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Medieval Songs of Sex, from Catalonia: Els Berros de la Cort

MARCH 21, 2013, 12:00 PM

As its name would indicate, the Fira Mediterrània de Manresa showcases music from Catalonia and also from all around the Mediterranean. It provides a lively music trade fair where business connections can be made and deals closed, but it is also a citywide festival. Every resident can participate and the main streets are full of families taking advantage of the public performances and general party feeling.

I'll be covering the festival in greater depth soon, but for now, here's a dose of medieval secular music from Els Berros de la Cort who were playing at El Sielu, one of the smaller club-like venues. As you will see the band uses authentic instruments, with the addition of some contemporary percussion and amplification. So while the sound is probably quite similar to what one might have heard at a medieval festival, there are definitely heightened rhythmic color and dynamics.

The lyrics for the first a capella piece come from the "Speculum al Foderi," which was a kind of medical sex manual for the lay person (no pun intended, but hey...). The very title, which contains some rather blunt language, suggests that it was not published for royalty, who would usually be reading a book in formal Latin. The words themselves, which the band has set to original music describe various attributes of a woman: her fair parts, her dark parts, her round parts, her petite parts, and her sweet-smelling parts.

The full translation is available upon request ;-)

This is followed by an instrumental which is a free adaptation of "Molt Eram Dolz Mei Conzir," a composition by Arnaut de Maroil (sometimes written Arnaut de Mareuil), an Occitan troubadour of the late 12th century.

This all leads me to believe there was lot more to medieval culture than we are commonly taught!

For more information about Els Berros de la Cort, visit: elsberrosdelacort.cat

For more of Michal's world music videos visit inter-muse.com

Topics:

Women / Gender / Sexuality,

Music / Art / Culture,

Fira Mediterrania de Manresa,

Speculum al Foderi,

Live Performance,

Els Berros de la Cort

Regions:

Europe

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Renata Rosa at the Forde Festival

By Michal Shapiro

OCTOBER 2, 2012, 12:00 PM

Unlike the urban MPB or Bossa Nova we generally associate with Brazil, music from that country's northeast, and particularly Pernambuco, has a rugged, rural heart.

Although she is originally from Sao Paulo, Renata Rosa seems to have been created especially for this kind of soul. There is a direct, joyful quality to her presentation, as if she is simply delighted to be singing for you, and she and her ensemble have an endless energy for performance. (I imagine they do get tired like most humans, but I didn't see any of that. Even when their flight was cancelled and then re-scheduled for the following day and they had to return to the festival, they passed the time jamming and performing.)

The complete band is not a trio, and on opening night, Ana Araujo on vocals and percussion, and Hugo Lins on bass rounded out the ensemble on the big stage. But I was unable to get a satisfactory shoot from the performance that night, so I was glad to catch her gig at the tiny Pikant Café, perched above the town's river.

That is the beauty of the Forde festival, you can hear music in venues large and small all over the town and its environs, from concert halls, to classrooms and churches, even to mountain tops! This means that if you miss one show, you will likely be able to see the artist perform again. Indeed, Ms. Rosa said that of the many performances she gave, she thought the show at the Pikant was particularly strong, perhaps due to the proximity of the audience.

The place was jammed, both inside and on the outside deck, but I was able to score a chair in the corner and stand on it. (Sorry about that backlight, what can ya do.) Pepe da Silva here plays a 10 stringed guitar, Lucas dos Pazeres plays percussion. Everyone sings; indeed for me, it was the part singing that really drew me in, and I have to say the musicianship was mighty high all around.

Despite its traditional sound, the first song -- Corta o Pau -- is an original by Ms. Rosa. She wrote of it to me: "Its rhythm is called Coco de Roda. This composition has different influences such as indigenous vocal polyphonies, rabeca (traditional fiddle) played in the cavalo-marinho tradition (a kind of street performance) and the Viola (10 stringed guitar) played in the northeastern tradition.

The second Song -- Piau -- is her adaptation of a folk song. She writes, "It's rhythm is from our Afrobrazilian ritual called macumba."

For more of Michal's world music videos visit inter-muse.com

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Selda Bagcan at IstanbuLive 4, Lincoln Center Out of Doors

By Michal Shapiro

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012, 6:24 AM

The headliner for this years edition of IstanbuLive 2012 was Selda Bağcan who turned in an impressive, impassioned set. She's been compared to Edith Piaf and Joan Baez, but I think Mercedes Sosa would be more on the mark.

It is hard for most of us to imagine the conditions under which Bağcan conducted her early career. A series of military coups in the early 70s took Turkey from a fairly open society in which the youth movement was musically active, to one in which repression and disappearances were rife. Bağcan was arrested and put on trial nine times and imprisoned three times, all for singing songs that sided with the poor and powerless, and for being associated with the Left.

But through it all, her celebrity grew, and as Mehmet Dede, one of the organizers of the festival, said to me "She is one of those artists that I listen to, that my daughter and my son will listen to, and my parents have listened to. She covers all those generations." And indeed, all those generations were represented in the audience, as well as a surprising cross section of New York ethnicities. I was very much taken with the power of her voice, although she professes to having less lung power than in her youth. And it's easy to hear why people relate to her music, as it is both melodic and highly emotional. The song that I've presented here is "Gömdüm Oğul Seni." It is a folk song (although Selda has penned many of her own hits) sung from the point of view of a mother who has seen her young son hanged. From the first notes, the audience roared its recognition, and throughout the concert Selda encouraged everyone to sing along with her.

Oğul (Gömdüm Oğul Seni)
My Son (I Buried You My Son)

I buried you my son
I turned the bloody tears into a fountain
I died on your coffin
Break those hands that have hit you my son
I did not get enough of your voice and your height
They put a thick rope around your thin neck
You fell like a rose to the bosom of the ground
Break those hands that have hung you my son
Will a son lost ever be replaced?
Ah my son, my wounds went deep
Look at the works of the wrongdoers
Break those hands that have burnt you my son

Selda's band is: Volkan Basaran - Guitar, Kemal Esen - Baglama, İzzet Tokay - Drums
Serdar Donduran - Keys, and ringers Ismail Lumenovski on clarinet and Tamer Pinarbasi on Kanun.

My thanks to Mevlüt Akaya for supplementary footage from on stage.

For more of Michal's world music videos visit inter-muse.com

Topics:

Music / Art / Culture,

Human Rights,

Selda Bagcan,

Gömdüm Oğul Seni,

Lincoln Center Out of Doors,

IstanbuLive 2012,

Turkish Music,

Turkish Protest music,

Regions:

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A Taste of the Førde Festival, The Musicians of the Nile

By Michal Shapiro

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012, 12:00 PM

This is just the first of what I plan to be several postings about the fabulous Førde Festival in Norway. The festival has already garnered itself an excellent reputation amongst world music aficionados, but should be on the agenda of anyone who enjoys travel and adventurous music. Part of that is due to the spectacular setting, and I advise those who make the trip to plan to explore the fjords all around the area. As press, we were treated to a breathtaking journey from Bergen via rail and boat up to Førde, that I will not soon forget. The other part of the allure is the excellent and canny musical choices of the producers. Torill Falleide and Hilde Bjørkum know what will please their audience, and it's an engaging mix of both unadorned ethnic and eclectic music that is consistently entertaining.

My video is from the opening night, and it’s quite literally a dazzler. The various musicians were asked to present their most tantalizing numbers, as the first program of the festival is intended as a menu, giving the audience a sampling of what is to come.

So the Musicians of the Nile presented a tanoura dance, complete with light show. What made it so amazing was that the light show was inside the costume of the dancer! Some folks questioned the "authenticity" of this but I think that if tiny lights had been around that could be sewn into the costume of the dancer back when it was first being performed hundreds of years ago, it would have been perfectly within cultural standards!

The tanoura dance will remind you of the whirling dervish dances of Turkey and they are indeed related, as the sufi tradition is present in Egypt through the Levant and Turkey, and in some forms, even into west Africa. (There are some claims that Sufism actually originates in ancient Egypt, but the majority of sources I have read posit that it was a reaction to, and outgrowth of, Islam.) The music and the whirling is meant to induce a trance, which in turn leads to a union with the divine. The skirts of the dancer are layered, and each color on the skirt represents a different Sufi order. These days this kind of presentation is very popular for entertainment at weddings and other kinds of celebrations. For my part, I was in heaven in a different way -- I'm a fool for colored lights (you should see me at a fireworks display) and I felt like a little kid transported with delight.

For information or bookings contact zamanproduction.com
For more of Michal's world music videos visit inter-muse.com

Topics:

Religion / Spirituality,

Music / Art / Culture,

Sufi Music,

Musicians of the Nile,

Regions:

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East Meets Lower East Side: Shanren Play Mountain Music at Pianos

By Michal Shapiro

MARCH 19, 2012, 5:46 PM

About four years ago, when I was rooting around for Chinese music videos, I was sent a charming animation from a band called Shanren. The song "30 Years" was about the trials and tribulations of moving from the country to the big city to look for work. This is a motif that resonates with all working folks, and I won't even go into the hundreds of great songs dealing with this from the West's Industrial Revolution right through to today. "30 Years" describes what is going on in China currently, as its rapid industrialization is causing a vast shift in population from rural to urban centers. I was therefor already interested when I was contacted by the band's publicist, informing me that they would be playing on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, at Pianos.

The band comes from Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, with members from the Wa and Buyi minorities. The name Shanren means "mountain men." During a chat with James Pang, the band's Chinese manager, he mentioned that the people of these minorities live up in the mountains, are kind of wild living, like to brew their own liquor, and dance.

Being a lover of country music and bluegrass, I could not help but start drawing parallels between some of the characteristics of our own folk heritage and what I was about to see and hear. I was not let down. Listen to this music and tell me that you don't hear something that sounds remarkably like our own "Old Timey" music, with its trance-like repetitions. People like banjoist Abigail Washburn have been mining these parallels for years, and you can hear why. (The band even uses something that looks mighty like a banjo!)

The song is called "Left Foot Dance of the Yi".

The Yi people, as I mentioned before, are one of the ethnic minorities of southwestern China. There's a family of songs called left foot dance songs ("kind of Yi party music" their manager Sam Debell writes). This is the band's own arrangement of a very well known left foot dance song. It’s usually a circle dance, but the band adapted it, so they do it in a line (in a circle it must look positively Balkan... but I’m not going to get into that, at least not here).

A sample of the lyrics (xianzi is a stringed instrument):

- Brother play the xianzi.
- Sister sing the song.
- The moon is already risen.
- And we're waiting to dance.

And something from our own repertoire:

"Late in the evening about sundown
High on a hill and above the town
Uncle Pen played the fiddle, lordy how it would ring,
You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing."

To contact the band:
Sam Debell (Asia) at unitysam@gmail.com and +86 152-1027-0868.

For more of Michal's original music videos, visit inter-muse.com

Topics:

Music / Art / Culture,

Indigenous Peoples,

Globalization,

Economic Development / Poverty,

Industrial revolution,

Regions:

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A Choro Trio in Manhattan

By Michal Shapiro

FEBRUARY 24, 2012, 12:00 PM

Douglas Lora and Dudu Maia (who I have covered previously) were in town, this time at the Caffe Vivaldi and with Douglas' brother Alexandre playing tambourine. The room was packed, so I only got this one good take out of it. But it's a sweet one!

Choro is a kind of urban folk music that grew out of a merging of European and Brazilian sensibilities, and it calls on the player to be agile, inventive and swinging. The emphasis on improvisation makes people compare it to jazz, but if one is going to do that, let's specify that it's a lot more Django than Miles. It's accessible music in every way.

Lora is a classically trained and plays a seven string guitar, and Maia also plays an altered instrument, a mandolin (called bandolim, in Brazil) with 10 strings, as opposed to the usual 8. Both are well respected musicians back home, and part of their tours generally consist of choro workshops. They are also part of a full-out band called Caraivana, so look out for that aggregate as well.

For more of Michal's original music videos, visit inter-muse.com

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Svetlana Spajic sings an ode to Nikola Tesla

By Michal Shapiro

FEBRUARY 7, 2012, 12:00 PM

From an entire night of a capella magnificence and magic at DROM, comes this praise song for inventor Nikola Tesla. (Surprise of evening was the presence of Debbie Harry in the audience.)

Here are Svetlana's notes on the song:

"The song in honor of Serbian Scientist Nikola Tesla, made by my old godfather Milan Bilbija from Cirkin Polje, Prijedor, Bosnian Krajina. He died in 2008. Melody made by Svetlana Spajic."

The brief shot of the overhead image of the gusle, the Serbian instrument upon which the epic singers (guslars) play, with image of Tesla, is the property of multi-instrumentalist Darco Macura, who I finally met face to face along with Svetlana, in Belgrade in 1997. I had used several of his musical performances in a compilation of music I was producing. He was also Svetlana’s first mentor.

Lyric translation by Svetlana Spajic:

My soul is in pain, but I sing this song, I sing the song from Nikola Tesla

Oh Nikola, brilliant and smart, you invented electric power, magnetic waves and transformers

Oh Nikola if you'd lived longer, you would have made electric power from the sun. Where are you now?

Where are your New York doves? Does the new America remember you?

Scientists don't care for monuments; yours, Nikola, stands at Niagara Falls

Oh Nikola, from the village of Smiljan, the gusle is adorned with your image

Oh Nikola, it doesn't matter that you are a Serb, the generations of the world will remember you

For more of Michal's original music videos, visit inter-muse.com

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TriBeCaStan: Downtown Meets World

By Michal Shapiro

JANUARY 12, 2012, 12:00 PM

The brainchild of John Kruth and Jeff Greene, TriBeCaStan is a whimsical melange of timbres, textures, and tunes (Oh my!) and a very fun outlet for all the musical eclecticism of its founders.

During APAP week I ventured to the East Village to the Duo Multicultural Arts Center, which has a historic old theater in the East Village, where Greene (who has a mural restoration company) had snagged a night to showcase the band. The wine flowed, folks schmoozed and we were treated to a high energy night of musique trés intérresant, complete with dancers. I've chosen the first song "BedBugs" to present here, even though it got off to a bumpy start -- and apologies for the camera's audio, there isn't much sound separation. But as I like to say, "Ya can't make chowder without a clam or two, but oh my my it's a tasty stew!" You'll get the idea.

For more on the band visit: www.tribecastan.tv

To see a TriBeCaStan tango, click here.

TriBeCaStan is John Kruth Jeff Greene, Claire Daly, Todd Isler, Kenny Margolis, Boris Kinberg, Chris Morrow, John Turner, Dave Dreiwitz, and Mike Duclos

For more of Michal's original music videos, visit inter-muse.com

Topics:

Music / Art / Culture,

Duo Multicultural Arts Center

Regions:

North America

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Blitz the Ambassador at WOMEX: "Akwaaba" Means Welcome

By Michal Shapiro

DECEMBER 28, 2011, 12:00 PM

With the Holidays in full swing, I find myself getting more and more cheer deprived... so we might all need a little energy boost. Here's some super-positive fuel from Blitz the Ambassador from his set at WOMEX 2011 in Copenhagen.

The multi-level Koncerthuset was the setting for four nights of world music of every possible shade, from ethnographic to eclectic. Blitz the Ambassador is surely one of the latter, and one of those hard to categorize artists; he's an amalgam of Ghanaian and Western influences, taking what he likes best from each to create his music and his message. If you think you hear Afrobeat, Hip Hop or HighLife coming off the stage, you're right. It's all there, and the music had the audience swinging and swaying.

"Akwaaba" from Blitz's most recent release Native Sun is a fairly straightforward song, that explains itself.

The Embassy Ensemble provided a tight backup (albeit a few a"brown notes" on the horns... but hey, it's hard to play and dance at the same time) and deserve mention: Ezra Brown on sax, Clemens Braun on trombone, the appropriately named Sydney Driver on kit, Raja Cassis on guitar and Ramon de Bruyn on bass.

To find out more about the artist go to blitz.mvmt.com

For more of Michal's original music videos, visit inter-muse.com

Topics:

Music / Art / Culture,

Blitz the Ambassador,

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Holiday Cheer from Madagascar

By Michal Shapiro

NOVEMBER 23, 2011, 12:00 PM

I thought I'd give y'all an upbeat nugget for the holiday season.

I met this lovely duo in Samarkand where they competed for a prize at the Sharq Taronalari festival. They invited me to videotape their rehearsal, which turned out to be lucky for me, as I have not been able to obtain any of the footage from the main stage of the Festival, even though it was promised to me many times over!

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Malagasy music. And as soon as I heard these two musicians, I knew there was something sweet and special about them. I crossed my fingers that they would get some sort of prize, and they did. Despite the extraordinarily political machinations of the prize-giving, they placed third!

"Talilema" is Talika and Kilema, both from Madagascar, now living in Europe. They are both engaging, lovely people. And I think you will agree that you can enjoy this informal performance and not miss any amplification or further instrumentation. It works just fine as it is. They should be stars.

The song is about keeping your spirits up through your troubles. Is it right for this time of year or what?

I hope this music brightens your days. Have a great holiday!

To find out more about Talilema click here, or visit their Myspace page.

For more of Michal's original music videos, visit inter-muse.com.

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Music / Art / Culture,

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