Some of the most exciting musical collaborations are happening between jazz, classical and world musicians these days. Musicians have always fed off interaction with other players, but the sheer variety of music that is available coupled with access to international artists has led to some truly exquisite sounds. In the classical world the work of Yo Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble and its spinoff collaborations between Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider come to mind, and of course, the by now venerable Kronos Quartet and maverick violinist Giles Apap. In the jazz world the same foment is apparent (the kora seeming to be the instrument of choice these days, appearing alongside jazz heavies) and when the world music extravaganza of GlobalFEST blew into town in January, it brought Nguyen Lê's "Saiyuki" with it.

Lê's name is practically synonymous with polyglot music; witness allaboutjazz.com describing his 2006 CD "Homescape" as a combination of  "post-Hendrix rock, Milesian harmon-mute free improv, Maghrebi trance music, Ellingtonia, ambient, a Papua New Guinea vocal choir. . .Delta blues, Vietnamese folk tunes, flamenco, Iranian modes, a Sardinian choir, Australian aboriginal ritual music, French chanson, Gregorian chant, and Indonesian gamelan/gong music." The man is eclectic, and joyfully so.

"Saiyuki," his latest aggregate, is a trio. In it, he has brought together Mieko Miyazaki (Japan) on koto and Prabhu Edouard (India) on tablas. (Lê played his backups in mid to low range to fatten up an otherwise treble sound.) The group's performance was one of the highlights of GlobalFEST, and I'm glad I got a chance to catch it on video, even with the uneven sound, and video quality attendant on these kinds of situations. . .note the shattered glass sound from the bar. . .oh well.

Each player brought so much of their own culture along that at times it seemed more like the music was "jazz enabled," with that form giving the musicians a more liberal harmonic matrix and greater freedom to fly. But the end result was something unusual and hard to classify; I guess "world music" as a term still has its uses.

I have nothing against the idea of the latest fundraising video for Haiti because the cause is certainly a great one; it's just that I tire of the usual bevy of First World entertainers belting it out. That's why it's refreshing to meet someone like Mark Johnson, one of the founders of Playing for Change.  By now you've all probably heard about this organization through the widely seen globetrotting video of "Stand By Me." The first time I saw it, I thought it was pleasant enough, but what was it for, what was the next step -- what was the substance? Mark clarified it all for me in an eloquent interview, in which he laid out a vision for using music as a catalyst for social change. I've heard my share of pie-in-the-sky blah blah about using music for this or that, but Mark's ideas are not dreams -- they are based on solid reality and hard work.

Can any of us deny that one of our greatest achievements to date is our unprecedented technological connectivity? Playing for Change is not just about making pretty videos. It's about connecting a global community where access to medicine, education, and mutual respect are a given.

I had a conversation many years ago with Christoph Borkowsky, one of the founders of the World Music Expo, WOMEX. At the time he said to me that the music of every nation should be treated as a natural resource. He chafed at the lack of market exposure great world artists got, and was certain that significant revenue streams could result from a level, truly international marketplace. Now that a new generation can access global content with ease, perhaps the idea finally has the proper soil in which to grow. And perhaps the next great musical outpouring of support for a cause will well up spontaneously, from another part of the world, and have a truly international face and sound.

This is the last installment on Taiwanese music, and it seems very fitting. On a chilly and rainy day I visited the mountaintop home of the Guqin Society, where after a bit of a steep climb, Yuan Jung-ping was waiting for me with hot tea and sweets. He proceeded to play a calming and lovely song about bidding goodbye at a station. The guqin (pronounced "chin"-- I HATE the Pinyin spellings!) is an instrument that may date to 4000 years ago. Playing it is as much about meditation as music. The song is from the 12th century, with Jung-ping's arrangement, and it is spare but beautiful. Like my first posting of Nanguan music, it rewards the person who really listens to it, bringing them into a still place.

The music was punctuated with the now light, now heavy sound of rain falling on the roof. Farewell, Taiwan.
Farewell to the hospitality, rainy season, amazing food and wonderful music.

This post covers a lot of territory: electronica, performance art and hip hop!
Lim Geong was the first person I absolutely knew I wanted to interview when I went to Taiwan, because his work is right up there with the best electronica, and it always retains a strong Asian flavor.  His story is unusual too, in that he started out with huge success as a pop singing star, and rejected that role to, as he says, "go from the front of the stage to behind the scenes."  He has since scored many movies, and even appeared as an actor in quite a few. To me, he's practically a metaphor for what Taiwan has gone through: he expressed the freedom from martial law when he sang his big 1990 hit "Marching Forward" and then followed his star reaching out to the rest of Asia and the world, with music of the digital age.

On the other hand, the gentle acoustic venture "A Moving Sound" is the baby of Scott Prairie and Yun-Ya Hsieh, aka Mia. Mia studied interdisciplinary arts with Meredith Monk in the USA where she met Scott, and together they have  brought the rather Western concept of performance art to the island, bringing dance, theater, music and plenty of audience participation together.

Hip-hop is of course no stranger to Taiwan, but Kou Chou Ching are the pre-eminent conscious rap band there. I first learned about them through their wonderful video "Black Heart", a computer-generated animation based on Chinese puppet theater (still a high art in Taiwan) and flavored with both classical and traditional sounds. But the song is an indictment of amok capitalism that creates the black-hearted businessman, who in turn sends poisonous products into the marketplace. Kou Chou Ching is gradually tuning in Taiwanese youth to the need for more engagement with their world.

We tend to think of Taiwan mostly in terms of its relationship to China. But there are eleven different aboriginal tribes still dwelling on Taiwan, some going back 7000 years.  Amazingly each one of the tribes is distinctive from the others in customs and language. What unites them is their common marginalization, as various successive powers have attempted to "normalize" them into the ruling or majority culture. Many have held on to their identities, and still live in the mountains, valleys and plains of the island. Inka Mbing, an Atayal, was forced to leave her village at a young age in order to make a living in Taipei. But a lifetime later she is at the forefront of preserving the culture of her tribe. Her voice can be powerful and heartbreaking at the same time, and she is not without adventure, as I heard that she and the Nanguan singer Wu Hsin-fei (see Taiwan Journey Part 1) have been known to jam, and wonderfully, too. By contrast, the rock band Totem is made up of young bucks from different tribes -- Paiwan, Ami and Taitung -- and they have an unapologetically commercial sound. That's okay, it's what they love, and the songs -- which can be about leaving home for the city, or the pleasures of tribal life -- also retain some of the melodic elements of their folk music. They've had some decent recognition at home, and won the music competition at the Ho Hai Yan Rock festival in 2004. In the lead up to that, they were part of the documentary "Ocean Fever." After listening to their records, which have quite the "wall of sound" production, I think I can safely call my video "Totem Unplugged."

There is no way that I could have covered all the different aboriginal music in Taiwan in the five days I was there. Suffice it to say that if any of this music piques your curiousity, there's plenty more to be heard! I recommend checking out the catalogues of Trees Music & Art, Wind Music, and David Darling's striking recordings with the Bunun tribe, "Mudanin Kata."

My thanks to the very knowledgeable David Chen for his commentary.