16362. (Chick Corea) My Span­ish Heart
(William Wal­ton) Songs [Ben­jamin Lux­on, bari­tone & David Willi­son, piano]:
. . . . 16363. (William Wal­ton) “The Wind From The West“
. . . . 16364. (William Wal­ton) “When As the Rye”
. . . . 16365. (William Wal­ton) “My Gost­ly Fader”
. . . . 16366. (William Wal­ton) “Lul­la­by”
Read more »

‘Ali Riza Mashayikhi is the dom­i­nant fig­ure in mod­ern Iran­ian con­cert music. Born in 1940 in Tehran, he stud­ied in Vien­na and Utrecht, and was intro­duced to mod­ernist tecb­niques by Otto Jelinek. How­ever, he does not appear to be com­mit­ted to any of the dread­ful “sys­tems” that ide­ol­o­gized com­po­si­tion in the 20^th cen­tury. He sen­si­bly draws on any tech­nique that is use­ful to the cre­ation of a par­tic­u­lar piece. Some of his works draw heav­ily on Iran­ian folk­loric tra­di­tion, intend­ing to con­very a region­al spir­it, while oth­ers pur­sue oth­er ends entire­ly. Mashayikhi was one of the first com­posers to bring com­put­er­i­za­tion into mid­dle-east­ern music. The pieces in my col­lec­tion are: Sym­phony #2. Op.57, the Con­certo for Vio­lin and Orches­tra, Op.96, and Nous ne ver­rons jamais les jardins de Nishapour for Two Pianos and Orches­tra, Op.56. The lat­ter piece is an exam­ple of a work that does not direct­ly employ any Per­sian mate­r­ial that I can see, but nev­er­the­less con­veys a dis­tinctly Per­sian mood. His out­put is huge, so it will require a lot of explor­ing. I like very much what I’ve heard so far. A curi­ous thing about the composer’s name: While he is undoubt­edly Per­sian, “Al-Mashayikhi” is Ara­bic for a per­son of the Mashayikh tribe in Iraq, cen­tered in the towns of Tarmiya and in Al-Hawe­jah, quite close to Sad­dam Hussein’s (and Saladin’s) birth­place in Tikrit. Mashayekhi or Mashayikhi seem to be com­mon Iran­ian names. Jamshid Mashayekhi is an Iran­ian film star, and Ario Mashayekhi is an expa­tri­ate painter, sculp­tor, and actor liv­ing in Chica­go. Anoth­er curios­ity: there is anoth­er com­poser, named Nad­er Mashayekhi, also trained in Vien­na, but born in 1958 (a bit old to be a son, and a bit young to be a broth­er — are they relat­ed?). I have not heard any of his music. There is also a folk­loric group from Iran called Mashayikhi Ensem­ble. The name seems to be pro­foundly musi­cal. Are we deal­ing, here with an extend­ed tal­ented fam­ily like the Bachs were in Thuringia? Or is it all coincidence?

Fela Sowande (1905 — 1987) with his fiance, Amer­i­can sopra­no Mil­dred Mar­shall, in Regen­t’s Park, Lon­don, 13th Sep­tem­ber 1936. Sowande is work­ing as a the pianist and Mar­shall is singing in the Lon­don pro­duc­tion of Lew Leslie’s musi­cal revue, Black­birds Of 1936.

Nige­ria has pro­duced some of the great­est musi­cians of the world. Prob­a­bly best known are juju mas­ter King Sun­ny Adé and the great jazzman Fela Aniku­lapo Kuti. But in an ear­lier gen­er­a­tion, Fela Sowande loomed quite as large. Sowande was suc­cess­ful in pop­u­lar music, as a band­leader in the ear­ly High­life scene, as well an accom­plished jazz per­former. He was also a fine clas­si­cal organ­ist and choral con­duc­ter. His largest body of work is church choral and organ music. Migrat­ing to Britain, he achieved instant fame as a con­cert pianist with a per­for­mance of Gershwin’s Rhap­sody in Blue, and sub­se­quently per­formed in duets with Fats Waller. He even­tu­ally returned to Nige­ria as a teacher, and then lived his last years in Ohio, where he is buried. Read more »

16290. (Siouxsie and the Ban­shees) Juju
Rough Guide to Brazil: Bahia:
. . . . 16291. (Tim­bal­a­da) “Motum­ba”
. . . . 16292. (Sylvia Tor­res) “Take Sarava”
. . . . 16293. (Daniela Mer­cury) “Swing Da Cor”
. . . . 16294. (Ze Paulo Beck­er) “A Vida e Boa”
. . . . 16295. (Riachao) “Pita­da de Tabaco”
Read more »

Sichuan Folk Song and Bal­lad, Vol.2:
. . . . 16130. (Cheng Yong-Ling) “Fly­ing Kites” [Sichuan Qingyin]
. . . . 16131. (Li Cun-Liang) “Plant­i­ng Cape Jas­mine Along the Wall” [Chongqing folksong]
. . . . 16132. (Lian Zheng-Hua) “Plant­i­ng Paulow­n­ia” [Yib­in folk song]
. . . . 16133. (Li Su-Hua) “My Dili­gent Sis­ter” [Chuan­nan folk song]
. . . . 16134. (Lian Zheng-Hua) “What a Cru­el Crab” [Naxi folk song]
. . . . 16135. (Li Cun-Liang) “Broth­er Wang’s Tune” [Hanyuan folk song]
Read more »

15845. (Frank Mills) The Poet and I
(Mike Old­fied) Work­ing Towards a Cli­max [per­son­al com­pi­la­tion by William Breiding]:
. . . . 15846. (Mike Old­field) “The Lake”
. . . . 15847. (Mike Old­field) “Crises”
. . . . [3478] (Mike Old­field) “QE2”
. . . . 15848. (Mike Old­field) “Music From the Balcony”
. . . . 15849. (Mike Old­field) “The Wind Chimes, Pt.2”
Blu­van Tues ― Sounds From Tuva [com­piled by Spi­der Robinson]:
. . . . 15850. (Kon­gar-Ol Ondar) “Alash Khem (The Alash River)”
. . . . 15851. (Kon­gar-Ol Ondar & Paul “Earth­quake” Pena) “What You Talkin’ About?”
Read more »

The world­wide Tamil dias­pora sup­ports a thriv­ing dance and club scene. Among the young Tamil DJs, none has been more inno­v­a­tive than Kumar Narayanasamy, bet­ter known as “DJ Qmar”. He was born in Jaffna, Sri Lan­ka, but grew up in Den­mark, where he is still based. I have both his Tamil Vibra­tions albums, which you can often hear in my neigh­bour­hood (the old­est Tamil neigh­bour­hood in Toron­to). There are no lame remix­es of Amer­i­can rap on these gems! These mix­es are bold. http://www.tamilstar.dk/djqmar

Nue­va Fla­menco is a style of gui­tar music that incor­po­rates jazz, latin pop, and mid­dle-east­ern ele­ments into tra­di­tional fla­menco. Jesse Cook, born in France of Cana­dian par­ents, and now oper­at­ing out of Toron­to, has been a superb prac­titioner of this style for a decade. The only one of his sev­en albums I have is Nomad (2003), which fea­tures won­der­ful vocals by the Egypt­ian singer Maryem Tol­lar on the song “Qaduk­ka-l-Mayyas”, per­haps the best item. The album incor­po­rates so many world influ­ences, with guest con­tri­bu­tions from Hos­sam Ramzy, Flo­ra Purim, the Afro Celts, and even the BoDeans (!), that the fla­menco ele­ment is some­times near­ly invis­i­ble. Cook is such a fine gui­tarist that he feels no need to be a con­stant cen­ter of atten­tion –— in sev­eral of the tracks he pro­vides only a mod­est accom­pa­ni­ment while oth­er mem­bers of the large ensem­ble take the spot­light. But when he does move into the spot­light, his gui­tar work is stun­ning, and his vocals pleas­ant. http://www.jessecook.com