Angus C. MacLeod – Puirt-A-Beul
January 17, 2012
According to the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, after the Battle of Culloden in 1746 where the Jacobite Rising, consisting largely of Scotsmen from the Highlands, was brutally crushed by forces loyal the British government, a ban on musical instruments was placed on the people of the Highlands. According to Garland and other sources, this is the predominant reason for the existence of one of the most enduring folk traditions of Scotland: port-à-beul (or puirt-à-beul), also known as “mouth music.” When no instruments were available, bards from the Highlands would sing for dancing, often imitating the rhythms and music of the bagpipes, using humorous and sometimes bawdy lyrics in a dancable rhythm. However, according to several present-day scholars, this story is utterly apocryphal and nothing more than unsubstantiated legend. Port-à-beul could be much older than 1746, and why not? Humans haven’t always had instruments at their disposal, and what would have kept them from inventing their own music? And there are similar styles in other European regions – lilting in Ireland, for example, and in Norway with a fiddle imitation known as tralling. Regardless, this legend is a nice lead-in to discuss a recording of real mouth music.
Recordings of traditional music from England, Scotland, and Wales, are by far the exception than the norm. While the Gramophone Company of London was cavorting around the world recording all manner of peoples and cultures and exploiting new markets in the first half of the 20th century, the regional and folk music in their back yard went largely unnoticed. There are a number of important exceptions, of course. The Beltona label of Scotland recorded many folk bands and unaccompanied singers from the 1930s onward. People like Cecil Sharpe and Ralph Vaughn Williams helped to usher in a folk revival. Carrying the byline “Lon Dubh Na H-Albainn” or “The Blackbird of Scotland,” the Gaelfonn label was in operation in the late 1950s, and had an office at 102 Maxwell Street in Glasgow. The outfit was run by a well-known Gaelic singer, Murdo Ferguson (1923-2005), who recorded performers on tape in Glasgow and had the records pressed in London. He also pressed Gaelfonn recordings on 45s and LPs as well (which might certainly be worth searching for, as clean Gaelfonn 78s are uncommonly noisy in my experience – an instance where limiting oneself to the 78 medium might solely be fetishistic).
Angus MacLeod was born on the island of Scalpay in the Outer Hebrides (2001 population: 322) and died in 1970. Murdo Ferguson recorded several records by MacLeod ca. March of 1957. This piece is a medley of four different examples of mouth music. My Gaelic being virtually nonexistent, I cannot determine their order….yet I believe I hear the first piece, “Tha Fionnlagh Ag Innearadh” or “Finlay is Spreading Manure,” a little later in the recording than stated. Perhaps a Gaelic expert can chime in…in the meantime, enjoy.
Angus C. MacLeod – Puirt-A-Beul
Technical Notes
Label: Gaelfonn
Issue Number: GLA.1005
Matrix Number: 572 0-6703
Thanks to Bill-Dean Myatt, Cormac O’Donoghue, and Ray Templeton.
For another track by MacLeod, take a look at the new 2-CD collection by Fremeaux, 60 Years of Scottish Gaelic, put together by Scottish discographer Bill-Dean Myatt and Nigel Barrett (and from which I gathered some biographical information).
Zhusupbek Elebekov – Adaskak
December 11, 2011
Kazakh folk singer and dombra player Zhusupbek Elebekov was born in 1904 in the Karagandy region of central Kazakhstan. He first studied music with his uncle Zhakypbek, and later with the well-known musician Ämre Qashaubaiuly (1888-1934), who apparently bequeathed his personal dombra (the long-necked, two-string lute of Kazakhstan, of which where are several types) to Elebekov, as a gesture indicating Elebekov’s excellence as a performer. Elebekov was part of various touring Kazakh dramatic troupes and worked as a touring musician and actor throughout the 1920s and 1930s, eventually solidifying his reputation as part of the Kazakh Philharmonic Society in the mid-20th century, as well as his work with a concert association known as Kazakhconcert until his death in 1977.
Elebekov was a singer of the Kazakh lyric folk song, known as änshilik. Lyric folk singing is different than Kazakh epic folk singing or the improvisational poetry tradition, although like those other traditions, it is always played with the dombra. The lyric folk singer draws more on ornamentation when singing, and frequently uses non-lexical vocables, especially in refrains (which you can hear on this track). The änshilik tradition apparently was most robust during the final decades of the 19th century.
The label of this 78 – recorded ca. 1954 – indicates that the “tune and words” were written by “Birzhan.” Birzhan is in fact Birzhan Sal, or Birzhan-sal Qozhagululy (1831-1894), a famous lyric singer and also the subject of a recent biographical film. The translated title or subtitle of this piece is “Wanderer.” More information on Elebekov as well as an entire CD worth of downloadable recordings can be found on the Musical Heritage of Kazakhstan website. (A performance of “Adaskak” is available for download, but it appears to be a different, later performance of the song by Elebekov, and suffers from some heavy-handed noise reduction.)
Technical Notes
Label: Aprelevski Zavod (CCCP)
Issue Number: 23579 (a)
Matrix Number: 23579 / 3-4
Trio Los Aguilillas – Samba Rumbera
November 21, 2011
Since I picked up this little gem, I’ve been playing it incessantly. It’s a beautiful example of regional Mexican music, and it’s positively anthemic – rollicking, upbeat, happy, and played with finesse.
The Trio Los Aguilillas performed local corridos, but they also issued discs of wonderful son huasteco from the various states in northeastern Mexico, son jarocho from Veracruz, and – today’s example – son michoacano. In terms of instrumentation, it’s fairly close to son jarocho, featuring guitar, a type of local jarana guitar (5 or 8 strings, depending on its origin), and the harp. Michoacán is one of the regions in Mexico where the harp – sometimes known as the arpa grande or even the arpa de tierra caliente – flourished. Traditionally, it is played while standing, and can be 3-5 feet tall, with a soundbox on it’s base acting as a resonator.
While Aguilillas literally means ”little eagles,” in this case it’s also a reference to the town of Aguililla, in Michoacán, the birthplace of the Trio, which was comprised of three brothers, Antonio, Pedro, and Juan Rivera. The brothers were taught by their father, Don Pedro Rivera, a local harpist known throughout Michoacán as a great interpreter of the region’s music. Eventually the brothers moved from the family’s farm to Mexico City, to try and make their living as professional musicians. Apparently it took years before their local music was accepted without being watered down. Ethnomusicologist and anthropologist Joseph R. Hellmer aka Raúl Hellmer (1913-1971) recorded them ca. 1950 as “Trio Aguilillas” and issued their 10″ disc on Folkways titled “Sones of Mexico.” This Columbia disc dates from around the same time.
Trio Los Aguilillas – Samba Rumbera
Technical Notes
Label: Columbia
Issue Number: 6233-X
Matrix Number: MEX-99
Paseli Brothers – Kare Ndinari Wabwino
November 5, 2011
There’s a stunning lack of early popular music from Malawi available on CD, which is a shame, as it’s wonderfully engaging and strewn with lively gems. It seems as if all the record labels active in southern Africa after World War II – from conglomerates like HMV to local, shop-based labels owned by Indian immigrants – were making records of the pop music from what was then the British protectorate known as Nyasaland.
Hugh Tracey, ethnographer extraordinaire, was right there as usual. In 1948, he recorded tracks by Black Paseli, his brother Barry (or Bari), and sometimes his brother Airini (or Irene) – the Paseli Brothers. These songs were recorded in Harare, Zimbabwe, where apparently the brothers had located themselves at that time, and they were popular enough to have them remembered today. Tracey felt that although the Paseli Brothers played in the “common Southern Guitar style,” they were particularly talented. According to several sources, the guitar and banjo were brought back to Malawi by Malawian soldiers who were serving alongside the British during World War II.
This was not exactly the case with Black Paseli, the leader of the Paseli Brothers. Black Paseli was born in 1921 in the city of Zomba, and during his teenage years was employed by a Mr. Mackay as a handyman and mechanic. During those years, in the mid-1930s, Black Paseli taught himself how to play Mackay’s guitar, eventually becoming adept enough to teach his older brother Barry the instrument. Until 1938, when Black Paseli was recruited to fight for the British, the duo played in then Rhodesia and Nyasaland as part-time entertainers at tea parties and bottle stores. After the war, they became full-time musicians.
The Paseli Brothers were, according to at least one source, the very first Malawian artists to record, and this would be one of their earliest efforts. Their first records were made in Zomba in 1947, recorded on equipment owned by an Indian shop-owner. They became extremely well-known in the region. When scholar and musician K. Mongani Katundu interviewed Black Paseli in 1986, he asked if his records made him famous, Paseli’s reply was: “Yes! So much so that other people’s wives ran away from their husbands to me.”
Tracey translated the title of this piece as “I Shall Never Drink Again” – which you can hear the Paselis repeat during the song. However, on a cassette of Malawian music produced by ethnomusicologist Mitchel Strumpf from the late 1980s, it was translated as “I Once Was A Good Man.” There are also a couple of errors on the label. It states Nyanja as the language, but after I sent it to a speaker of that language (known more commonly as Chewa or Chichewa), he stated it was not, in fact, in that language. The Paselis also recorded in the Yao language – which is probably what’s heard here…although some is in English. Also, despite the label, the piece is a guitar duet, and there is no banjo present.
One of the unfortunate, ubiquitous phrases one hears in the record collecting world is “No one’s ever heard of this stuff!” Well, that’s just simply not true in most, if not all cases. While Black Paseli is unknown in the West, there’s many people in an entire country that remember him, and the performances he made with his brothers.
Paseli Brothers – Kare Ndinari Wabwino
Technical Notes
Label: Gallotone
Issue Number: GE.968
Matrix Number: ABC.3101
Biographical information gleaned from:
Katundu, K. Wongani. (1993). Black Paseli: His Place in Early Popular Malawian Music. In Mitchel Strumpf and Kondwani Phwandaphwanda (Eds.), Readings in Malawian Music: A Collection of Previously Published Articles on Malawian Music (pp. 53-54), Zomba: Zomba Music Society.
Elmughani Maalim Shaban – Unguja, Pt. 1
September 27, 2011
October 2011, fast approaching, is the release month for my upcoming Dust-to-Digital box set, Opika Pende: Africa at 78rpm (October 25th, to be precise), therefore it’s high time for a stone rarity of an African record. For some readers, the artist and title of this track might ring a bell. Part 2 of this terrific, historically significant disc appeared on the Secret Museum of Mankind’s East Africa CD. I thought I’d offer Part 1 from my own copy, completing the listening experience.
This 78 represents one of the very first pieces of recorded music from the Zanzibar archipelago, produced during the very first recording sessions of Zanzibari musicians. In March 1928, the Gramophone Company in England shipped a handful of Zanzibari musicians to Bombay, India, including Maalim Shaban and the renowned Siti binti Saad. The engineer was Robert Edward Beckett, who had been recording around the world for GramCo since 1922. Over the next three years, these and other Zanzibari musicians recorded over 125 discs in Bombay, over several visits. The records themselves were pressed in Calcutta, and shipped to Swahili-speaking regions of coastal Africa. Details are scant with regard to precisely when this disc was recorded, but it appears to have been released in September of 1929. After these historic sessions, there seemed to be a mad rush to record East African musicians: Odeon began recording local music all down the East African coast, Pathé shipped East African musicians to Marseille to record, and Columbia began recording some of the very same musicians that GramCo had recorded, except onsite.
78rpm records and gramophone players, however, had been available in the region for decades, but by and large the music that was being sold to locals was not popular or traditional music in Swahili or other African dialects. It was either English or Indian music – sold to those populations. The Zanzibari music that was recorded in 1928 (and onward) by the Gramophone Company was taarab. Probably the most overt influence heard in early taarab ensembles is the classical Arabic influence. But as scholar Werner Graebner and others have pointed out, the influences were wide – from India and Southeast Asia, to the Persian Gulf’s khaleeji music. The instrumentation heard on this piece is oud, violin, and percussion (darabukka). The title of the piece, “Unguja,” refers to Zanzibar itself (it’s the name of the largest and most populated island of the Zanzibar archipelago). Maalim Shaban lived at least until the 1960s, when he participated in interviews for a book on early Swahili recording artists (Waimbaji wa juzi, by A. A. Jahadhmy, available only in Swahili).
Elmughani Maalim Shaban – Unguja, Pt. 1
Technical Notes
Label: His Master’s Voice
Issue Number: P. 13290
Coupling Number: 28-12239
Matrix Number: BD3063
For further listening, additional compositions by Maalim Shaban are on Janet Topp Fargion’s essential CD Poetry and Languid Charm, on Topic.
News
For those who don’t follow the Excavated Shellac Facebook page, I was recently on Jason Sigal’s WFMU radio program Talk’s Cheap. He graciously had me for 90 minutes to play music and chat. For those interested, here is a link to the archived show.
And as for Opika Pende – I’ll try to keep the self-promotion bearable, but I do hope that any fan of the site, especially those that understand and appreciate the time and effort it takes to find and make these types of recordings available, will purchase and enjoy the set. This was a labor of love – from me, to you.
Orkest Eddy Vervuurt – Lied
August 18, 2011
I’ll admit it – I had no idea that any 78s from the country of Suriname existed. It made sense that there were recordings made, and I had some documentation stating that there were recordings of music from British Guiana (now Guyana), but nothing from Suriname – until I came across this rarity. As soon as I started poking around, the label, the artist, and the story behind this fun little record came into focus.
Suriname, the smallest country in South America, had been a Dutch colony since the 17th century, when the British famously traded it to the Dutch for the island of Manhattan. Previously, the Arawak and Carib peoples lived in the region. The Dutch brought African slaves to their colonies in Suriname and many escaped, starting their own rural societies away from the Dutch-owned plantations. They became known as the Maroons. In the 19th century immigrants from India, the Dutch East Indies, the Middle East, and China arrived, further diversifying Suriname’s population into one of the most varied in the world. In 1954, Suriname was granted some self-rule, but it wasn’t completely independent until 1975.
Edward James “Eddy” Vervuurt was born in Suriname in 1928. By the time he was a teenager, he was studying piano and composition at the Amsterdam conservatory. While in the Netherlands, he formed a band called “Edwardo y su Orquestro Rhytmico.” He returned to Suriname soonafter and had a long career as a composer, bandleader and conductor of the Suriname Philharmonic, as well as the head of the local radio station Radio Apintie. From what I understand, Vervuurt frequently incorporated local, Surinamese folk music into his compositions, and encouraged Surinamese composers to do the same, and to musically embrace their culture. He died in 1988.
The name of this label – Parbo – has two meanings: it’s a shortened nickname of Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, and it is the name of a famous Surinamese beer. This record, it turns out, is in fact a promotional record for Parbo Bier, then being brewed at the Amstel factory (and now brewed by Heineken). The song title – “Lied” – simply means “Song” in Dutch. The colors and font on the label are the same as those used for the beer. Eddy Vervuurt, it turns out, was the bandleader for a local group featuring the vocalist “Big Jones” (real name: Marius Liesdek) who was a fisherman and sausage seller by day. According to an article by Joop van Mil, this band cut several records with an Afro-Caribbean feel, in Surinamese styles known as kaseko and kawina. Part of this song appears to be sung in Dutch (the national language of Suriname), although it’s possible (?) that the chorus is in Sranan Tongo, the English-based Creole language which is spoken by a large amount of the country’s population. It’s a wonderful piece – beer-infused or not. The musicians play beautifully and loosely, with Eddy giving himself a piano break that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Les Baxter album!
Na di Sranan mek’ en biri
Ala tra biri kon tan tiri
Parbobiri, Srananbiri…
Technical Notes
Label: Parbo
Issue Number: D 99088 H
Matrix Number: AA 99088 1H = 2//670
Live in Boston, September 7, 2011
August 15, 2011
I will be in Brookline at Café Fixe doing a live Excavated Shellac show on September 7th. I’ll be spinning rare music and focusing on local 78 rpm labels across the globe, and how they provided unique, regional music that the majors may have missed. I will also be showcasing some tracks from the upcoming Opika Pende box set. Please come!
For more information, you can visit here.
Thanks to Susanna Bolle!
Hamida Rokhshana – Washlidah
July 3, 2011
Excavated Shellac is back, again - continuing after four years, to keep up…well, at least a modicum of a schedule in posting international 78s. Again, I appreciate any and all comments, information, and collaboration – especially from some of the regulars who have consistently been following this website from the very beginning. Many marriages don’t last that long! So, I honor it, truly. Back in 2007-2008, I posted each week and wrote just a couple of paragraphs. Now, I post more or less monthly, and focus on records that for one reason or another would be interesting to both write about and listen to.
Today: Afghanistan.
Throughout much of the 20th century, music was recorded erratically in Afghanistan, to say the least. On top of that, according to various books on world music history, Afghan music has been, on the whole, largely undocumented. From my own collection, and from listening to the 78s of friends, the early art music of Afghanistan seems to situate itself as a bridge between the music of Iran and the music of India.
This piece was recorded around 1959-1960. It was pressed and distributed in Afghanistan and elsewhere by the Russians on their state-owned label, although they did give the Afghan series their own lovely white label design. Most likely, it was produced by Radio Kabul, which was at the forefront of disseminating music of Afghanistan from the 1950s to the 1970s as well as, like many other countries at the time, developing a “national” music. Radio Kabul actually began in 1925, but the station was destroyed in 1929 when King Amanullah Khan, seen by many as too progressive, was deposed. Radio in Kabul was not reestablished until 1940 and after that, it became a center for Afghan music and its primary patron.
In this piece by Rakshanah (whom you can see pictured at the bottom of this web page), you’ll hear the traditional Afghan rubab, the bowed sarinda (a relative of the sarangi from India), and the tabla, also imported from India. These are all essential instruments in Afghan court and art music. While I was unable to find any concrete information on Rakshanah, it is likely she was professionally trained and possibly from a wealthy family. Female musicians were not often heard in public in Afghanistan, as traditional culture and religion relegated women’s music to the home. A female musician wasn’t heard on the radio until 1951. From a musical standpoint, the 1950s-1970s were considered the most progressive era in Afghanistan - there were many women performers heard on a regular basis, regardless of the austere viewpoints of the conservative population.
As far as I can tell, the very first recordings of Afghan music were the ones made in Lahore, Pakistan in 1926, by the Gramophone Company. Musicians from Kabul and Peshawar traveled to Lahore and recorded about 60 discs worth of material. The discs were distributed in urban centers of Afghanistan and throughout Afghan communities in India. (I have seen only one of these records in 10 years.) In 1928, a few more Afghan recordings were issued by GramCo.
Between 1928 and 1946, the only outfit recording Afghan music with any degree of regularity was a local, independent company called The Frontier Trading Company based in Peshawar. They issued Pashto discs on their Banga-Phone label in India, along with music from Kashmir, Punjab, and Persia. (Again, I’ve seen a grand total of one of these records in 10 years.) After World War II, some Afghan recordings were made by Columbia, and issued in their Persian music green-label “GP” series. Then, there is the Russian-pressed series from 1959-1960 shown here. I have no idea how many were issued in this series – the numbering is erratic, though it could have been as many as several hundred. They were recorded on tape, and somehow connected with a company called “Afghan Magnetic Film” (or “Tape”… the records are not film music, though musically it’s very possible that they were influenced by the film music of Pakistan and India).
Hamida Rokhshana - Washlidah
Technical Notes
Label: Melodiya
Issue Number: 43973
Matrix Number: 43973/1-1
Thanks to Alfred Madain, Garland Ency., Michael Kinnear.
Announcements:
As some have seen on the Excavated Shellac Facebook page, an official announcement has been made for my next project with Dust-to-Digital, which is a Pan-African, 4-CD box set. It will feature 100 tracks from my collection, from all across the continent. It comes with a 112-page book and a CD portfolio, all housed in a hardbound cloth slipcase. I’ll be talking about this more in the near future. We expect it to be released in the Fall – late October or early November or so. This has been in the works for 3 1/2 years. It’s my goal to give you a diverse representation of some truly remarkable music that’s not before been issued.
Also – guest contributor Ian Nagoski has a major box set just out on Tomkins Square, which will surely be of interest to readers. And David Seubert, another guest contributor, has been a major part of the National Jukebox project. There’s lots of great work being done – all of it, in most cases, a labor of love.
Update 8/9/11
After having unearthed my old copy of the Nonesuch LP Afghanistan: Music from the Crossroads of Asia recorded by Peeter Ten Hoopen, I think I’m ready to say that the artist here is actually Hamida Rokhshana, who sings one song on that LP.
Dores Granja e Henrique Lima – Cana Verde (Portugal); Rena Galibova – Ba Stakhanov (Tajikistan)
May 29, 2011
Listening to these two tracks recently got me thinking about the complex concept of “authenticity” with relation to commercial recordings in certain regions. I’ve broached the subject several times on Excavated Shellac, and still find it a worthy discussion to ruminate upon. I suppose the overarching rhetorical question is: how do we treat these recordings in the present-day?
The first piece is a folk song from Portugal, recorded June 17, 1947, in Braga. For better or worse, the might and popularity of fado usually eclipses the other regional styles that have existed in Portugal for centuries. There’s unaccompanied polyphonic singing from the south, bagpipe music from the northeast, accordion bands, and all manner of rancho folclóricos performing regional music across the country. This piece is from northwest Portugal, specifically the area once known Minho province (now the Viana do Castelo and Braga provinces). It is a chula, a localized circle dance for couples. The singers Granja and Lima are accompanied by a chorus, drum, and multiple four-stringed cavaquinhos, the small guitar of Portugal which was apparently the original model for the ukulele, brought to Hawaii by Portuguese sailors.
But, it is probably safe to say that this piece was, in one form or another, mediated by the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal, which apparently exercised strict control over all cultural activities. During the dictatorship, folk music groups – the aforementioned rancho folclóricos – were part of the nationalist organization known as FNAT, or Fundação Nacional para a Alegria no Trabalho – meaning “The National Foundation for Joy at Work.” And FNAT is represented here on this recording with the presence of Professor J.C. Mota Leite (credited as the director of this performance) and the Grupo Folclórico do Doutor Gonçalo Sampaio (who accompany the lead singers). During this period, FNAT was involved in essentially fostering a revivalist spirit throughout the country with these groups. The Grupo Sampaio, formed in 1943, worked closely with FNAT and worked to create what scholar Kimberly DaCosta Holton calls “an authentic duplicate of regional tradition.” Mota Leite, a folk music scholar, was hired by FNAT to train the group for months, acting as a bridge between the members of the group, who were peasants, and the dictatorship nobility.
Now that we know this about the recording, will we feel differently about it after listening? Do we have the capability to take it at face value, or is it fraught with the politics of the day? Does the fact that this recording is in the renowned Constantin Brăiloiu archive of folk music change anything?
The second piece is from Tajikistan. Under Stalin, the nationlist influence on the manifestation of folk music traditions was in full effect.
“…traditional musics were transformed into national monuments in order to comply with Soviet internationalism. This entailed standardization to ensure compatibility with, and inclusion within, a monolithic Soviet culture. The adoption of standardized European performance modalities thus enabled local musics to find a place among their peers in the parade of national heritages of the USSR, and to join the large-scale cultural engineering that was triumphantly displayed at inter-national festivals.”*
Rena Galibova (1915-1995) was born in Uzbekistan, of Buhkaran Jewish heritage. She eventually moved to Tajikistan and became a trained opera singer. Her career was lengthy, through decades of Soviet rule - she performed for Stalin, and gained the title “People’s Artist of Tajikistan.” She eventually moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where she passed away at age 80.
This piece has something similar to the typical “folk music ensemble” sound of Central Asia in the Soviet 78rpm era. You can hear a violin, the dayra frame drum, the nay flute, and the chang zither (oddly, I don’t hear a tar or dutar). Apparently Galibova also sang traditional Bukharan shashmaqam. I would love to be able to hear that some day, yet Tajik records – even the classical, operatic ones - are incredibly difficult to find. Which leads me again to our questions: can we approach this music at a level disassociated from its political past? Will the discourse always be messy? Or is it essential background information that is needed in order to give the music its proper context? If the Garland Encyclopedia of World Music calls this Soviet ensemble style “bloated” and “ponderous” – does that mean it’s improper to hum?
It’s quite likely that the Stakhanov in this track is the “Hero of Socialist Labor” Alexey Stakhanov (1906-1977).
Dores Granja e Henrique Lima – Cana Verde
Rena Galibova – Ba Stakhanov
Technical Notes
Label: HMV
Issue Number: MQ 63
Matrix Number: 0PC.132-2
Label: Taskhenskiy Zavod
Issue Number: 5289-50
Matrix Number: 8823/3
*Spinetti, Federico. (2005). Open Borders. Tradition and Tajik Popular Music: Questions of Aesthetics, Identity and Political Economy. Ethnomusicology Forum, 14(2), 185-211.
Thanks to Bill Dean-Myatt for discographical information, and to Steve Shapiro.
Z. Kjuj Pora Fieri – Sgrehua Mahmudi
April 24, 2011
About a year ago, I posted a rare example of Albanian dance music (closely related to Epirotic music from Greece) recorded in the United States by Albanian-Americans. Now it’s time for some music from the same period, this time recorded in Albania ca. 1929. If you are unfamiliar with this particular type of Albanian music, it could turn out to be one of the most powerful musical experiences you may have – it certainly was for me.
Many have written about how the landscape of Albania must have contributed to the preservation of such a varied and musically unique (sometimes even jarring) group of folk musics. The word “isolated” is often used to describe the country, largely because of the rugged mountain ranges that surround it (such as the Bjeshkët e Namuna, or “The Accursed Alps”). To this day, the majority of the Albania’s mostly Muslim population live in rural areas – quite the opposite of other European nations.
The music of Albania, however, is so spectacularly different than the rest of Europe (with the possible exception of Epirus in Greece, where there is considerable overlap), that it seems to an outsider to be born of a different age altogether. Rodney Gallop, reviewing several 1930 Albanian discs for the Gramophone Company, called the music “uncouth” overall, yet was completely captivated enough, at that early date, to write positively about a series of discs with pressing numbers as low as 200 copies!
A year before the Gramophone Company recorded in Tirana and Shkoder, the Columbia Graphophone Company made nearly 300 recordings across Albania, and had already recorded many Albanian discs in Istanbul in 1928. Some of these records – a total of 49 to be exact – were pressed in very small amounts in the United States, specifically for the Albanian immigrant population (in 1920, the Albanian-speaking population of the United States numbered a mere 6,000). This is one of those discs.
This is the music of the Tosks, in southern Albania, and this piece was performed by an ensemble that appears to have been from the city of Fier in the southwest of the country. The most obvious (or maybe captivating) element of the music of the Tosks is the drone-like polyphony of the male vocalists in the background, who augment the lead singer with extended, nasal accompaniment on syllables such as “ay” or “e.” Another standout element is the halting and seemingly erratic rhythm of the string intrument (possibly the çiftelia) and the everpresent Albanian-style qernëte (clarinet), which sometimes seems to push the very limits of the instrument. In terms of the group, I could find nothing about them, though I believe the “Z.” in the title indicates that it is some kind of ensemble (all other Columbias of this type I have seen have “Z.” in front of the group name) and that ”Kjuj” may be a different transliteration of the name “Gjergj.” Further information is always welcome. At any rate, I hope this rates high.
Z. Kjuj Pora Fieri – Sgrehua Mahmudi
Technical Notes
Label: Columbia
Issue Number: 72027-F
Matrix Number: 294346
It goes without saying that Paul Vernon and Benno Haupl’s Albanian Village Music CD on Heritage is essential listening.
