Frank Zappa and Prague
12. 5. 2024 | Categories: Articles
Lecture and screening on Frank Zappa and Prague at the Czech Consulate in Los Angeles, 10 May 2024.
[Petr Dorůžka, Los Angeles, California] You might find it strange, that a person from a far away, non English speaking country, talks about Frank Zappa in his home city Los Angeles. So - I should explain a few things in the next hour, with a help of a documentary film about Zappa’s visit to Prague and his meeting with president Havel.
The main points are:
-- how Frank Zappa managed to gain such a strong following in my home country, former Czechoslovakia,
-- how his music broke through all European cultural and language barriers,
-- and also, how one of his songs inspired the name of the most celebrated local underground band, the Plastic People of Universe.
T
For fifteen years she studied rural songs south of Naples. Her album Bucolica is one of the best roots recordings of 2023.
[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] How would collectors like Béla Bartók or Leoš Janáček work if they lived today? Endangered traditions they managed to capture have definitely disappeared in some regions, but they still live elsewhere. Hiram Salsano was born in Agropoli, a seaside resort 120 km south of Naples. Since 2005, she has been visiting rural farms in the interior and recording the songs of the oldest living witnesses.
It is easy to find parallels of her work in a wider context. The A
Amsterdam-based ud player Mehmet Polat studied Indian and Turkish music. He makes music with both Turkish and Western players
[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] The ud, one of the most common instruments in the Middle East, is considered to be the forerunner of a whole host of stringed instruments, including the European guitar. Unlike the guitar, it does not have frets and therefore is not limited by European scales. Besides Arab countries, a number of excellent players live in Turkey, Israel or Armenia and, thanks to the migration in recent decades, also in Europe. The instrument has gained respect in jazz thanks to musicians as Anouar Brahem from Tunisia, who records for ECM, or Rabih Abou-Khalil from Lebanon.
[by Ken Hunt, London] Medical stuff prevented me working on Martin Carthy's biography, Prince Heathen as much as I'd hoped in 2023. The upside was spending much of the year thinking about and challenging what I had already written. The downside was that for months all I could manage was to read or write for 10 to 30 minutes a day before being forced to rest.
In July the first, post-surgery turning-point was getting to experience the Rudolstadt Festival for the first time since Petr Dorůžka and I went together in 2019. Bizarrely I had completely forgotten writing an essay about the history of Folker magazine for the 2023 festival programme. The next, in late November, was Peggy Seeger and me talking as part of the MOTH Club's all-day event Celebrating 75 Years of Folkways Records.
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[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] Shaun Williams started to explore East European music as a humanitarian volunteer in Ukraine 15 years ago. Currently he is working on Roma music in his doctoral thesis, and as an accordionist he formed an ensemble with Romanian singer Corina Sîrghi. The full name of their group is Corina Sîrghi și Taraful Jean Americanu.
Williams was aware that his American origin could confuse listeners or even create a barrier, so he appears in the group under the nickname Jean Americanu, which he got from his Romanian bandmates. A unique figure is the cimbalom (hammered dulcimer) player of the group, Marian Șerban. When Romani music was discovered by Western audiences after the fall of communism, he moved to Italy, where he participated in dozens of important projects. He
[by Martha Hawley, Haarlem] The Fira Mediterrània was held in October 2023 for the 26th time, in celebration of Catalan traditional and popular culture, accompanied by performance and artistic contributions from around and across the Mediterranean. The pace of the festival is determined by the topography of its base in the hills north of Barcelona, in Manresa, all on an incline, very appealing to this visitor from the Lowlands. Performance venues are spread out all over town, in and around commercial and residential zones, in small theatres, even smaller cafés, and in large tents wherever an empty square allows.
There are many performing dancers on stages, but the music inspires visitors to just spontaneously break into action on the street.
[by Ken Hunt, London] Intensive treatment for cancer prevented me working much on Prince Heathen - The Age of Carthy and England's Folksong Revival for most of 2022. I resume work on Martin Carthy's biography in 2023. The upside was spending much of the year thinking about and challenging what I had already written. The downside was that for months I managed to to read or write for 10 to 30 minutes a day before needing to rest.
There were hardly any live concerts and no street music to speak of. In tiny windows of opportunity, I did get to see one photographic exhibition, Gli Isolani (The Islanders) of mainly Sardinian and Sicilian pagan and pre-Christian folklore at Hackelbury Fine Art. I went along with Barry Pitman who specialises in photographing England's morris and folklore
[by Ken Hunt, London] Another strange year spent thinking, living, breathing and writing about Martin Carthy and his approved biography, Prince Heathen. All I shall say on the subject is to say that Alan Garner's Treacle Walker came out in October 2021. He crams into 150-some pages a lifetime of writing and many years of ideas and imagination. It took Alan a fair few years to write it and it was worth the wait. (A link to my Swing 51 interview Alan Garner: Read more ) A quote of his in the FTWeekend Magazine of 18/19 December 2021 caught my eye and imagination and will be in Prince Heathen and will serve to explain much. I hope. Enough about Prince Heathen.
In part this Best of 2021 reflects reviewing commissions from RnR and Jazzwise. In
[by Ken Hunt, London] Even as she juggles an extensive repertoire and audience expectations, Eddi Reader is the sort of performer who gives one-off performances. The concert tour celebrated four decades as a professional musician. Reeling back the years the concert focused on her time as solo headliner and years as the lead vocalist in the successful Scottish group Fairground Attraction. (Even further back she sang for her supper singing with the Eurythmics (check out the YouTube footage singing 'Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)' on Top of the Pops) with fellow Scot Annie Lennox) and as a session singers in the London studios
[by Ken Hunt, London]What was the last live gig you saw before Covid-19 brought live music in front of audiences juddering to a standstill?
Mine was Yorkston Thorne Khan's London concert on 11 March 2020. It was the start of their tour promoting their third album, Navarasa: Nine Emotions. YTK are James Yorkston on nyckelharpa (Swedish keyed fiddle), 6-string guitar and vocals, Jon Thorne on double-bass, 6-string guitar and vocals, and Suhail Yusuf Khan on sarangi and vocals.
Watching how they have developed their unique blend of north-western Indian and Anglo-Scottish literary and musical traditions, with a strong jazz bass underpinning, has proved delightful. They appeared on the bill on the Rudolstadt Festival in 2017 confirmed how promising they were
