Hoggar: Music of the Tuareg

This fascinating recording is about as far removed from the recent spectacle of the Grammy Awards as you can possibly get and is a reminder to me of why becoming familiar with so-called "world music," especially indigenous music, nearly thirty years ago was such a life-changing transformation in my music listening experience.

The term "Tuareg" is used in broad brush for peoples from five distinct confederations in the region encompassed by the African nations of Mali, Libya, Burkina Faso, Niger and Algeria with a focus on this recording on the Hoggar who live in the mountains of that name in Algeria.

This 1994 release is from the French label Chant du Monde and this is particularly striking in that Algeria was a French colony and only gained its independence in 1962 after a particularly brutal war of liberation.  During this time, the Hoggar were grievously affected by the strife and, as the informative liners, note "the camel-drivers' songs, the flute and the fiddle are disappearing," a phenomenon that is sadly too common throughout the world.

Among the really impressive elements of this are the hypnotic hand-claps that accompany polyphonal singing and chanting in large group ensembles—the vocals can be haunting and otherwordly.  The solo work of flutes and fiddles is also very interesting to hear, along with the teherdent, a lute-like instrument with great resonance that gives what seems like a blues feel to the performances.

Recordings like this really gives a different perspective on what music means as an everyday practice for people who are not professionals in the Western sense and it seems to this listener to get to the very marrow of what music is.  Sometimes, a return to the essence is a way to recalibrate, whether it is in the written word, the visual arts, or, in this case, organized sound as music.

George Russell Sextet: Ezz-Thetics

George Russell is better known to jazz musicians through his highly influential treatise on modal approaches to jazz, the fearsomely titled The Lydian Chromiatic Concept of Tonal Organization and published in 1953.  Russell, for example, had a significant impact on the approaches of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, among many others,

A pianist, Russell, made many records over his career, but never had the sales or critical recognition of the big names in jazz, though he made some really great records.  Ezz-thetics, released in 1961 on Riverside Records, run by critic Orrin Keepnews, is especially great with Russell and band performing three originals, a contribution by band member, trombonist Dave Baker, and covers of Davis's "Nardis" and the classic "'Round Midnight" by Thelonious Monk.

As with many Russell pieces and recordings, the rhythm section really hews to keeping the bottom line and time moving crisply, often without a great deal of variation from Russell, bassist Stephen Swallow or drummer Joe Hunt, though all perform with great precision and Hunt's fills in the call-and-response section of the title piece are impressive.

The soloists include Baker, who does a particularly fine job on the brilliant title track, trumpeter Don Ellis, who plays with a crystalline and agile sound, and the always stunning Eric Dolphy.  As beautfully as Baker and Ellis play, when Dolphy launches in, as is so often the case, it's like he was from years in the future (much as like Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Coltrane, or Cecil Taylor could make that kind of impact.)

In fact, Dolphy's fearless flights of improvised innovation is a perfect foil for the rest of the band given Russell's creative approaches to modal composition, and he does seem to inspire the other soloists with his staggering work.  But, Ezz-thetics is a tremendous ensemble work, guided by the sure hand of a vastly underappreciated master in George Russell.

Cocteau Twins: Head Over Heels

Can it be 33 years since I first heard the Cocteau Twins on their remarkable compilation and first American release, The Pink Opaque (that was a great record buying day paired with my first listen to another favorite, Cabaret Voltaire, through their EP Drinking Gasoline) and was immediately drawn in to their utterly unique and compelling sound?

Last week, I listened to Heaven or Las Vegas, highlighted here previously, and marking my first listen to any CT music for several years and now I find myself listening to more of their music, buying the new 4-CD boxset Treasure Hiding: The Fontana Years (focusing on their last few years) and purchasing the hefty Facing the Other Way, a history of 4AD, the Cocteaus label for most of their career.

Several of the tracks from the stellar Pink Opaque came from the band's second full-length, Head Over Heels released on 4AD, on Halloween 1983.  At the point, the group consisted of vocalist Elizabeth Fraser and Robin Guthrie, who handled guitars, bass and drum programming, developing a fascinating soundscape for Fraser's stunning vocals, with bassist Will Heggie leaving the band earlier in the year and Simon Raymonde not joining until several months later.

While the debut album, 1982's Garlands was often written-off as a derivative of Siouxsie and the Banshees and a couple of EPs were issued that marked slight changes in sound, Head Over Heels retained some of guitar textures from the debut, but greatly expanded the sonic landscape, while Fraser moved more into a wider palette of vocalizing that was further developed by 1984's Treasure.  The diversity involved making her voice more of a focal point, while Guthrie introduced some acoustic guitar and, on one track, a saxophone, to flesh out the instrumentals.

For many, Treasure and the EPs that came before and after crystallized a classic Cocteaus sound, but Head Over Heels was a giant leap forward from Garlands and tracks like "Sugar Hiccup," "Five Ten Fiftyfold," "The Tinderbox (Of a Heart)," and "Musette and Drums" set the stage for further developments for the group, espcially when Raymonde brought his bass and ideas to complement what Guthrie and Fraser were doing.

Kronos Quartet: Caravan

Just about the time that I got into the amazing Kronos Quartet in 1990, the group was beginning to branch out into collborations with composers and performers from around the world and expanding their horizons beyond the so-called Classical world.  Similarly, at that period, I was moving beyond a concentration on alternative rock to listening to more jazz, classical and world music.  So, the circumstances worked well for my hearing where Kronos was going as I was heading that general direction, too!

The first of these endeavors was 1991's Pieces of Africa and subsequent recordings like 1994's Night Prayers. 2002's Nuevo and 2009's Floodplain continued to show their furthered interest and deep engagement with music from around the world.  In fact, these four albums and today's highlighted disc, Caravan, released in 2000, were packaged by Nonesuch Records under the title of Kronos Explorer Series, a nod to the label's Nonesuch Explorer catalog of amazing world music recordings.

Caravan is an excellent musical travelogue across the planet, with commissions from composers from the former Yugoslavia, Portugal, India, Lebanon, Iran, Mexico and elsewhere with a very diverse program of pieces.  They also demonstrate a tremendous range of approaches to how a string quartet works in environments outside "serious music."

This includes working with those who write or play music that isn't Western classical music, such as the fantastic Ali Jihad Racy, who demonstrated his expertise on the ney on his phenomenal "Ecstasy," the Bollywood piece "Aaj Ki Raat," which benefits tremendously from the unparalleled tabla player Zakir Hussain, the fascinating Misirou Twist from Nicholas Roubanis but which was best known from a version from surf guitar legend Dick Dale (who is Lebanese from his father and Polish and Belorussian through his mother) and which has drums by Martyn Jones, and the really cool,Turceasca, with Gypsy musicians.

Caravan is one of those great examples of how fusing Western music, in this case string quartet, with other musics from around the world can do justice to both and provide an exciting hybrid that plays on the strengths of each.