Giant Donut Discs ® – June 2014
30. 6. 2014 | Categories: Articles,Giant Donut Discs
[by Ken Hunt, London] Bob Dylan, Bonnie Dobson, Pavla Milcová, Salamakannel, SANS, Kronos Quartet, Ray Fisher, Zakir Hussain with Adnan Sami, Jenna And Bethany Reid and the Incredible String Band.
Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan
This performance is a portal to, or a portent of Dylan's mutable identities to come. It is one of the most pivotal songs in his canon. No matter how frequently or infrequently I listen to this particular recording, it loiters menacingly in the shadows of my mind. Commentators talk about the impact of the first Beatles film - A Hard Day's Night - in 1964. Other people clearly saw something that I didn't. For me however, it is pretty much impossible to communicate the impact of Like A Rolling Stone at the time of release in 1965. I splashed out on a second-hand [...]
Lubomír Dorůžka (1924-2013)
[by Ken Hunt, London] One of Europe's foremost jazz critics, of a status comparable to Nat Henhoff in the States, died on 16 December 2013 in Prague. Lubomír Dorůžka rose to become the preeminent Czech-language jazz historian in Czechoslovakia and, after the separation in 1993, the Czech Republic. He was a Czech musicologist, music historian and critic (not just jazz), author, literary translator (including, naturally, the Jazz Age writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner, amongst others) and much more. Lubo Dorůžka had the ill-starred fortune to be a jazz aficionado under two totalitarian regimes, during periods when to call jazz dangerous was an understatement.
He was born on 18 March 1924 in what was then Czechoslovakia's capital, Prague. [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] A long strange time with much written, little posted, too much heartache, death and separation. In other words: the usual. The backfill will appear. Work influences are, no apologies, rampant in these choices. It begins with Neil Young solo. It includes Mary Ann Carolan, Five Hand Reel, Paul Brady, Sakar Khan, Sam Lee & Friends, June Tabor, Barkatullah Khan, It's A Beautiful Day and Wilson & Swarbrick.
This is a revised version which includes the full version of the Wilson & Swarbrick comments, dropped in on 4 October 2014.
Needle of Death - Neil Young
Neil Young previewed this track at a sold-out concert at London's Royal Festival Hall (RFH) called 'A Celebration of Bert Jansch' in December 2013. (BBC 4 televised highlights in The Genius of Bert Jansch: Folk, [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] In person Pete Seeger was, much like you'd imagine, physically pretty spindly, pretty lanky but with a muscularity. Born on 3 May 1919 in Manhattan, he had an air of another era about him. He had a personable gentlemanliness quality, if it doesn't sound too foolish, a real Pete Seeger-ness to him.
The obituaries will rightly talk about his lion-heartedness facing down the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, blacklists and censorship, principles and running the gauntlet because of his involvement in the Civil Rights movement, his antiwar stance, his ecological activities and so on. There will be talk of songs such as Where Have All The Flowers Gone, Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season), We Shall Overcome and his antiwar parable Waist Deep [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] It started off as a slow year, especially in terms of concerts or talks that stood out. Disquietingly slow. Then it just got better and better, particularly when it came to concerts, and less so in terms of fees.
New releases
Iva Bittová / Iva Bittová / ECM
Brass Monkey / The Best of Live - 30th Anniversary Celebration / Park Records
Katy Carr / Paszport / Deluce Recordings
Chumbawamba / In Memoriam: Margaret Thatcher / [no label]
The Furrow Collective / At Our Next Meeting / Furrow Records
Arun Ghosh / A South Asian Suite / Camoci
Kayhan Kalhor & Erdal Erzincan / Kula Kulluk Yakışir Mı / ECM
Lisa Knapp / Hidden Seam / Navigator
Laura Marling / Once I Was An Eagle / Virgin Records
Leyla McCalla / Vari-colored Songs / Dixie Frog
Quercus / Quercus / ECM
Martin [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] Noëmi Waysfeld & Blik's Kalyma is an anthology of songs driven by enforced exile. Kalyma's springboard was a vinyl LP of songs derived from prisoners in the Siberian gulags in her parents' record collection. Dina Vierny, the muse and model of the sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944), whom he appointed executor of his estate, became a wealthy art dealer and patron of the arts. Those latter roles granted her access to the Soviet Union.
Ergo the album Chants des prisonniers sibériens d'aujourd'hui ('Songs of Siberian Prisoners of Today') eventually released in 1975 on Pathé Marconi in France.
Noëmi Waysfeld & Blik's interpretations of those Yiddish- and Russian-language songs formed the core of her performances in the festival's church venue - and, the next day, in [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] This month's selection is the product of one of most intense periods in career terms for several years . There was so much that could have reflected this month's listening but for many reasons this is what, let's say, is going to emerge. John Reilly, Robb Johnson, Leyla McCalla, The Home Service, Sam Lee, William Kimber, David Crosby & Graham Nash, John Coltrane and the Chumbas are, let's call them, the chosen ones...
The Well Below The Valley - John Reilly
The Well Below The Valley tells a tale of deception, incest and infanticide. This particular performance - and a most remarkable one it is at that - was collected from the Irish Traveller John Reilly by the Irish folklorist Tom Munnelly. It originally appeared The Bonny Green Tree (Topic 12T359, 1977). One of [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] M.S. Gopalakrishnan, Barbra Streisand, The Byrds, Barbara Dickson, Martin Simpson, The Ex & Brass Unbound, Paul Horn, Duncan Wood & Guests, Pannalal Ghosh and the Grateful Dead provide the work- and life-related materials this month. Updated 21 October 2013.
Janani Ninnuvina - M.S. Gopalakrishnan
This is a composition by Subaraya Sastri. His pedigree as a composer-musician is unmatched as far as I know. (More informed readers than I, please correct if wrong.) He was the son of Syama Sastri (1762-1827), one of the Holy Trinity of Karnatic saint-composers and he also studied with the Trinity's other two saint-composer Muthuswami Dikshitar (1776-1835) and Tyagaraja (1767-1847). This kriti or Hindu devotional hymn seeks the protection of the mother goddess.
A [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] Oh, the wind, the rain and sun. This month Jyotsna Srikanth, Allman Brothers Band, Simon Thacker's Svara-Kanti, Dunaj & Iva Bittová, Jefferson Airplane, Rosalie Sorrels Véronique Sanson, Joan Jeanrenaud, Martin Simpson, Fraunhofer Saitenmusik supply the umbrellas and the parasols.
Brovabarama - Jyotsna Srikanth
This is the centrepiece of one of the finest Karnatic albums to cross my path thus far in 2013. Jyotsna Srikanth plays South Indian-style violin and this particular track is imagination distilled. From Call of Bangalore (Riverboat Records/World Music Network TUGCD1072, 12013)
Ken Hunt's review of the album is in the online sampling of CD reviews in the summer 2013 issue of fRoots magazine at at http://www.frootsmag.com/content/issue/reviews/
Mountain Jam [...]
[by Ken Hunt, London] Noëmi Waysfeld & Blik, Marta Töpferová & Tomáš Liška, Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Weavers, Ali Akbar Khan, Škampa Quartet, Imani Winds, Z.M. Dagar & Z.F. Dagar and Lucy Ward, Bella Hardy, James Findlay and Brian Peters.
Shnirele Perele - Noëmi Waysfeld & Blik
One of those rare, very rare pieces of music that on first pass made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The Yiddish of the title translates as 'pearl necklace' or, to go Glenn Miller, 'string of pearls'. Both Noëmi Waysfeld & Blik and the album that this comes from were totally unknown quantities to me when work brought them to my attention. Once heard, never forgotten, this track got 'unfairly' stuck on repeat before moving through the rest of Kalyma.
Noëmi Waysfeld's vocal register - quite [...]
