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Last revised:February 12, 1997

GLOBAL NOTES
FOR THE UNSERIOUS COLLECTOR

by DAVID H. SHARP

FOR NONSERIOUS COLLECTORS ONLY!

A friend who works as a reference librarian in Sausalito, CA asked me if I might be able to suggest some world music for the library's music collection. Flattered but overwhelmed with this august responsibility, I searched through my archives only to find that I have no archives only sacks and stacks of beat up and heavily used cds that are always in transit somewhere or another.

What I came up with was a list of world music that has repeatedly made the play lists of my house and my radio show, and culled from previous reviews. So here goes with a kind of TOP 20 of David's "killers." You will soon notice that I have included many anthologies in my top 20 therefore increasing the selections a dozen-fold; a cheap trick I know.

TOP TWENTY

* Africa which is so extremely diverse, has more music than one could collect in a lifetime. Start with AFRICA- NEVER STAND STILL (ellipsis arts...). This 3-cd set with booklet covers the Sahara, sub-Sahara and southern Africa with such artists as KHALIFA OULD EIDE & DIMI MINT ABBA (Mauritania), LE ZAGAZOUGOU (Ivory Coast), and ROBSON BANDA & the NEW BLACK EAGLES (Zimbabwe) to mention but a few of the dozens of artists and countries! This would be a great jumping off place to go and explore Africa. Highly listenable and will add "highlife" to your cd carousel!

* It's a short trip from northern Africa to Spain and voila we have DUENDE (ellipsis arts...) another 3-cd sampler of flamenco music including 41 great selections of malaguenas, alegrias, fandangos, rumbas and colombianas. You'll hear CAMARON DE LA ISLA and LA NINA DE LOS PEINES two of the best flamenco singers of all time plus PACO DE LUCIA, one of the greatest and most popular guitarist. This is sensual music that will give panache to your backyard tardiada.

* AND THE WORLD'S ALL YOURS (Debutante/Polygram) features monster songs by Tunisia's AMINA, Algerian's KHALED, Senegal's AFRICANDO and Spain's RADIO TARIFA. Get all the favorites, YOUSSOU N'DOUR, WASIS DIOP, BOUKMAN EKSPERYANS and NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN as polled by dancers at the Mambo Inn in Brixton, England, listeners to "Saturday Night" on the BBC, world deejays and world music entrepreneurs. Buy it and feel ire with its sprinkling of dance hall mixes by 23 other artists.

* Your world music selection has to have at least one NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN and EN CONCERT A PARIS VOL.1 (Cocora Radio France) is maybe the most satisfying NUSRAT on the market. Free from the dread Maghrebi culture, this Qawwali maestro from Pakistan puts down long sets with his show band which includes choir, tabla and harmonium player plus second voice and assorted musical directors. These are devotional songs aerodynamically designed for Persian carpet rides of ecstatic bliss.

* I have found that at dinner time THE ART OF THE SOLO (Celestial Harmonies) brings out the bon vivant in one, with solos for flutes, reeds, brass, lutes and zithers recorded by masters from the Near East , Australia, Europe, and Americas. Despite the contrasts of the different recordings, there is a beauty that brings mindfulness and serenity with each soloist that affects one at the table while the bread is being broken.

* About a year ago I began a quest for anything Cape Verdean and stumbled on the Holy Grail of Cape Verde music with the purchase of the WORLD BEAT VOL. 6-CAP VERT (Lusaafrica/Melodie France). From the solid horns which punch the dance rhythms of Euro's recording star, JACQUELINE, and the painfulmorna ballads of CESARIA EVORA, to the nine others sandwiched in between, this is a great collection of nine zouk, pop-funana and coladeira dance music. This cd moves the ol' u-kno-what.

* Portugal's former colonies are giving us some of the most exciting music today by way of AFROPEA TELLING STORIES TO THE SEA (Luakabop/Warner Bros.) Think of this as an outcome of all those jam sessions between Cuban & Angolan Marxist MPLA soldiers and of the soulful legacies from slaver outposts ie.Sao Tome, & Cape Verde. More coladeira, samba, rumbas and merengue from Angola's BONGA, Cape Verde's CESARIA EVORA, Lisbon's TULIPA NEGRA and ten others.

* Speaking of Cuba, which has fueled so much of the current African dance rhythms, check out LOS GUANCHES-EL MUERTO SE FUE DE RUMBA (Corason). Five young soneros from the musically rich Santiago blow us away with hot Caribbean sons, boleros and guaraches from the thirties and forties. This kind of Cuban music proves that electricity starved Cubanos don' need no stink'n electricity to rock the casa

. * While you're wondering if we'll ever be able to freely visit Cuba, listen to the big sound of another son band, perhaps Cuba's finest, SIERRA MAESTRA -DUNDUN- BANZA (World Circuit). You'll love the trumpets and tight percussion as this music, which has been around for some fifty years, lets you explore the roots of salsa as it did earlier explorers, the likes of PEREZ PRADO, TITO PUENTE and ISRAEL "CACHAO" LOPEZ.

* Grammy award winning and former Cuban bassist ISRAEL "CACHAO" LOPEZ has given us 2 cds, MASTER SESSIONS VOL. 1 & 2 (Sony/Columbia), which show off his unique style. His classically composed pieces are expertly segued into show stopping salsa songs lasting well beyond the proscribed three or four minutes allowed by most radio formats. Classically trained in Havana, he is often listed as a side man to others, like ROBERTO TORRES.

* ROBERTO TORRES, another former ex-Cuban exile, has developed a subset rhythm from Colombia's cumbia called the charanga vallenata. His fiery touch includes flutes and percussion guaranteed to set off fire alarms as his fast paced vocals ride the rhythms of the signature accordian like a Dalmatian on a fire truck. I'll take whatever he's been drinking! Have to haunt the record bins for this artist though!

There are other, perhaps better, cds, that I've known and loved but have surrendered them back to their owners or lost them or worse-they mysteriously disappeared like black socks under someone else's bed.

* For those wanting to explore a little more of India and Pakistan, no need to climb the Himalayas when you can buy THE ROUGH GUIDE TO THE MUSIC OF INDIA AND PAKISTAN (Rgnet). Booklet & cd explains Northern Indian (Hindustani) music with artists ALI AKBAR KHAN, VILAYAT KHAN, BISMILLAH KHAN plus others as well as the South Indian form or karnatic by Dr. N. RAMANI. Includes a couple of ragas, plus folk and then there's the non-classical forms. Reallyit's all quite complicated but nice!

* Greek music is represented here with the series THE GREEK FOLK INSTRUMENTS VOL. 1-12 (FM). I have one called LUTE, which is featured along with the defi (tambourine) and the toubeleki (lap drum). STELIOS KATSIANIS and CHRISTOS ZOTOS, descendants of three generations of musicians, gives us 14 tracks of folk renditions of laments, wedding processionals and dance tunes. Includes liner notes as in everything you ever wanted to know about the lute. Uncomplicated but elegant. For the serious collector.

* For easily accessible Turkish music this side of Istanbul, try just about anything by OMAR FARUK TEKBILEK. My Occidental friends particularly liked WHIRLING (Celestial Harmonies) with its focus on ziker (Turkish trance) music. His latest, MYSTICAL GARDEN (Celestial Harmonies) produced by BRIAN KEENE has Turkish born TEKBILEK playing everything from ney, oud and darbuka, which only whets the appetite for the Levant. Richly textured to reveal Egyptian & ziker influences.

* Around 4 o'clock, which is about the time I feed Mamoush the cat, I like to put on THE MUSIC OF ARMENIA (Celestial Harmonies) featuring the duduk playing of GEVORG DABAGIAN. Like a call to prayer, this plangent music with drone duduks (dams ) and the percussive dhol brings in the approaching dusk as this double reed recorder provides a warm but somber note. A version of DJIVAN GASPARYAN'S "A Cool Breeze is Blowing" starts off this journey as a mournful reminder of its Middle Eastern borders.

* When people say, "Do you like Mexican music?" I have to say, "What kind?" MEXICO -FIESTAS OF CHIAPAS & OAXACA (Elecktra Nonesuch Explorer Series) is so different, with a musical collection that includes brass bands, strains of old European and Mexican folk songs, street ambience by way of firecrackers, church bells and people talking & drinking. Many are religious, all purpose festival songs and are recorded in some of the smallest towns in Mexico's most captivating states.

* I like TONA LA NEGRA (BMG/RCA) because she captures a certain Latin sizzle from another period, as Cuban big band arrangements with horn charts, tres guitar and backup singers testify. Inspired images of all the Latin night clubs, so big in the Forties & Fifties with names like El Mocambo and the Tropicana, surround this music of mostly AUGUSTIN LARA covers. Lets hope for a movie soundtrack that may resurface her and her amazingly rich catalog. Spend your nuevos pesos on this one.

* THOMAS MAPFUMO - CHAMUNORWA (Mango) has a chunky rhythm style that, coupled with his mournful vocal delivery, completely mesmerizes his audience. Called the Lion of Zimbabwe he pounds the dance floor with a rock-steady beat. With female backup singers singing the refrain he effortlessly balances the twin mbiras with twin guitars as the hosho rattles keep the beat vibrant. Innovator and political activist whose lyrics are in shona, MAPFUMO has many records on the market and this is one of my favorites.

* I met a guitar player back in the early seventies who claimed reggae sounded like nothing more than slightly out of tune oldies, coming out of three-inch, out of phase speakers, bounced off a spotty atmosphere to begin with.. (I may be exaggerating here). BRAND NEW SECOND HAND- COLLECTION OF REGGAE COVERS (RYKO) differs in that these are great versions of oldies that I never liked much when they were hits.

* I thought that this was the best world music sampler of 1994. TRANCE PLANET VOL.1 (TRILOKA) has songs from fourteen great groups. Where else can you hear JAI UTTAL, ROSSY, MERCEDES SOSA, NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN, ZAKIR HUSSAIN and eight other great artists spread out all over the globe? It still holds up today and may be a great place to start a fledgling world music library.

Speaking of libraries. No need to come to Marin County, CA. Give your favorite reference librarian a copy of this review and tell her/him you got it off the internet!

POSTSCRIPT

karma, for better or for worse, to brighten a dark day with great music. All of this music is available on compact disc.