Not always so

Celestial Harmonies' 17 CD boxed set Music of Islam ranks alongside Paul Bowles' Music of Morocco as one of the great achievements of cultural documentation. David Parsons was responsible for the project's field recordings, which took ten years to complete. In 1997 he travelled with his family to Karaj in Iran to record volume 12 of the Music of Islam. Here is an extract from the sleeve notes for the 1998 CD release: 

Producer David Parsons and his family periodically suffered from stress in accomplishing the recordings for The Music of Series. This was mainly due to the preconceptions (in reality, misconceptions) they held about Islam and the Islamic countries they needed to work in. These fears, they feel, were largely brought about by the negative bias with which the Western news media have portrayed the Islamic countries over recent years.... 

 It was with some trepidation, therefore, that they undertook this Iranian project, particularly because of the very "bad press" that Iran has been subjected to since the Islamic Revolution - some probably deserved from a Western point of view, but in general, definitely not deserved. 

To their surprise and delight, Parsons and his family enjoyed such hospitality and warmth from the Iranian people that the project turned out to be one of the most satisfying and rewarding experiences of the entire series. The hospitality was of such magnitude that they were never allowed to pay for meals or taxis. Days were were full on - either working or being shown every place of interest in Tehran. 

 The Parsons consequently left Iran, unexpectedly, in love with a country, a culture, and people, with a yearning to return. The musicians, Agha-ye Sadjadifard (santur), Agha-ye Djamshidi (kemenche) and Agha-ye Sahihi (tombak, duff), were very enthusiastic about the recording and went to great pains to present a balanced program representing a broad spectrum of Iranian classical music. 

Other useful balancing sources include Roger Housden's 2011 Saved by Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran and Rebecca Lowe's recent The Slow Road to Tehran. The wisdom of the Sōtō Zen monk and teacher Shunryū Suzuki can provide a little much-need comfort in these deeply troubled times. When asked to sum up the essence of Buddhism Suzuki Roshi replied "Not always so".

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