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Showing posts from May, 2011

Homage to Catalonia

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Absolutely not to be missed is the reissue of a classic album from 1990 seen above. Songs from the Thousand-Year-Old Land of Catalonia sung by Montserrat Figueras with La Capell Reial de Catalunya directed by Jordi Savall was originally released by Astrée and has now been re-released on Alia Vox's mid-price Heritage series, complete with three additional tracks. This is the album that really launched Montserrat Figueras' career and you only need to listen to the first track to understand why. A young Arianna and Ferran Savall joined their parents at the Astrée sessions and Ferran went on to cover the Thief's Song and Els Segadors sung by his mother in 1988 on his woefully underrated 2008 solo album . If you need any more convincing let me tell you that the opening track is Montserrat Figueras singing El Cant Dels Aucells ( The Song of the Birds) made famous by that other great Catalan musician Pau Casals . The final track on Songs from the Thousand-Year-Old Land of Ca

Who are the real Master Musicians?

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Headlining this year's Glastonbury Festival are U2, B. B. King, Coldplay, Paul Simon and the Master Musicians of Joujouka. The band from a remote village in Morocco's Rif mountains are playing on Glastonbury's iconic pyramid stage because the Master Musicians are the guardians of a 4000 year old musical tradition that has found expression in classic albums produced by Brian Jones and others. But some dispute their credentials and yesterday's article Discord among the Master Musicians told how a split in 1988 has resulted in two competing groups from the village of Jajouka performing on stages around the world. Which makes things very confusing, to the extent that until yesterday the link on the official Glastonbury Festival website pointed at the wrong Master Musicians. Music journalist Stephen Davis, biographer of Led Zeppelin , Bob Marley and the Rolling Stones , and ghost writer for Michael Jackson , spent time with the Master Musicians in Jajouka in the 1970s a

Discord among the Master Musicians

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Brion Gysin died in Paris in 1986. I remember he always use to say that if the Master Musicians of Jajouka ever stopped playing, the legend that holds the world will end. He often worried about the chronic poverty of the musicians, and the diluting effect of contact with the modern world upon the ancient music. But the Pipes of Pan survive to this day. Listen to this music, the primordial sounds of a 4000 year old rock 'n roll band... listen with your whole body, let the music penetrate and move you, and you will connect with the oldest music on earth. That is William Burroughs writing about the Master Musicians of Jajouka. Today the Master Musicians are known to a wide audience through the albums produced by Rolling Stone Brian Jones and record industry maverick Bill Laswell. Their 1971 LP Brian Jones Presents the Pan Pipes at Joujouka has been described as the original world music album and the executive producer for its 1995 re-release was none other than Philip Glass . But dep

More composers in Britten's shadow

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In a recent post about Gerald Finzi I looked at how a number of British composers struggled to emerge from the shadow of Benjamin Britten in the post-war period. The rare archive photograph above reinforces the point that there is still a lot of fine music waiting to be rediscovered. Taken at the 1953 Cheltenham Festival it shows from left to right: William Alwyn , Iain Hamilton , Arthur Benjamin , John Joubert , Peter Racine Fricker , Phyllis Tate and William Wordsworth . The good news is that a new recording of the Second Symphony of South African born John Joubert, who is the only composer in the photo still with us, is being released in late May by Dutton . The symphony, which is a tribute to the victims of the 1960 Sharpeville massacre , was initially banned in South Africa, but the ban was eventually overthrown with the support of Nelson Mandela. A forgotten maestro from the same period is remembered here . Thanks go to Anna Joubert for making the photo available. Any copyright

These days to want is greater than to give or share

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'It is true to say that classical art-forms are not so strong in the present day and I feel that the new generation is slowly losing its sense of spirituality, patience and the desire to work hard at anything without expecting immediate rewards. These days, to 'want' is greater than to 'give' or 'share', and for me, by training rigorously and performing this art-form, it allows me to give back and share this with others in a more profound way'. That is Akram Khan writing in the programme for last Friday's Snape performance of his new dance work Gnosis . Akram Khan is one of many leading artists influenced by the work of Peter Brook and he appeared in both Brook's stage and film productions of the Mahabharata . More on Peter Brook here . Also on Facebook and Twitter . Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyr