This year the Fes Festival presented two excellent drumming ensembles, The Master Drummers of Burundi, and the Korean Samulnori Hanullim Ensemble. Experiencing these two groups got me thinking about how much we rely on our own cultures to interpret sound.

It's not that I don’t believe music can cross boundaries, but I also believe that as we grow up our own culture informs us of how to hear things, and even how to evaluate the quality of the music we are listening to. The drummers from Burundi were excitement personified, and they were rightly presented on the big stage at the Bab Makina, where their athletic gestures and mighty, deep-voiced drums matched the grandeur of the setting. The Korean drums were presented in the more intimate Batha Museum, and although they were no less athletic, the statement was nuanced.

Again it had me thinking about what we are and are not comfortable listening to. Two hundred years ago, most occidental opinions of music were filtered through European classical standards. African music was considered barbaric. In the USA things changed about 90 years ago with the introduction of "Race Records" that brought the music of the African American population into broader distribution and the public consciousness.  It's been a love story ever since, and these days most American pop music continues to be a blend of Western harmonic concepts with African American grooves and gospel-influenced vocals. So the drums of Burundi already felt familiar as the progenitors of music I grew up with.

But what of the drummers from Korea?  The higher pitched timbres and shifting rhythmic deconstructions that transitioned into ferocious grooves reminded me that sometimes we have to push hard with our own listening to "get" something that has been around for thousands of years. That’s why I thought to insert part of an interview I recorded about a year ago, and to focus on this ensemble in my post.

I had seen Kim Dong-Won in the wonderful documentary "Intangible Asset Number 82," about the journey of Australian jazz drummer Simon Barker to find the Korean shaman whose music inspired him. Dong-Won had been Barker's guide, and he was in town, playing with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble, so I set up an appointment. I was anxious to get his insights into the film, and I also asked him to talk about Korean folk music: the way the vocals functioned, and about the philosophy behind the drumming technique. I have edited a small part of that interview into my video here.

In my last post about the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, I didn't dwell very much on individual performances, since I was more concerned with conveying the feeling of being at the festival. So this time out, I'm taking the other route and just giving you a performance, sans any commentary from me. If you have never heard the Taarab music of Tanzania and Zanzibar, you may be surprised at how sweet it is. This is in large part due to the use of the Qanun, a most celestial sounding instrument. Taarab is a fairly recent genre, having been a court music created specifically for pleasure. There are even times when it sounds so pretty I find it ambient, and what with the beautiful sail-like shades shielding us from the sun in the courtyard floating serenely on the wind above us, the purely instrumental melodies sent more than one member of the audience into a trance. (As you will see, it even put a baby to sleep!)  But when Shakila Saidi started to sing, she changed that dreamy vibe, and supplied just the right amount of edge to keep me alert and appreciative.

If you would like to know more about the Qanun and to see a demonstration of this fascinating instrument, I recommend checking out the Turkish virtuoso Tamer Pinarbasi, whom I covered in a former posting.

This post will be a little bit different from my others. Rather than simply reporting on the music from the Fes Festival (which I will do in other postings) I'm going to try to convey the experience of being there. I've taken everything I shot from my first full day and laid the most vivid parts out, travelogue-style. So you're getting a full day in under 9 minutes.

A word on the video quality: I went with my Flip camera which was fine for some things, and truly inadequate for others. So you are going to see some pretty grainy stuff every now and then (low light, fuzzy zoom, or both).  You are also going to see some very high quality video that was kindly supplied to me by a REAL filmmaker with a REAL camera. So all in all it will be a bumpy ride. But frankly, Fes is a bumpy ride. That's why I start out with a statement from my colleague Cindy Byram, who has attended the festival for 6 years in a row, and who speaks from experience. In the end I agree with her 100%.

There are four main venues for the festival: three paying, one public. One generally starts the day at the Batha Museum courtyard, an intimate setting with a magnificent Barberry tree that spreads its shade over 65% of the area. After a dinner break, you head on out to catch the "Big Act" at the impressive walled Bab al Makina (another paying venue) and then pass through the Bab Boujloud public performance area on your way to the last musical event, at the lovely Dar Tazi, where you can sit at a table under the trees, sip mint tea, and listen to Sufi chants. The public performances have been added in the last few years, and this is where you will find your everyday Moroccan, since the paying venues are too expensive for most. The music there is more local, and I was particularly taken with this venue, as you will see.

As to the music?  Everything I saw had merit on some level, and some even made my heart sing. But to put in my two cents, I believe that for the  most part making music and listening to music is a transcendent act, so what is NOT sacred music?  Still, I guess calling it "sacred music" makes it easier to give the Festival a theme, and since the event and the vibe are so dogma-free and tolerant, how can I complain?

This week, I went to hear a fine Korean singer named Jang sa-ik, started reviewing the series on Central Asian music that we will be bringing you soon, and revisited the music of the Master Musicians of Jajouka, from Morocco, because they are performing in New York City this weekend. In the case of both the Central Asian and Moroccan music, there is no western harmony to speak of, and although the music of Jang sa-ik had been orchestrated, his most powerful songs were those which were sung against a drone, and unconcerned with harmony. I'm a harmony freak, so it wasn't  "easy listening."  But here is what I have found: the first time I heard Central Asian music I was at a festival in Samarkand, and after listening to it performed for a while, the western music played afterward sounded rather saccharine.

Similarly, I once went to a demonstration of the oud. After hearing a number of intricate melodies played, one of the audience members asked if it were possible to play chords on the instrument. Sure, said the lecturer, and strummed a "c" chord. It sounded positively mundane. What had changed in the way I heard music in that short space of time?  Perhaps music, like food or wine has "acquired tastes" and we just have to keep listening until we start to enjoy it. These days, though, when we tend not to make that effort…how many wonderful flavors do we miss out on?