Giant Donut Discs ® – March 2012
19. 3. 2012 | Rubriky: Articles,Giant Donut Discs
[by Ken Hunt, London] Sometimes life gets in the way of unpaid writing and technical (internetmabob) matters in the way of uploading. Hence skipping a month. Not that February 2012 was so bad a month. More like the hours got rationed and paying work intruded. This month’s selections are from the UK-based band Durga Rising, the Czech vocalist-violinist Iva Bittová and Wilmar de Visser (bassist with the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble), the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Rhiannon Giddens, Wizz Jones, El Hachemi Guerouabi, Shamim Ahmed Khan, Judy Collins, Phoebe Smith, Celia Hughes, Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow. Slaap zacht.
Go Down Easy – Durga Rising
Kuljit Bhamra (percussion), Russell Churney (piano) and Barb Jungr (vocals, harmonium, mandolin) deliver this album. Smoochy, sultry, saucy and sexy – it’s the way Barb J. baits, tells and sells them. This is one of the tours-de-force from this now-reissued album. From Durga Rising (Keda KEDCD46, 2011)
Jabúčko – Iva Bittová and Wilmar de Visser
Wilmar de Visser and Iva Bittová played this at their joint concert at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ – that steel, glass and wood structure on Piet Heinkade, one tram stop out from Centraal Station. The tram’s lady conductor and I bantered a bit on the way to the venue. I had never seen Iva and the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble (NBE) perform, though their Ples Upírů (‘Dance of the Vampires’, Indies Records MAM169-2, 2002), a live recording from Den Haag in April 2000, attests to a long-lived musical partnership. By the way, Ples Upírů is translated as ‘Dance of the Vampires’. Apparently, vampires are very popular nowadays, so mentioning vampires a few times may bring vampire-lovers to unexpected discoveries at non-vampiric websites. I digress.
The first word of proper Czech I ever consciously learned, thanks to my esteemed co-host of this site, was jablkoň (‘apple tree’) in 1991. There was nothing Biblical to my first lesson in Czech: it was the name of the Czechoslovakian acoustic music group, Jablkoň – formed in 1977 and still going strong. I watched in amazement – and amazement is apposite – on a little stage beside the main pedestrian street, today’s Boulevard, at TFF Rudolstadt in July 1991. Grasping the grammatical implications of the pip diminutive form jabúčko (‘little apple’) from jablkoň, the tree, would take many years and many lessons more.
This piece figured prominently in Iva Bittová and the NBE’s concert on 25 January 2012. I knew, if nothing else, that this concert marked a turning-point in my professional life. Iva was about to record one or two of our collaborative compositions in a week or so later in Switzerland. After that, for reasons of probity I would be withdrawing from writing about her work in the usual music critic sense. But I loved this performance because it reminded me of the concert.
This is from a DVD/CD rush-release from the NBE bash on 1 January 2012 at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw at which Iva Bittová was one of the guests. The title Vreemde Vogels communicates the sense of ‘strange birds’ or ‘foreign birds’ in a rara avis sense. From Vreemde Vogels (NBE NBECDO30, 2012)
PS That same day, 25 January 2012, back in England my friend and work colleague Robert Maycock died in a car accident. Keith Potter’s obituary of Robert Maycock appeared in The Independent of 9 February 2012.
Pretty Bird – Carolina Chocolate Drops
I count the Carolina Chocolate Drops as one of the great darling hopes of contemporary US roots music. This is a solo performance by their Rhiannon Giddens of a song by Hazel Dickens. No huge text or exegesis needed. Just love it. This track concludes their album. Hazel Dickens would be tickled, I suspect. From Leaving Eden (Nonesuch Records 7559-7967-1, 2012)
Ken Hunt’s obituary of Hazel Dickens from The Independent of 3 June 2010 is at
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hazel-dickens-pioneering-bluegrass-singer-whose-songs-championed-the-working-class-2292347.htmll
Massacre At Beziers – Wizz Jones
Wizz Jones remains one of the most insightful guitarists of our era. However, his prowess on the acoustic guitar has unfairly overshadowed his abilities as a song interpreter. Alan Tunbridge’s song about the Cathars, the eminently transferrable Albigensian Crusade and a Marvyn Gaye-like what’s going on? tale. This recording was made in Huldenberg, Brussels on 18 March 2006. From Huldenberg Blues (Sunbeam Records SBRC5085, 2011)
El Harraz – El Hachemi Guerouabi
The title’s English-language translation has it as ‘The Fierce Doorman’. Any song with that title must be smuggling something under the radar. This performance is in the chaabi style, meaning ‘of the people’. This particular double-CD set is a cornerstone of my non-rai Algerian music experience.
From Trésors de la musique algérienne (Institut du Monde Arabe 321.054.055, 2003)
If ever in Paris, do please visit Institut du Monde Arabe (Museum of the Arab World) at 1 Rue des Fosses St.-Bernard (5th arrondissement), 75236 Paris for further insights.
Janasanmodini – Shamim Ahmed Khan
Shamim Ahmed (1938-2012) had such a mellifluous voice on the sitar, totally his but utterly bearing the stamp of his guru Ravi Shankar. This particular Hindustani-style raga composition of his guru’s came about in 1947 apparently (according to the notes). Shankar sounded out various people whether it already existed in the South Indian ragam firmament where mathematically speaking musically anything possible might be said to have been already catalogued or anticipated, so to speak. (I know: a nastily complex sentence.) This is a performance by a musician whose playing that has coloured my life. Shamim Ahmed’s interpretation has a joyful succulence to it. From ShankaRagamala – A Celebration of the Maestro’s Music by his Disciples (Music Today CD-A-04200B of CD-A-04200A-C, 2005)
Ken Hunt’s obituary of Shamim Ahmed Khan from The Independent of 7 March 2012 is at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/shamim-ahmed-khan-sitar-player-taught-by-shankar-7542206.html
In My Life – Judy Collins
This Lennon/McCartney song had a fragrance to it when it emerged into the world back in the 1960s. Judy Collins’ In My Life interpretation had a willowy, plaintive quality that inspired me in 1967 and in its austerity it is still impressive. “But of all these friends and lovers, there is no-one compares with you…” is such a jejeune and inexperienced statement. It shouts inexperience. It has also become a song about aging. “Some are dead and some are living…” A magnificent song and a magnificent performance. My colleague Peter Doggett’s notes illuminate this reissue. Fifth Album & In My Life (Elektra/Rhino 8122 73392, 2006)
A Blacksmith Courted Me – Phoebe Smith
This is one of the most perfect songs in the English language. This is a recording made by Peter Kennedy in July 1956. Shirley Collins compiled and annotates this volume in Topic’s second (2012) tranche in its Voice of the People series. Quite properly, it concludes the first CD on this double set. Phoebe Smith’s is a performance that transports. She was one of the most mesmerising of the English Gypsy singers. From the various artists’ I’m A Romany Rai (Topic Records TSCD672D, 2012)
Jealousy Thoughts – Celia Hughes
This is a variant of Worcester City, with coughing, voices off and voices on. And it has a presence that is gooseflesh palpable.
“Too young to court, too young to marry,
Too young to court of a wedding day.
For when you are married, you’re bound for ever
And when you’re single, you’re sweet liberty.”
Celia Hughes’ voice has a clarity like few others. It is her only track on this second volume of Peter Kennedy’s recordings. From the various artists’ I’m A Romany Rai (Topic Records TSCD672D, 2012)
The Tallest Tree – O’Hooley & Tidow
Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow are pretty self-contained as groups go but they are utterly in the spirit of the No Master’s Co-operative – the Northern England-based co-operative that now, amongst others, includes O’Hooley & Heidi Tidow, Coope Boyes & Simpson, Chumbawamba in that spirit of organise to survive. This is a track from their second album, recorded between September and October 2011.
It’s not big or clever to pick the opening track from an album. Sequencing albums is no little art in itself. This song has a few bird references – “The robin calls, the robin sees, the robin flies to the tallest tree” – with “crows in pinstriped uniform” as baddies bent on “the commoner’s nest egg…” Call me an old-fashioned naturalist but I connect those images with E.A. Armstrong’s 1958 The Folklore of Birds in Collins’ New Naturalist series and folklore wrenched into the present. Don’t be beguiled by the voices: heed the words. From The Fragile (No Master’s NMCCD39, 2012)
More information at http://www.nomasters.co.uk
The image of Iva Bittová at the after-concert at Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ is © Ken Hunt/Swing 51 Archives. The copyright of all other images lies with the respective photographers, companies and image-makers.