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[by Ken Hunt, London] The Stephen Stills who put down this session on 26 April 1968 was hardly between jobs – even if he was between Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills & Nash. On the album’s skimpy notes, Stills writes, “I was at a Judy Collins session in New York in 1968, and when she was finished, I peeled off a few hundreds for the engineer so I could make a tape of my new songs.” Which Judy Collins session? Not the Who Knows Where The Time Goes surely, because it would be churlish beyond belief not to be explicit about that.
1968 was the year that Judy Collins put out Who Knows Where The Time Goes, one of the finest albums she ever made. Stills contributed acoustic and electric guitar or electric bass to all but one of its nine tracks. He was in the company of a handpicked assembly of some of the West Coast’s finest session musicians. It additionally comprised James Burton on electric guitar, Buddy Emmons on pedal steel, Michael Sahl and Van Dyke Parks on keyboards with a rhythm section of Chris Etheridge on electric bass, and James Gordon on drums. Collins and Stills were tangled up in romance, a relationship that ultimately fed their creative energies more than anything else. Two of the new songs Stills put down pointed unequivocally to the passion she had aroused in him – Judy and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. (And, yes, she had blue eyes.)
Here Stills is alone with his acoustic guitar, apart from the final track, running through reference versions of songs. Along the way the tape was misplaced and thought lost forever. Hindsight tells which Just Roll Tape demos made it through or how they grew. Some of the dozen songs in the session became core items in the repertoires of Crosby, Stills & Nash and his parallel solo career. The thirteenth track, the undated (presuming the notes dissemble) Treetop Flyer, on which Stills double-tracks guitar and dobro doesn’t really fit, but it is by far the strongest performance vocally.
It is hard to be absolute about Just Roll Tape but to these ears the essential vibe of the main twelve recordings communicates something unusual. For a start, the tracks aren’t concert artefacts or after-hours song sessions. Next, they aren’t song-publishing demos, like, say, Dylan’s Witmark recordings in pursuit of covers, or an individual bringing new material to a band with, say, spoken interjections highlighting chord changes. Just Roll Tape is a different species of try-out. This is Stills putting down reference versions of himself for himself. We are eavesdropping on something very private. And, that, assuming the premise to be correct, is intriguing in itself. (What passes as contextual information in the packaging regrettably adds not a jot, if you like, to the ‘debate’.)
Anyway, surely the major joy to be had from any archival release of this nature is what light it sheds on the act’s creative development. Under the spotlight, it has to said most of Stills’ performances wilt beside the familiar versions and star-backed interpretations. But that’s applying the wrong sort of criteria to Just Roll Tape.
Some of these songs deservedly shrivelled and died. Not even a die-hard herpetologist would applaud Dreaming Of Snakes – though dream analysts might have a warm, damp moment. On the other hand, Judy is just wet. But So Begins The Task shines and reveals itself as one of his songs most open to interpretation and one of the least appreciated. On his first solo album Stephen Stills (1970), Black Queen was a solo vessel with a nicely lubricated captain. Here it follows a very similar bluesy musical arrangement, thankfully without Jose Cuervo’s input. Compare sobriety and intoxication and the tequila’d Stephen Stills version wins out, however.
Of all the songs, five stand out for pointing to what happened later. Change Partners – to emerge on Stills’ second solo album – points to all sorts of all sorts. Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Helplessly Hoping and Wooden Ships – co-written with David Crosby and Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner – are all well advanced, just waiting to have David Crosby and Graham Nash drop in their vocal parts. Unlike Know You’ve Got To Run which is a creative cul-de-sac. And all the better for that. Because that is what the creative process is also about: the winnowings.
Just Roll Tape is like going potholing, entering an unknown cavern and finding a wall of cave paintings. Nobody is going to say that that bison, elk or tree frog depiction is going to win the Royal Academy award but we’re going to keep talking about them, long after the latest greatest thing has faded and died. Historically speaking, Just Roll Tape is of great interest. Musically speaking, he was doing better accompanying Judy Collins, however.
Just Roll Tape Eyewall/Rhino 8122-79979-1 (2007)
12. 8. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] In June 1960 a beat group called The Jets hit the St. Pauli district of Hansastadt Hamburg. With their arrival the British music invasion began. Rick Hardy was one of the original five-piece Jets, the first British group to perform in the clubs on the Reeperbahn, a district famed for ultra-violence, cameraderie and the richness of its lexicon of sexual services. Many other groups followed them to St. Pauli, notably a group that grew wings and became The Beatles. Hardy was more than a footnote in the history of rock music. He linked skiffle and rock, linked Soho and Hamburg and linked Joe Brown, Cliff Richard, The Shadows and The Beatles.
23. 7. 2007 |
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Rudolstadt, Germany, 6-8 July 2007
[by Ken Hunt, London] As far as Germany is concerned, the sovereignty of TFF Rudolstadt must now be taken more or less as a given. It is a model of how to revitalise a local economy too. The 2007 festival reasserted such contentions many times over. Like nearly every festival I’ve ever attended, the knack lay in out-balancing longueurs with high points. That said, this year TFF RU unwound a new strand of adventurousness with part of its US-themed programming. Philip Glass’ setting of Allen Ginsberg’s poetry, Hydrogen Jukebox (in a performance from Ensemble Creativ), the Degenerate Art Ensemble and, most notably, Laurie Anderson raised the bar in that respect.
Over its life the festival has gone from the socialist showcase and display of left-leaning solidarity of its beginnings in 1955 to a festival that has grown and grown since going ‘free-world’ (reader, add emoticon of choice) in 1991. It has grown into something that would have overwhelmed the minds of the town’s population in its pioneering GDR socialist days. The mind-boggling array on offer was more than enough to do any full-time professional music journalist’s head in, let alone a local burgher with a resident’s discount ticket.
One long-established feature of the festival, organisationally speaking, is its series of Schwerpünkte or major themes. Over the years, three have survived – a nation, an instrument and a dance. This year had the United States as the country; keyboards the so-called ‘Magic Instrument’; and polonaise the dance. There was also a sidelong dive into the world of Sufism on the 400th anniversary of the birth of the poet-philosopher known variously as Jelaluddin Balkhi or Rumi (1207-1273). Those names variously reveal his birthplace in Balkh in modern-day Afghanistan and his family finding sanctuary and resettling in Konya in modern-day Turkey. Parenthetically, Rumi translates as ‘from Roman Anatolia’ according to Coleman Barks and John Moyne’s The Essential Rumi (1997). And then, of course, there was the music and dance that had nothing to do with any of those river-like themes. There is still a massive dance contingency for whom the non-dance acts count as secondary. And vice versa.
Before going any further, these reflections are necessarily subjective. The sheer scale and geography of the festival mean any one festival-goer can only skim the surface of what was on offer on the 24 outdoor and indoor venues. Next, I have to declare an interest, as they say (cynics say theoretically) in UK parliamentary terminology. I act as editor of the English content in the hefty programme. Furthermore, a chunk of my time and energy this year was taken up with a talk with Laurie Anderson. The rather unfolky and somewhat clunkily titled talk Laurie Anderson. Allen Ginsberg. Philip Glass. Sketches of American Counterculture was turned from ‘talk’ into a natter in minutes with tales of sex and drugs and William Burroughs, exchanged memories of Allen Ginsberg and artistic derring-do about her work in all its multimedia variety.
Given this website’s Czech roots, it was fitting that Ridina Ahmedová was the first music that I experienced at the festival. She was the opening act on the Konzertzelt (concert tent) stage in the Heinepark. One of three venues in Heine’s pet park, now you ask. Jo Meyer was acting as the stage’s Moderator (master of ceremonies; compere would be so vulgarly televisual). Finding the original live wire of German dance bands from JAMS to Polkaholix acting as the stage’s master of ceremonies occasioned a double take. Imagine seeing Britain’s Jo Freya or Belgium’s Wim Claeys doing that job instead of playing or calling the dance.
As Ridina Ahmedová’s name indicates, her cultural bloodlines and lineage are mixed, with a Sudanese father and a Czech mother (with a Russian and Jewish gene pool). Nothing, certainly nothing on her solo album hlasem (by voice), quite prepares you for witnessing her singing first-hand even if it slots all the components into place. The reality, however, trounced all expectations. Guaranteed. And here’s why. First you see her recording a melodic fragment or a cadence-in-melody live. Played back through some electronic gubbins, it becomes a looped phrase against which she sings live. Before your eyes, so to speak. If that sounds complex, the reality isn’t. The art lies in turning theory into practice. Second takes clearly weren’t part of her act, but there again neither was the 20.47 train going by or sound leaking from the nearby dance stage. As the full measure of what she was doing became clear, it was like peeling away layers of incredulity. Her take on Mongo Santamaria’s Afro-Blue may have been familiar melodically via John Coltrane (or even the Albion Band circa 1978 and Rise Up Like The Sun) but sung countermelody live it took on a different dimension. Her voice is strong and flexible, in Czech terms like a youthful Ida Kelarová because of her power and expressiveness, though quite different stylistically. The comparison is high praise. Leading me to say unequivocally: Ridina Ahmedová is in a league of her own.
Music and dance are bound to waylay you at this festival. You sit unwinding or waiting for friends to turn up and before you know it a catch of melody from a nearby stage will turn your head. Like the Polish band Que Pasa pumping out good old-fashioned dance tunes on the Theaterplatz stage after the Laurie Anderson talk. Everything is hustle and bustle. Someone you expect to see again or run into, you never meet or see for the entire festival. Musical revelations come casually. Like, say, with the Oki Dub Ainu Band on the Burgterrasse (castle terrace) on Friday evening. Less so with the Gujarati dance ensemble Shilpagya and their Bollywood-into-folk or mock-folk themes on the main Markt (marketplace) stage, however. Or not quite as planned in the case of Charlie Mariano. Or Ali Reza Ghorbani. The Boston, Massachusetts-born saxophonist and one of the most important East-West crossover musicians of our era, that would be that Mariano fellow, was in such demand that the church doors were shut. Scores of people sat listening to his South Indian set with vocalist R.A. Ramamani, mridangam (barrel-drum) player T.A.S. Mani and multi-percussionist Ramesh Shotham on the grass outside – we English know the true meaning of lawn (Rasen) – basking in the Saturday afternoon sunshine. Twice over, an outside broadcast – thanks to a German radio broadcast. Ali Reza Ghorbani on the other hand started late and, adopting a Peter Cook whiny voice, the clock is a harsh mistress. When it came to the Seattle-based Degenerate Art Ensemble in the castle courtyard of the Heidecksburg on Friday night, having got waylaid meant missing the bulk of their only show. With lead singer Haruko Nishimura looking like a Björk understudy in a hoop dress (speaks a truant from sartorial elegance and know-how), DAE sounded like a cross between the Art Bears and fun. If you get my drift.
Saturday night was RUTH night for me. RUTH is pronounced like ‘Root’ and the annual RUTH awards are a deliberate pun on ‘roots’ and all that. Awards went to Charlie Mariano, the non-singing, non-dancing Mike Kamp (from Folker! magazine), Achim Reichel and the remarkable Sicilian singer Etta Scollo. Let’s home in on just one act.
Setting aside Reichel and his band’s exemplary musicianship, he proved himself a masterful bandleader. (The last musician I saw to compare was Bob Weir fronting RatDog.) Reichel is a veteran. He started out playing in the band he founded – The Rattles – during the explosive Reeperbahn beat group era that began in 1960 – the era that began with The Jets and The Beatles, groups perceived in many ways to have overshadowed The Rattles on the Hamburg scene. He went through psychedelia, German-language poeticism, Low German sea shanty and dialect and High German folk song. He also acted as midwife to Ougenweide’s extraordinary take on lyric-based folk song and Brian Eno’s Another Green Land. (Fittingly, Ougenweide’s Frank Wulff was in the Reichel and Etta Scollo bands.) He has seen and played a lot, in other words. Watching him at close quarters, from a secret on-stage location, was like being promoted to privileged fly on the wall. Reichel was a grab bag of split-second eye and physical cues and clues, surprised looks and private smiles of encouragement for band and sound crew. “Rocking the Morris” was a once-upon-a-time expression in English Folk Dance and Song Society circles. Hear the sneer? The way Reichel & Co. [GmunbH] rocked and locked into Heidenröslein (Little Heath Rose) would have had that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herder revolving in their merry graves. Heidenröslein is of immeasurable significance to the German and European folk song movement. It is central to the interconnected history of Goethe and Herder, to Herder’s coining of the word Volkslied, the conceptual ancestor and forerunner of the word ‘folk song’ in English. (And you know where that led.) Reichel reminded that the time is long gone when people spoke about sacrilege and affronts to cultural purity. His shanty arrangements, sometimes dipping into the international seafarers’ melodic lexicon, reinforced his Hamburg roots. Mine too. A great Heimweh (home-sickery [sic, sic]) for Hamburg descended, an expression of how powerfully Reichel had moved me. And I probably will never get the opportunity to talk of homesickness for Hamburg again.
Such is the festival’s geographical spread that it is hard to get a measure of numbers. Word came that there had been 75,000 visitors to the festival. That only really seemed to make sense when the Sunday finale rolled around. For the first time after the Farewell Concert in the marketplace they staged a major event afterwards: Laurie Anderson in the Heidecksburg courtyard.
Logistically it was a blooming disaster, Mary Poppins. Too many people with too many mobile distraction devices – and their disruptive where-are-you? calls, prompting the properly English fuck-off-and-die grinding of teeth – were funnelled into an area too cramped for the throng. If anything like it is going to be repeated in future years, there needs to be another big concert in the Heinepark in order to split the maddening crowd. Something like the Italian singer Gianna Nannini’s Saturday gig, say. Not that she moved me but I knew she had a presence nonetheless.
Artistically, it worked beautifully. Anderson came bearing synchronised surtitles in German. Apparently. From my angle that part of the stage could have been on Mars. She made no real concession to commerciality – aka greatest hits – in the performance. Unless you count performing Let X=X from Big Science, then just reissued in remastered form. (Mind you, she didn’t do the partially German-language Example #22 – given the lack of proofreading/shoddy proofreading on the new edition of Big Science, maybe a good idea – much like, but to a lesser extent than, Marianne Faithfull who chickened out of doing even the merest token of her Weimar-era material when she had her chance at Rudolstadt too.) Several of the new repertoire items were exceptional. Homeland is down for 2008 release and, judging by the fourpiece’s performances, brimming over with potential. An as-yet-untitled song about whores (sample line: “Don’t you love the Beverly Hills Hotel?”) is heading for very interesting places. Most exceptional of all was Only An Expert Can Deal With A Problem. It is a series of apercus, epigrams and reflections on the American state. It steadily built on its vehement foundation. Experts get called in to ‘solve’ problems. People with problems appear on Oprah’s talk show. Experts really can identify what looks like an everyday object to the non-specialist as something pretty darn dangerous. Like maybe something in Iraq, for instance. As it develops, the piece twists and contorts into solutions turning into problems. Only An Expert Can Deal With A Problem is one of those songs with the potential to keep growing verses to reflect the present. Like Tom Robinson’s Glad To Be Gay has for decades. Homeland may have a talking newspaper waiting in the wings, waiting to comment on the formidable US of A. An amen to that.
Petr Dorůžka’s review from Rudolstadt 2007 in Czech
23. 7. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The merest mention of the bandoneon conjures images of Argentina, a sub-culture of disadvantage and disaffection, and people expressing themselves through a once sleazy dance called tango. For decades the bandoneon and tango combined to figure as the lingua franca for Carlos Gardel, were refashioned as the nuevo tango (new tango) of Astor Piazzolla and lurked in the automatic writing of Jorge Luis Borges. In Argentina the bandoneon and tango have became expressways to the nation’s soul, shorthand for longing and loss, passion and pain. The bandoneon’s tones evoke a muscular sort of heartache. Such musing may prompt memories of the composer of Astor Piazzolla’s remark that it was an instrument born in a church in Germany moved to the prostibulos – brothels – of Argentina.
16. 7. 2007 |
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Music International Exposure,
March 2007
Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Israel
In the world-music-jargon of melting-pots and cultural crossroads Israel holds a prominent place. This March, the Israeli ministery of culture invited several dozens of festival organisers and journalists for a marathon series of showcases in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Surprisingly, the opening night was focused on klezmer, a style considered by many Israelis to be a dying phenomenon of past – along with the yiddish language. Yet it was refreshing to hear this originally East European music being revived by local young players. Contrary to their western parallels, the opening band Oy Division replaced shyness and caution of ethno-researchers by raw confidence and feeling. “Sephardic-kabalistic” Ensemble Iona moved even closer to trance music, a genre usually not connected with Israel nor with klezmer. Compared to Maghrebi or Indian ritual music, Iona’s trance elements were speaking from within, not being carried by movement or visuals. The band’s key player Naor Carmi, ex-member of Israeli seminal band Bustan Abraham, switched between bass and “yaili tanbur”, an instrument resembling cumbus but being played with a bow.
A detailed who-is-who guide to Israeli music followed, with the Arabian oud maestro Sameer Makhoul, the highly original voice artist Victoria Hanna, Afro-funk band Kuluma featuring an Ethiopean singer. The female percussionist-singer Din Din Aviv was a classical example of what makes Israeli music so special: the richness of colours and expression, the natural body language, playfulness in contrast to the strict and focused attitude of European artists. Aren’t Israeli’s the Brazilians of Middle East?
To find how the West connects with Israeli music, you should listen to the veteran singer-songwriter Ehud Banai: Dylanesque stories with middle-eastern sonorities of tar, a common instrument in Banai’s fatherland in Iran. The percussion duo PercaDu sounded like a cross between Steve Reich’s pieces and the Taiko drummers: the way these players attacked their giant marimbas and other tools was spectacular and subtle at the same time.
One day was reserved for a trip to Jerusalem’s Yellow Submarine club. Coolooloosh‘s hip-hop was as inventive as it can get, with a continually surprising interplay of horns. The musical overkill included also the JazzFest in Tel Aviv’s Giva’tayim theatre, which not only proved Israel to be a jazz superpower, but also exposed not yet discovered link Israel-Balkan, presented here by the well known flutist Shem-Tov Levy of Bulgarian origin, or the very inspiring Tizmoret, combining trumpet, saz, baritone horn and – again, Naor Carmi‘s bowed tanbur. The brass and rhythms resembled Goran Bregovic – but while Bregovic is too obvious and crowd pleasing, Tizmoret explores the hidden paths, and you really have to dive in their music to hear how much humour and wit is under the surface.
9. 7. 2007 |
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Transparente uses a richer accompaniment then the traditional fado setup. Which musicians will you bring on tour?
Transparente is closer to what I’ve been looking for as my sound, my Fado.
My main goal is to pass to the live performances the general sonority of this record so I’ll be adding to the traditional Fado combo (Portuguese guitar, classic guitar and acoustic bass), cello and percussion.
Luis Guerreiro on Portuguese Guitar, Antonio Neto on classical guitar, Vasco Sousa on acoustic bass, Paulo Moreira on Cello and Joao Pedro Ruela on percussion.
Where Fado was born? Only in Lisboa or are there Brasilian influences?
Fado’s history is kind of mysterious. Some theories says that the Portuguese sailors and the African slaves are in its base; According to some musicologists, Fado’s roots are also in the Lundum and Modinha; two kind of music styles coming from Brazil.
Fado started to appear in Lisbon in the beginning of the 19th century as an urban music and it was sung. Fado appears in a different form among the underprivileged and due to that it’s regarded as popular music. Fado was the people’s “newspaper”, it was through this song form that some news where known.
Was fado prohibited at any point? Was there a fado dance?
Portugal lived for 40 years under a dictatorial regime and Fado was a little the regime’s music. On February 25 1974, this regime had finally come to an end and Fado was put aside, it was somehow “locked up”. The only possible ways to listen to Fado was in the most traditional neighbourhoods of Lisbon, so, not prohibited, but out of “fashion” for some time, let’s say.
As I said before, some musicologists say Fado roots are Lundun and Modinha, which are known as a sensual music style that used to be danced in Brazil, it looks like that this was the way it arrived in Portugal, but the dance was so sensual that became a forbidden dance.
Originally, was it a street music? And when did fado happen to reach the
rich educated people?
Fado is very much a street music, which is learned from the elderly. It’s a tradition passed down orally and not through books or schools. It’s a music style where people express their deepest feelings and emotions. It was in Lisbon’s most typical neighbourhoods where the simple people lived, that it was possible to have contact with Fado. There was a point in history where the royalty started having Fado, but played with the piano. Some decades ago, Portuguese people started looking at Fado as the music that best represents Portugal; nowadays it is like this that people look at Fado, no matter age, class, etc.
What is important for a fado singer? Did you take any lessons? Do you
have a voice teacher?
I assume you mean important regarding the voice. Well, I like tea, and drink a lot of water!
I don’t really have singing lessons. I have, however, a teacher who looks after my voice as well as a doctor who’s always there for me.
Africans have a great talent for music. Do you feel the art of making
music is easier for you when your mother is an African?
It’s possible that the warm and melodically African rhythms may have influenced me, even if I don’t notice that. I’m very sure that these influences come from my mother. I was in Africa for a small period of time, but I grew up listening to music from Senegal, Antilles, Cape Verde and voices like Miram Makeba or Cesaria Evora.
Do you have any memories of childhood in Mozambique? Do you miss Africa?
I was 3 years old when I left Mozambique and most of my memories are from my grandfather (my mother’s father). I was very spoilt by him, as I was his first granddaughter. This is very typical in Africa, as the first-born is treated in a very special way.
My grand parents had a big farm where we used to spend our weekends. They had horses and lots of pigeons. My grandfather used to take me for long horse rides. In the morning we used to sit on the porch and he gave me fruits to eat.
As soon as my life allows me to, I’d love to travel to Mozambique and visit my family, also to remember everything I lived there when I was a child.
What exactly does mean the word Transparente, and how does it relate to
the theme of the album?
Transparente means crystal, clean. It reflects my maturity as a performer and my unstoppable search for my sonority. For my Fado.
Transparente is completely “naked” in poetry and way of singing. That’s me. That’s my music, my declaration of love to Fado.
Tell me about your African grandmother. Did she sing?
It was my grandfather who use to sing in family parties, but I can’t say that I have anyone in my family connected to music. My African grandmother didn’t know how to sing, she talked about one’s fate.
How did you collect material for the CD? Are there any cover versions?
I started by researching through the greatest Portuguese poets.
I could count on the help of three of the most important Portuguese songwriters. They wrote and composed songs, especially for me, like “Meu Fado Meu” [Paulo de Carvalho], or “Transparente” [Paulo Abreu Lima/Rui Veloso]. I also wanted to work with a younger composer from the new order, able to write and compose about the new Lisbon, so I found Pedro Campos, who wrote “Montras”.
I don’t think that there are cover versions in this album, but instead a tribute to the three most important people in the history of Fado, which I consider my teachers and my gurus: Amália Rodrigues, Fernando Mauricio and Carlos do Carmo.
Are there any links between fado and literature?
Fado, as well as poetry, expresses all kind of feelings. Without those feelings it would be impossible to talk about poetry or Fado.
Poetry is the highest level of literature. Through it, thoughts, emotions and feelings are expressed. Fado is a gathering of all of these.
Could you please introduce some of the authors?
Fernando Tordo is one of the best Portuguese songwriters who worked with me in this album by writing “Fado Tordo”.
Mario Pacheco, one of the best Portuguese guitar players, wrote and performed with Amália Rodrigues. He composed two songs for Transparente: ” Há uma música do Povo”, a poem by Fernando Pessoa, and “Há palavras que nos beijam” by Alexandre O’Neill. He had already worked with me in “Fado Curvo” with another poem by Fernando Pessoa: “Cavaleiro Monge”.
Paulo Abreu Lima is the author of “Transparente”, composed by Rui Veloso, another big Portuguese songwriter. Both of them had written and composed for me in “Fado Curvo” : “Feira de Castro”.
The “Recusa” is a very mysterious song. It indicates you are not just a
fado singer, but fado itself. But that sounds quite complicated. Can you explain?
“Recusa” was written by one of the most traditional poets, Mário Rainho. The poem says: “(.) if to be a singer of Fado is to lose sight of the sun (.) to be sad (.) to be on the edge of tears (.).”. This is exactly what I am not! Fado is not crying all the time. I don’t dress up all in black. I dance; I move and express my own personality. That’s why I feel different. This is my Fado. And, if being a Fado singer is to be all what I’m not, then I’m not Fado, I’m Fado when I do it my way, respecting all its codes, but always my way. This is my music. It is where I find myself and where I recognize myself. Fado has space enough for everything, for joy, for feeling melancholic, to celebrate and to be happy.
In the past, did you sing in the fado houses? Can you describe the
atmosphere?
You live an intimae atmosphere in Fado houses. People are happy to be there. There’s a positive energy in the air, it’s a fantastic environment!
People meet there to get together, to relax, have a drink and at the same time to join in the emotion that Fado is. I go a lot to Fado houses, even if I don’t sing, I like to breed it!
Is there one fado house called Senhor Vino? And do you also have a song of that name? What was first?
“Ouça lá ó Senhor Vinho.” was written and composed by Alberto Janes. It was created for Amália Rodrigues and was recorded and released by herself in 1976. The album was named “After this Song”.
There is, in fact, a Fado House called Senhor Vinho. It’s located in one of Lisbon’s most traditional neighbourhoods: Madragoa.
Your performances are well known for the intense atmosphere. What are
your feelings after the concert, are you tired? Do you need a BIG rest?
I do give away all I can to my audience, and of course that brings some tiredness, but I love it, so, as long as I can do it, I’ll keep on doing it!
Did Jaques Morelenbaum work with a fado singer before?
As far as I know Transparente is the only Fado album produced by Jaques.
Why did you select him? What is your attitude to Brazilian music?
I’m very fond of Brazilian rhytms, such as Bossa Nova, Vinicius de Moraes, Tom Jobim, Elis Regina or Caetano Veloso, for who Jaques Morelenbaum is currently the musical producer. I already knew that Jaques had worked with Caetano Veloso and Ryuchi Sakamoto. We met in music festivals in Portugal and abroad. I’ve always loved his work. I’ve always wanted to work with him. I spoke with my record company and they liked the idea. I suggested it to Mr. Morelenbaum and he returned to my suggestion with all possible dates to start working. I’ve always thought that doing it would help me to reach the sonority I was looking for. When I listen to this album I feel my Fado, my sound. Jaques Morelenbaum uses all musical instruments in a magical way, with lots of care. He was the producer for this record; he understood me.
When did you discover him for the first time? What kind of music were you
listening before?
As I said before, I already knew Jaques work with Tom Jobim, Caetano Veloso or Sakamoto. I met him in Lisbon some years ago. I listen to all kind of music, as long as it’s good. But I have to confess, I have my preferences: Maria Callas, Tony Bennett, Nina Simone, Sting.
Now your album is on the top of the charts. What is the chart music any time Mariza doesn’t have a new album? Is it this anonymous international pop? Do you have any favourite singers in Portugal?
Like everywhere we do have international pop artists in the charts, but there’s good music being done in Portugal, like Rui Veloso, Carlos do Carmo, Jorge Palma. To name a few.
What kind of book would you take with you to a desert island? And any musical instrument, or a CD?
I would certainly take various Portuguese and international poetry, which I would read listening to classical music.
Is it different when you sing for non-Portugese audiences? Do you have
to translate the lyrics?
I think that everybody has a little bit of Fado inside themselves. Because it is a music that have in the base feelings, emotions, etc. People all around the world are able to understand it, even if they speak a different language. Nevertheless, I carefully explain what I am going to sing, but the rest of it is emotion. It’s a kind of give and take.
How many languages do you speak?
I speak a little of English, Spanish, some French, and Portuguese, of course .
Do you have any personal dreams?
To be happy
9. 7. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] At first glance, Anna Marly’s name may ring no bells. Her original name was transliterated as Anna Betoulinsky and she was born in the Russian city of St. Petersburg on 30 October 1917 – a stormy time in Russian history, the very month of the Bolshevik uprising. Of mixed Russian and Greek parentage, her father was identified as a counter-revolutionary, was arrested and executed in 1918.
3. 7. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The Grateful Dead were a band that polarised opinion. How you took them over the course of their 30-year lifespan probably got entrenched. Mind you, given the band’s archival revelations, the present tense ‘take’ still seems pertinent, even all these years after their linchpin Jerry Garcia’s death in August 1995 and the band’s subsequent folding that year.
Their Three From The Vault captures the band playing on the second date of a string of concerts at the Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, New York State. The date was 19 February 1971 and the band had just undergone another of its periodic personnel changes. The night before they had been six. This night was their first gig without their second drummer. Mickey Hart would return to the fold in October 1974, having licked his wounds and recovered from the karmic shock of discovering that his father, the band’s absconding manager, had systematically burnt them, embezzling them of thousands upon thousands of dollars. The exact sum never got established. Such is the nature of such fraud, a damn bad show, as I was saying to that Sting fellow only the other night over the Port and Stilton before I woke up.
So, on 19 February a quintet comprising Jerry Garcia on electric guitar and vocals, Bill Kreutzmann handling all the drum parts, Phil Lesh on electric bass and vocals, Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan on keyboards, vocals and harmonica and Bob Weir on rhythm and slide guitar and vocals took the stage. It was a suitably chastened band, just as shocked as Hart – an innocent party in the debâcle of naivety. Deep in the merde, they had the pressing need to recover a semblance of normalcy and soldier on. There are times, for example, during Bird Song when it is possible for listeners to project and gaze into Garcia’s world-weary, hurting eyes. The main point, however, is that they were on their mettle and playing for their lives and the band’s very existence. And that is no hi-falutin talk. They were playing on the brink. Plus, they were on the East Coast. In 1971, six years into the band’s existence, they were intent on expanding their audience eastwards. Out of San Francisco, out of California, into a new Promised Land. It would only be 1972 that they really tried to crack the European market, for example.
Three From The Vault resurrects a series of multi-track archival releases planned in the early 1990s, but put on hold. The first, One From The Vault appeared in 1991. The next year the series petered out with the inventively titled Two From The Vault. The numerical titling scheme collapsed. Later archival multi-track releases – as distinct from Dead archivist Dick Latvala’s numerically sequenced Dick’s Picks thirty or so volumes – got more imaginative titles. Hundred Year Hall (1995), Nightfall of Diamonds (2001) and Steppin’ Out (2002) are examples. Three From The Vault was prepared for release, then got sidelined for no better reason that mankind being awfully good, as the US folk music merchant and poet Carl Sandburg put it, forgettery.
Three From The Vault opens with a couple of true noodles. The first is a cartoonish The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down – try the English folk band Pyewackett’s thought-out Looney Tune version on their The Man in the Moon Drinks Claret (1983) for comparison – followed by Garcia exercising the fingers with Mendelssohn’s Spring Song. As ever with these vignettes, the band falls in behind him. It is often overlooked how much music of whatever provenance this band jiggled and juggled. Their musical appetites ran the gamut from Henry Cowell to the Pinder Family, Elmore James to Chuck Berry, Alla Rakha to Bill Monroe, the Carter Family to Ol’ Igor Stravinsky at this point. Musical omnivores, in other words. The first proper piece is Truckin’ – their lyricist Robert Hunter’s contribution to their mythology – from the previous year’s masterpiece, American Beauty. Truckin’ reveals the band at its loose-limbed, boogie-vibe best, getting the groove and ridin’ it to kingdom come.
What Three From The Vault also reveals is a whole catalogue of superior songs, yet to be unleashed on the world in any commercially released form. The band was a powerhouse of new material that explored mythic American themes – what would be tagged ‘Americana’ nowadays. As Gary Lambert’s excellent contextual booklet notes point out, the band premiered seven new songs on the first two nights of their Capitol Theatre engagement. They aren’t necessarily finished. Most lyrics are there, but still being rolled around the mouth to see how they taste. In the case of Greatest Story Ever Told, due to get its pukka airing on Weir’s Ace the next year, John Barlow’s lyrics are incomplete. Such insights in themselves may not be great in the scheme of things, yet, for me, the pinprick flashes of illumination they cascade cast telltale light on the creative process.
Aside from such new unveilings as Loser, Playing In The Band, Greatest Story and Wharf Rat, there is the funk of the band in its blues and dirty r’n’b phase – courtesy of Pigpen. Here, he is in fine filthy form on the band’s own Easy Wind off 1969’s Workingman’s Dead, their mangling of the Young Rascals’ popster hit Good Lovin’ and Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightnin’. Good Lovin’ in particular shows what an asset he was to the band. As a vocalist, he was one of the white r’n’b greats, extolling the discipline and freedoms of blues improvisations. Up there with Steve Winwood yet far earthier. When the guitars kick in, Garcia’s effect-pedal solo and Weir’s duck-into-the-spaces-between Garcia-and-Lesh rhythm guitar are set up by Pigpen’s spontaneous bluesy wordsmithery. Then Kreutzmann’s drums rise in the mix, Lesh’s bass rises to support the drums and the whole damn thing swells and soars to the home-run lyrics “I was feelin’/So bad/Asked my friend the doctor/’Bout what I had.” The one and only Pigpen. In the studio the finish would have been a re-take. Here you get what happened. Like I said, the one and only Pigpen.
But why the ESP Shows? Well, Dr Stanley Krippner from the Dream Lab – forgive the colloquialism – at Brooklyn’s Maimonides Hospital had images projected for the audience to beam telepathically from the Capitol Theatre to the Dream Laboratory. The Dead as a footnote in the wacky world of psychological journalry.
Three From The Vault Grateful Dead Productions 8122-79983-1 (2007)
2. 7. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] ‘Peerie’ Willie Johnson’s birthplace was the Shetland Islands. They are home to one of the most fascinating of Scotland’s indigenous folkways. The Shetlands are a cluster of islands and a cultural staging post. Head south and before you reach the Scottish mainland you come to the Orkneys. Head north and you’ll reach the Arctic Circle. Head east and you make landfall in Scandinavia. To the north-west are the Faroes and then Iceland. To the west is North America. The geographical position and isolation of the Shetlands were what created ‘Peerie’ Willie Johnson’s consummate self-taught guitar style.
1. 7. 2007 |
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[by Ken Hunt, London] The Grateful Dead turned Kris Kristofferson’s Me And Bobby McGee into a road movie. With the Full Tilt Boogie Band, her finest ever band behind her, Janis Joplin turned the song into an increasingly urgent love song. Beginning with Joplin’s acoustic strumming and voice, the song built, propelled by Clark Pierson’s drums and Ken Pearson’s Hammond organ. Then nearly three minutes into the song, Richard Bell’s piano slides in unobtrusively. From there on in, the ensemble interpretation steadily steps up its frenzied energy. Together, the whole band delivers one of the Pearl album’s – and Joplin’s – defining statements.
25. 6. 2007 |
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