers had done a show with Jackson. "That night after we had sung," Mavis remembered of the meeting, "I sat in the dressing room and asked her questions. She told me I was a good little singer, and I was so happy. I sprung up and was on my way out the door to jump rope. "She yelled to me, 'Where do you think you're going. Come sit yo' li'l butt down here. She felt my neck and chest and said, 'Don't you know you're damp? You just finished singing. Don't ever go outside without drying off. You won't have no voice at all.' She then went on to teach me how to take care of myself. I follow her words step by step to this day."

With Pops' electric guitar as the only accompaniment, the Staple Singers played a down-home, rural style of music that was in stark contrast to the rapidly urbanizing sound of the rest of black religious music of the time. The group's repertoire tended to old spirituals, newer gospel songs and folk-based songs like "This Train," and their compelling and distinctive approach quickly became popular.

The Staple Singers first recorded for United Records in 1953, but it was after moving to Vee-Jay two years later that the group really refined its sound and realized its commercial potential as a gospel group, scoring hits with "Uncloudy Day" (1956) and "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" (1960). The group made its first steps toward pop stardom in 1962, signing with
Riverside, an important and well-distributed jazz and folk label. On such albums as Hammer and Nails, This Land and This Little Light, the Staple Singers' repertoire began to include what Mavis calls "message songs," including early covers of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Masters of War." This practice continued after the Staples moved to Epic in the mid-1960s, with a hit version of Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth" and Pops' original "Why (Am I Treated So Bad)."

This expansion into non-religious music coincided with the group's evolving relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Staple Singers met King in 1963 in Montgomery, Alabama, and the family was profoundly inspired by his work for civil rights and equality. Pops decided "if he can preach it, we can sing it," and from that time forward, the group stressed a unique blend of positivism and populism. They frequently appeared with King at rallies in Chicago and throughout the South.

Mainstream stardom came for the Staple Singers when the group started recording in 1968 for Stax, the Memphis record company that was home to Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and numerous other top artists. Between 1971 and 1976, the Staples family racked up ten Top Ten R&B hits, including "Heavy Makes You Happy," "This World," "Oh La De Da," "If You're Ready (Come Go With Me)," "Touch A Hand, Make A Friend," "Let's Do It Again," "City In The Sky," "New Orleans" and two of the greatest songs of the 1970s: "Respect Yourself" and "I'll Take You There."

Mavis Staples launched her solo recording career in 1969 on the Stax subsidiary label Volt. She had R&B hits with "I Have Learned To Do Without You" and "Endlessly" on Volt, and later in the decade, on Curtom and Warner Bros. Mavis recorded for Phono and Warner during the 1980s, scoring hits with "Love Gone Bad" and "Show Me How It Works."
The 1990s opened big for Mavis, starting with a role (as Melody Cool) in the 1990 Prince movie Graffiti Bridge, which produced the hit singles "Time Waits For No One" and "Melody Cool." A long-time fan of Mavis and the Staple Singers, Prince not only cast Mavis in the movie, he also signed her to his record company Paisley Park. Staples did two albums for the label, Time Waits For No One (1989) and The Voice (1993).

Staples returned to the top of the charts in 1991, when she was featured on a remake of "I'll Take You There" by pop gospel siblings BeBe and CeCe Winans. Such artistic collaboration is a way of life for Mavis Staples. Besides Prince and the Winans, she's worked with a vast array of top artists; Bob Dylan, Dr. John, Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, the Band, Ray Charles, George Jones, Marty Stuart, Aretha Franklin and Tom Jones, to name just a few.

In 1996, Staples paid tribute to her mentor and friend Mahalia Jackson with Spirituals & Gospel, one of the best albums of Staples' distinguished career. Recorded with just blues musician Lucky Peterson playing a Hammond B-3 organ, it's a superb and sublime accomplishment. Unadulterated Mavis in her purest state, this is an album that belongs in every gospel collection.

Mavis Staples made a triumphant return to action in 2004 with Have A Little Faith, her first album of new material since 1993. Released by Alligator Records, the album cleaned up at the 26th W.C. Handy Blues Awards ceremony in Memphis, winning the awards for both "Blues Album of the Year" and "Soul/Blues Album of the Year." The album's title song won "Blues Song of the Year." And just to make the night even more memorable, Mavis won the award for "Soul/Blues Female Artist of the Year."

A special treat on the new album is Mavis' straightforward and down-home performances on Staple Singers classics "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" and "A Dying Man's Plea" and the similarly Delta-grooved "Step Into the Light," which features the great gospel quartet the Dixie Hummingbirds. Another highlight is "Pops Recipe," a tribute in song that nicely evokes Pops
Staples' sound and spirit. She's never sounded better.

The Staple Singers were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1999, one year before Pops Staples died at the age of 84. The group's contributions to American culture were formally honored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences--the organization that presents the Grammy Awards--in 2005, when the Staple Singers received the Lifetime Achievement Award.

It's great to see Mavis Staples back on top. She belongs there. And she still follows Pop's advice, "He said, 'Be sincere in what you're doing and sing from your heart because what comes from the heart reaches the heart. Make the message plain because you want to give people something, and if you get up there hollering and screaming, they ain't gonna remember nothin' you said, or hear anything you said.'"

She never needed to holler and scream. "Pops taught me how to sing," she says simply. Mavis Staples knows how to sing. Like birds know how to fly.

To learn more, visit Mavis Staples' website.

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January 14, 2006

Del McCoury Band with special guest King Wilkie

Bill Monroe, the "Father of Bluegrass," was the undisputed heavyweight champ of the high lonesome sound during his lifetime. Upon Monroe's death in 1996, the crown went to Del McCoury, who has worn it proudly ever since. McCoury has been called "a national treasure" by The Washington Post and is the leading singer and bandleader in traditional bluegrass. Del McCoury is the living, breathing embodiment of the high lonesome sound. He's the master.

McCoury has also transcended the limitations of the bluegrass genre in a way few hardcore stylists ever will--from touring with Phish and Steve Earle to playing at the massive Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee to sharing the stage with the Blind Boys of Alabama two weeks ago on New Year's Eve. At 66, he's the perfect ambassador for bluegrass.

Delano Floyd McCoury was born in 1939 in Bakersville, North Carolina, but grew up primarily in southeastern Pennsylvania, where his father worked in the logging business. Del took up the banjo at a young age, inspired by Flatt and Scruggs, and while he would eventually follow his father into logging, he always dreamed of a musical career. His first significant professional experience was working in the Baltimore area with the Franklin County Boys and Jack Cooke's Virginia Mountain Boys.

McCoury got his first big break when Bill Monroe hired him in 1963 to play banjo for the Blue Grass Boys. After moving to Nashville to join the band, McCoury met Bill Keith, Monroe's other newly hired banjo player. Monroe asked McCoury to audition on the guitar instead and McCoury smoothly stepped into the band's lead singer/guitarist slot and never looked back. A single three-song recording session in January 1964 documents McCoury's time as a Blue Grass Boy.

After a short stint in California with the Golden State Boys (a band that included, at various times, Chris Hillman, Vern Gosdin and Don Parmley), McCoury returned to York County, Pennsylvania, and played music on a part-time basis. In 1967, he formed his first band, the Dixie Pals, a hard-driving outfit that played throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. McCoury made his solo recording debut in 1968 on Arhoolie with Del McCoury Sings Bluegrass (reissued on CD as I Wonder Where You Are Tonight).

McCoury led the Dixie Pals throughout the 1970s, though he also worked construction and logging jobs to support his growing family. The band recorded extensively during the decade, cutting several solid albums for Rebel, Revonah, Rounder, Grassound and Leather. Live In Japan, which presents a 1979 Dixie Pals concert featuring mandolinist Herschel Sizemore and fiddler Sonny Miller, is an entertaining audio snapshot of the band in this period.

The music of Del McCoury began to assume its present form--which is to say the state of the bluegrass art--in 1981, when Del's 13-year-old son Ronnie joined the Dixie Pals. Inspired and occasionally tutored by Bill Monroe, Ronnie progressed quickly from chopping rhythm chords to mastery of Monroe's blues-drenched style to his current status as one of the leading mandolinists of his generation. When his younger brother Rob joined the band in 1987, starting on bass and then moving to banjo, the family business was up and running.

Armed with a new name and a new energy, the Del McCoury Band hit its musical and commercial stride in the 1990s. The addition of fiddler Jason Carter and bassist Mike Bub and a move to Nashville in 1992 set the stage for a brilliant string of albums on Rounder that included Blue Side of Town, Deeper Shade of Blue and The Cold Hard Facts. The band earned a reputation for its full-bore, take-no-prisoners performances (including a legendary three-hour show at the Strawberry Music Festival in California) that established this edition of the Del McCoury Band as one of the greatest bands in the history of bluegrass.

The Del McCoury Band has made an annual practice of winning several International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) awards. Del is a four-time "Male Vocalist of the Year" and he (or the band) has won the top honor, "Entertainer of the Year," nine times. The band has twice been named "Instrumental Group of the Year" and Del's sons won "Instrumental Album of the Year" for their debut album, Ronnie & Rob McCoury.

The band has won "Album of the Year" twice, for A Deeper Shade of Blue (1994) and It's Just The Night (2004). In terms of individual honors, Ron McCoury has won eight times for "Instrumental Performer of the Year, Mandolin," Jason Carter has won "Instrumental Performer of the Year, Fiddle" three times and recently departed bassist Mike Bub--replaced last summer by Alan Bartram--was named top bass player five times during the 13 years he spent with the band.

While Del McCoury is ultra-traditional in most aspects of his music, he has always been remarkably open-minded about material, covering songs by Tom Petty, Robert Cray, Richard Thompson and even "Nashville Cats" by the Lovin' Spoonful. McCoury stresses the need for new material in bluegrass and feels these unexpected covers help keep the music fresh, for both the band and its audiences.

There's a good chance Del McCoury will win his first Grammy Award in February, as The Company We Keep has been nominated for "Best Bluegrass Album of the Year." That would be a fitting (and long overdue) milestone in a career that has gone from the honky-tonks of Baltimore to the biggest stages in the world. Revered both by bluegrass lifers and jam band followers, Del McCoury is a towering musical figure who remains a modest, friendly man with a ready laugh, accessible to his fans and always ready to chat.

After decades of scuffling and lean times, Del McCoury stands at the pinnacle. He and the boys have stuck to their guns and proved that real bluegrass--straight up, undiluted and hard as a rock--can appeal to any audience. In the world of traditional bluegrass, it simply doesn't get any better than the Del McCoury Band.

To learn more, visit the Del McCoury Band's website.

Not many bands have exploded onto the bluegrass scene like King Wilkie has in the last five years. Named "Emerging Artist of the Year" by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) in 2004, King Wilkie is a six-person band that has drawn favorable comparisons to such bands as Hot Rize and the Johnson Mountain Boys while channeling the spirit of such bluegrass luminaries as Red Allen, Joe Val, Buzz Busby and Bob Paisley.

Founded by Reid Burgess (mandolin, vocals) and Ted Pitney (lead guitar, vocals), King Wilkie was formed in Charlottesville, Virginia, and includes John McDonald (guitar, lead vocals), Abe Spear (banjo), Nick Reeb (fiddle) and Jake Hopping (bass). The band's credo has been articulated by Burgess as a matter of energy. "It's the striving, the feeling, that's sort of the nature of the beast," he explains. "It can't be effortless. You've got to give it everything you've got."

The Washington Post greeted the band's arrival with the enthusiastic welcome, "All hail King Wilkie," a sentiment shared by bluegrass fans from coast to coast. What set King Wilkie apart from other young bands was that King Wilkie had a distinctive traditional sound and approach that didn't copy any particular "first generation" band. The sextet successfully manages to evoke the music's history and tradition while adding to it, a neat trick in any style of music.

King Wilkie made its recording debut with Broke, an outstanding album with six original songs written by Burgess and Pitney. Acclaimed by many critics as the best bluegrass album of the year, Broke received extensive national radio airplay and made bluegrass stars of the band. The recently completed Tierra del Fuego, a limited edition six-song EP that is available only from the band, suggests that King Wilkie is broadening its scope by moving away from the confines of traditional bluegrass towards a more expansive aesthetic.

King Wilkie has been proclaimed the future of traditional bluegrass, a label that makes the band a bit uncomfortable. "We're doing something in our own way, which is what we want to do," says Reid Burgess. "That's what Bill Monroe did, taking the roots and making it into something that is your own. We're like the original guys. It's not like they were out there trying to recreate or revive any tradition; [they were] just trying to make a personal statement within the idiom.

"Bluegrass [for the band members] was like an alternative to the alternative. It was something completely different, coming from a totally different place, than what we were growing up with."

Named for bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe's favorite horse, King Wilkie has toured extensively since its formation. The band has already crossed the U.S. several times and made two trips to Europe, performing in Ireland and France. In addition to numerous bluegrass festivals, King Wilkie has appeared at major music festivals including Strawberry, Telluride and Merlefest, the Grand Ole Opry radio show and such prestigious venues as the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and the Kennedy Center in Washington.

To learn more, visit King Wilkie's website.

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February 2, 2006

Huun-Huur-Tu

There is nothing that can prepare one for the throat singers of Tuva. Virtually unknown in the U.S. before the 1980s, these musical wonders astonish western audiences for a number of reasons, but foremost is their ability to sing two different tones at the same time. When there are four singers, as in the group Huun-Huur-Tu, the possibilities for harmonic invention are boundless.

"Otherworldly" is the word most often used to describe Tuvan throat singing, but that seems sadly inadequate. This singing--which sounds something like a cross between yodeling, sacred chant and the song of a humpback whale--could just as easily come from another solar system. That it comes from singing cowboys from Asia who take their singular ability more or less for granted is even better.

The ability to produce two notes simultaneously is called "throat singing" or, more properly, overtone singing. In Tuva, it's called khoomei ("throat" in Mongolian); singers of khoomei are known as khoomigch. Huun-Huur-Tu, a quartet of highly skilled singers and instrumentalists based in the Tuvan capital of Kyzyl, has emerged as the leading ambassadors of Tuvan culture. Huun-Huur-Tu has taken throat singing around the world, amazing and completely entrancing audiences in the U.S., Australia, Japan and throughout Europe.

What became Huun-Huur-Tu was founded in 1992 by Kaigal-ool Khovalyg and Sayan Bapa and two other musicians to preserve the traditional songs, tunes and throat singing of their homeland. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Andrey Mongush joined the ensemble in 1995, while Alexei Saryglar has been a group member since 2003.

The quartet's original name was Kungurtuk, but was soon changed to Huun-Huur-Tu, which means, literally, "sun propeller." The idea doesn't translate exactly, but "sun propeller" is a Tuvan term for the refracted mountain sunlight seen at dawn and dusk. These vertical rays of light struck the musicians in the group as an analogy for the kind of "cultural refraction" they had in mind for their music, so sun propellers they became.

To understand Tuvan throat singing, it's necessary to know a bit about Tuva and its culture. The Republic of Tuva, a member of the Russian Federation, is situated in the exact geographic center of Asia, nestled in the mountains of southern Siberia. Tucked between Russia and Mongolia, Tuva was already a thriving society when Genghis Khan conquered it in 1207. Mongol and later Chinese forces ruled Tuva for centuries before it was made a Russian protectorate in 1914. Tuva was part of the Soviet Union between 1944 and 1991.

According to a recent study published in Russia, Tuvans are genetically linked more closely to Native American peoples like the Eskimo, Apache and Navajo than to any other group. Approximately 305,000 people live in Tuva, many of them semi-nomadic sheep and reindeer herders. Spiritually, these herders observe a distinctive regional blend of Buddhism and animism. Their music is a direct result of their animistic beliefs.

Unlike most western instrumental music, which is abstract, khoomei is representational to the extreme, intended to be nothing more than a faithful and accurate imitation of sounds in nature. This use of mimesis, basically imitation for aesthetic purposes, makes perfect sense given the herders' cultural isolation and intimate ties to nature, as well as their long hours in the saddle with little to think about and even less to entertain themselves.

"By imitating or aesthetically representing the sounds of nature," writes Ted Levin, who helped introduce this music to the U.S., "human music-makers seek to link themselves to the beings and forces that most concern them: in the case of the Tuvans, domestic animals, the physical environment of mountains and grasslands, and the elemental energies of wind, water, and light. Throat singing comprises what one might call a lexicon of musical onomatopoeia in which natural sounds are mimetically transformed into musical representations."

It gets stranger. Throat singers not only imitate everything from bird calls to the sound of rushing water, they also construct what could be called sonic "maps" that use throat singing, whistling and other vocal techniques to share specific, detailed topographical information about a physical landscape. One herder might then sing this "map" to another. They also achieve such natural "effects" as reverb, by reflecting the voice off the face of a cliff, and vibrato, by singing into a waterfall.

The Tuvan's use of mimesis extends to the instruments used to accompany the singing. A 1999 article in Scientific American reported that "players of the khomus, or jew's harp, re-create not only natural sounds, like that of moving or dripping water, but also human sounds, including speech itself. Good khomus players can encode texts that an experienced listener can decode."

Until recently, khoomei was seen as no big deal at home in Tuva. It was not performance art, but just what people did as they went through their day, imitating--or perhaps harmonizing with--the sound of a bird, or waterfall, or galloping horse, or whatever else they might hear. Nor was khoomei formally studied; it was "picked up," like a child learns a language. Traditionally, khoomei is a solo form of singing done primarily by males.

The members of Huun-Huur-Tu, particularly founders Kaigal-ool Khovalyg and Sayan Bapa, have performed a stunning bit of musical alchemy with their traditional legacy. Their task has been complicated by a number of factors related to turning amateur "at home" music into professional on-stage entertainment. While remaining as true to tradition as they could, Khovalyg and his mates have transformed a solo form into an ensemble style, combining elements that wouldn't normally be combined and creating a unique synthesis of separate vocal and instrumental traditions.

The music of Huun-Huur-Tu is a dizzying torrent of sounds. The throat singing is what first catches listeners' attention, but there's a lot more going on in the music than "just" people singing two notes at the same time. The instrumental side of the group sounds--simultaneously--like nothing you've heard before and everything you've heard before. At times, it feels downright Appalachian.

Khovalyg first came to the U.S. in 1993, along with Anatoli Kuular (a former member of H-H-T) and Kongar-ool Ondar, from a group called the Tuva Ensemble (and the recent film Genghis Blues). These three established a Tuvan beachhead in the U.S. and, while they were here, recorded with such artists as Ry Cooder, Johnny "Guitar" Watson, the Chieftains, Kronos Quartet and Frank Zappa--to whom H-H-T dedicated the song "Ching Söörtükchülerining Yryzy" (Song of the Caravan Drivers). Huun-Huur-Tu has continued this practice of cross-cultural collaboration, recording with the Bulgarian women's choir Angelite as well as with Scottish harpists Martyn Bennett and Mary MacMaster.

Huun-Huur-Tu has toured the U.S. several times, winning fans and making friends at every stop. After hearing a song or two, the novelty wears off (at least a little), the music begins to make sense and H-H-T is revealed to be nothing more or less than an exceptional traditional band, similar in many respects to a great bluegrass or jazz ensemble. Their traditions seem exotic to us, just as bluegrass would to them, but the cultural connections and sense of rootedness are definitely there.

Finally, even after witnessing a mind-opening performance by Huun-Huur-Tu, most people are left with one burning question: How on earth do these guys sing two notes at the same time? They just do.

The skilled khoomigch starts by singing a note in the middle of his range, as loud and steady as possible. This low fundamental note serves as a drone, like with a bagpipe. Next, the basic idea is to use the tongue to divide and seal the mouth into two sound chambers. By positioning the lips, tongue, cheeks, jaws and mouth just so, a second note can be sounded, a higher-pitched harmonic of the first note.

Once those two have been established, the singer can emphasize different harmonics, thus creating a tune, by "adjusting the tension and geometry of the mouth" (to quote one learned explanation). Those seeking more information, with an emphasis on the physics and physiological aspects of throat singing, should find that Scientific American article helpful. It's available at the H-H-T website.

No matter how they do it, the throat singing of these Tuvans resonates across cultural lines for a simple reason: the urge to imitate noises is a universal condition of childhood, probably programmed into the DNA of our species. Listen to a child at play: between animal sounds, harmonizing with the lawnmower and other seemingly random noises, it's a steady stream of imitation. It might be how we learn to talk and it's almost certainly how we learn to sing.

It was supposedly Duke Ellington who said there are only two kinds of music: good and bad. But then Ellington never heard Tuvan throat singers. Had he heard Huun-Huur-Tu, he might have added a category for music so vital it transcends aesthetic judgment.

This music is so alive, so connected to the sources of life, it makes much of what we listen to seem rather trivial. Sing on, cowboys.

To learn more, visit Huun-Huur-Tu's website.

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February 10, 2006

Miguel Zenon Quartet

Alto saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenón is Puerto Rican and proud of it. But please don't call his music "Latin jazz." The respected publication JazzTimes says it straight out: "Miguel Zenón does not play ‘Latin jazz' in any sense in which that phrase has traditionally been understood." One of the most heralded newcomers in jazz, Zenón is on the fast track to stardom and recognition as a major voice on the jazz landscape.

Miguel Zenón is a native of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Raised in the city's Santurce section, Zenón began playing music when he was ten, tutored by "an old guy in the project who would give free music lessons if you passed his test." Zenón began his formal study of the saxophone at Escuela Libre de Musica, San Juan's arts high school. The school didn't have a jazz program, but Zenón developed a keen interest in jazz during this time by listening to albums by Charlie Parker and Tito Puente.

Zenón's horizons expanded exponentially in 1995 when he was awarded a scholarship from the Puerto Rico Heineken Jazz Festival to attend the Berklee School of Music in Boston. His interest in jazz was fanned into a flame and then refined at the renowned school, from which he graduated with honors in 1998. While at Berklee, Zenón gained his first significant professional experience, working on the Boston jazz scene with drummer Bob Moses in the group Mozamba and with the Either/Orchestra.

Like countless jazz musicians before him, Zenón heeded the siren's call and moved to New York City. Unlike virtually all of his predecessors, Zenón had a scholarship to the prestigious Manhattan School of Music. Zenón received a masters degree in saxophone performance in 2001 and was ready to launch his career as a professional jazz musician.

He credits pianist Danilo Pérez, a friend and mentor since Berklee, with helping him to find his musical identity. "I met Danilo Pérez," says Zenón, "who introduced me to so many established musicians. I had wanted to emulate many of my favorite musicians at first; but after getting in touch with older musicians like Danilo and Bob Moses, I realized how important it is for people to relate to something that represents you."

While Zenon's exceptional playing isn't surprising with his background or reputation, his maturity is somewhat unexpected for a musician of his age. "In my opinion, you can get to people in two ways when you play music," says Zenón. "You can either be really flashy, or so intense that the energy takes you, even if the sound is quiet or the tempo is slow. That is the kind of quality I want in my music, that subliminal thing that takes you without hitting you in the face."

Since moving to New York, Zenón has performed and/or recorded with a diverse group of musicians and ensembles including Branford Marsalis, Ray Barretto, the Mingus Big Band, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, David Sanchéz, Danilo Pérez, SFJAZZ Collective and the Village Vanguard Orchestra, among others.

Zenón has recorded three albums as a leader. His debut, Looking Forward, was named one of the ten best jazz CDs of 2002 by The New York Times. That honor must have been especially sweet for Zenón, as he had unsuccessfully pitched the album to several U.S. jazz labels. "I was ready to record [with the new band]," he remembers, "and the Fresh Sound New Talent label in Spain was the only company willing to let me document the music I wanted to play."

That situation had changed by the time Zenón was ready to record his second album. Saxophonist Branford Marsalis has been a friend and fan of Zenón since the two met while working on an album by David Sanchéz. When Marsalis launched his own record company, Marsalis Music, making an album with Zenón was one of the first priorities. Ceremonial, produced by Marsalis, is an outstanding showcase for Zenón both as a player and a composer; seven of the album's nine tunes are Zenón compositions. Vocalist Luciana Souza makes a guest appearance on one cut.

"I definitely was trying to represent the worlds of jazz and Latin music equally," says Zenón of his critically acclaimed album, "instead of creating music that leans one way or another, which happens too often with all kinds of fusions. I wanted the music seen as jazz music, and I wanted it to reflect all of my interests."

Zenón's third recording--the one that likely will be seen in the future as his breakthrough album--is Jibaro, a stunning tribute to the rural traditional music at the heart of Puerto Rican culture. "Most people think of Puerto Rican music as bomba and plena," explains Zenón, "which came from the African Diaspora. Jibaro music is very different. It comes more from the Spanish side. It was developed in the rural areas of the island by plantation workers."

"I didn't want the music to sound traditional," Zenón says of the album, "but I wanted it to be grounded in tradition. The melodies and other elements are not just made up. The key was to understand the starting points." A New York Times critic, after seeing Zenon's quartet perform the album's ten tunes, wrote, "I've rarely seen a jazz composer step forward with a project so impressively organized, intellectually powerful and well played."

Zenón has indeed crafted a seamless blend of jazz and traditional Puerto Rican music that honors both forms while creating something fresh and new, something different from what we call "Latin jazz." Along with such musicians as Danilo Pérez, David Sanchéz and Manuel Valera, Zenón represents a generation of highly skilled players from the Caribbean and Central and South America who are articulate and educated jazz improvisers. These musicians are also the products of a particular cultural inheritance--both imported and indigenous--that informs not just what they play, but who they are. Theirs is a musical fusion based in real life, not sales potential.

Luis Perdomo, the Zenón quartet's red-hot pianist, is another member of that musical cohort. Born and raised in Venezuela, Perdomo has emerged as a major force in jazz since moving to New York in the early 1990s to attend the Manhattan School of Music. A talented composer and arranger and a stellar performer, Perdomo has worked and recorded with a number of important artists in addition to Miguel Zenón, including Ray Barretto, Ravi Coltrane, John Patitucci, Jane Bunnett, David Sanchéz and Dave Valentin. Perdomo has recorded one album as a leader, Focus Point.

Miguel Zenón has earned lavish praise from critics around the world. The Detroit Free Press lauds him as "a sleek and savvy soloist whose gleaming sound and slippery rhythms give his improvisations a zigzagging brilliance." More to the point, the paper notes that "He's reinventing Latin jazz in his own image, eschewing familiar blends of Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music with bebop for a more integrated and sophisticated fusion of musical ideas from his native Puerto Rico and up-to-the-minute post-bop."

Zenón's high standing among his musical peers is demonstrated by his membership in the SFJAZZ Collective, an all-star octet organized by the San Francisco Jazz Festival in 2004. Playing alongside such established A-list musicians as Joshua Redman, Nicolas Payton and Bobby Hutcherson, Zenón toured with the Collective throughout California and recorded a live album that featured group originals, as well as material by Ornette Coleman.

The group reconvened the following year at the Festival for a round of performances and educational outreach activities. The Collective did a national tour and another live album, this time with an emphasis on the music of John Coltrane. A third "season" for the SFJAZZ Collective begins later this spring.

Miguel Zenón has come a long way in his twenty-some years, but the brilliant young sax master has just now hit his artistic stride. He's a man on the move, a talent deserving of wider recognition, as they say in the jazz polls. And he's found a savvy and supportive record company in Marsalis Music, which bills itself as a place for "artists who want to be musicians, not marketing creations."

That sounds like a perfect fit for Miguel Zenón, jazz musician. "I believe that making music was what I was put here to do," he says, "to express my feelings and my view of life. My spiritual side is the most important thing."

To learn more, visit Miguel Zenón's website.

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March 7, 2006

Cristina Branco

Fado music has been called the blues of Portugal. That's an apt comparison, for several reasons. Both fado and blues are folk-based forms of music born on the wrong side of the tracks. Both are deeply emotional, cathartic even, for singer and listener alike. Both deal with the often-harsh realities of everyday life. Both are based on African rhythms and both are storytelling forms. Finally, both styles have particular emotional states associated with them. You know about "the blues." With fado, it's saudade. That doesn't translate exactly into English, but "nostalgic melancholy" would be close.

Very few modern singers do saudade better than Cristina Branco, an award-winning Portuguese singer who has gained international acclaim for her spectacular blues-tinged interpretation of fado. The Village Voice calls Branco "the finest Portuguese fado singer since the late Amalia Rodrigues."

That's extremely high praise for a young singer, as Rodrigues (who died in 1999) is considered by many to be the greatest fado singer who ever lived. Critics go to great lengths to make that point. This example, from World Music: The Rough Guide is priceless: "If the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson had been a Portuguese woman, he would have been Amalia Rodrigues."

"Amalia is an icon, almost like the flag of our country," says Branco. "She opened doors for many of us. The thing that intimidates me about her is her capacity for telling stories. You should always be able to understand what the composer meant [with] a lyric, and no one did that better than Amalia."

While there are other contenders for Rodrigues' crown, including contemporary fado divas Mariza, Dulce Pontes and Misia, Branco seems best situated for long-term stardom, with seven acclaimed albums to her credit and a sterling international reputation. Branco's major strength just might be her willingness to tweak the rigid conventions and formulas of fado.

Branco is more a neo-traditionalist than a purist, which means she is willing to expand the traditional approach when she thinks it makes sense and is appropriate. Her innovations are subtle and tasteful, though any innovations are suspect in the purist camp. Her expressive singing is squarely within the highly emotional fado tradition, but it's colored by touches of jazz and blues. On her newest album Ulisses, she sings in Spanish, French and English, as well as her native Portuguese, and her lyrics and repertoire often stray from the traditional canon.

"I never intend to break rules," she says. "I just do it in my own way. Fado has many traditionalists who insist that it should remain the way it's always been. But fado is alive. It's urban. It's not about a certain time. My problem is that I like everything. I like jazz, bossa nova, also Italian, French and other kinds of Portuguese music. Tom Waits is my idol and I love Diana Krall. I consider myself a singer, period. You can call my music whatever you like, but at its core, it's fado."

Cristina Branco had planned to be a journalist. She heard the traditional fado music growing up in Ameirim, a country town north of Lisbon, but like many Portuguese of her generation, she dismissed the music as old-fashioned and irrelevant. "My ears were turned toward so many different rhythms and styles," she explains, "that fado made no sense compared with the capabilities of other music."

That attitude changed on Branco's 18th birthday, when her grandfather gave her Rara e Inedita, a collection of recordings by the revered fado singer Amalia Rodrigues. Stunned by the beauty and emotional depth of Rodrigues' singing, Branco abandoned her career plans in journalism to become, of all things, a fado singer. She immersed herself for the next few years in the study of all things fado, determined to shape herself into a fadista who would rank with the best.

She began to sing, tentatively at first but gradually with more confidence. As a favor to a friend, she sang on a morning television program in Portugal, which was heard, as it happened, by a Dutch television producer who was impressed enough by the amateur singer to invite her to perform in The Netherlands. Soon after that, Branco made her performing debut and her recording debut at the same time, on one of the world's great stages, no less, the Concertbegouw in Amsterdam.

The concert was such a success that a recording of it was released on a CD, Cristina Branco In Holland. The CD was initially a limited edition for Dutch fado enthusiasts, but public demand prompted a wider commercial release and the album ended up selling a more than respectable amount for an unknown artist. Her Dutch fans gave her some timely advice: "They said, ‘Well, girl, you should think about making a serious album," she recalls.

That would be Murmúrios, Branco's homage to fado masters of the past and a gorgeous showcase for her luminous voice. Each of her subsequent albums has nudged fado into the twenty-first century with modern touches alongside the traditional. Her last three albums have been released by a major label in the U.S. (Decca), a relatively rare accomplishment for a "world music" artist singing in a language other than English. It's also a testament to Branco's growing appeal to more than just the hard-core fado fanatics.

Branco has stretched the boundaries of fado tradition with her instrumental accompaniment just as she has with her vocal style and repertoire. Fado singers have historically been accompanied by a 12-string Portuguese guitar--which is not what we think of as a 12-string guitar but is instead a teardrop-shape instrument, more like a cittern with a short neck--and a six-string Spanish guitar.

That combination remains at the heart of Branco's sound--Custudio Castelo, Branco's husband, arranger and chief songwriting collaborator, plays Portuguese guitar while Alexandre Silva plays the six-string. The traditional duo format is augmented with a bass guitarist, Fernando Maia, and, beginning on Ulisses, a pianist, Ricardo J. Dias.