Year: 2010

Excavated Shellac Live – March 28th in Los Angeles

· 3 Comments ·

I will be performing a live Excavated Shellac show on Sunday, March 28th, 3PM, at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Art Park, as part of Edith Abeyta’s ongoing exhibit “Actions, Conversations, and Intersections.” I only come out of hibernation maybe once a year to do a live show, so this should be fun. Join me in listening to some beautiful, rare music on 78s from Kurdistan to Madagascar – none of which are featured on the website.

I will also have available a small cache of advance copies of the “Strings” LP. Stop by to say hello!

For more on the show:
http://www.actionsconversationsintersections.com/

Ajdin Asllan – Valle Devollice

· 12 Comments ·

“Muzike Shqiptare e Drejtuar Prej Ajdin Asllan (Leskoviku)” reads the label to this slightly mysterious and certainly scarce 12″ 78rpm record on the American Mi-Re Rekord label. The sentence means, “Albanian Music Directed by Ajdin Asllan, of Leskoviku,” and from there we can begin to delve into the music, and the record’s origins.

The piece, a duet featuring clarinet and lute (quite probably the Albanian llaute) is “Valle Devollice Me Gérneté” which translates in English to “Dance from Devoll, with clarinet.” The Devoll River runs through southeastern Albania, very close to the Greek border, and through the Devoll District. The style of clarinet playing you’ll hear on this piece, played by Mr. Asllan, is very similar to the style of playing in Epirus, the mountainous, sparsely populated, northern region of Greece which borders Albania. The boundaries of classical Epirus originally contained parts of southern Albania, so therefore it’s no surprise to hear a direct similarity. In fact, the primary instrument in Epirotic folk music is the clarinet. In Greek Epirus, in turn, there’s a strong history of vocal polyphony, similar to the kind associated with Albania. This is further proof, if we needed any, that political boundaries are so often meaningless when it comes to folkloric, musical traditions. In the case of “Valle Devollice,” the interesting rhythms played on the llaute by an uncredited musician sound distinctly Albanian, not Greek-Epirotic. It’s a jam, plain and simple.

Ajdin Asllan (1895-1976) had a long history as a multi-instrumentalist (clarinet, oud, llaute/lauto), an instructor, and an independent label owner in the US. As the label indicates, he was originally from the town of Leskovik, in southeastern Albania, just to the west of the Greek border (“Leskoviku” may also have been his nickname). He was most well-known for being part of the Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Albanian nightclub scene on 8th Avenue in New York City in the mid-20th century, through the 1960s. However, this release, and other releases on the short-lived Mi-Re label appear to be among his earliest recordings. When this recording was made is difficult to say. The origins of the label are unknown. Asllan may have owned or co-owned it, but perhaps not. Only 4 or 5 releases on this label are known to exist. A prominent discography lists it being recorded ca. 1930. Robert Crumb has posited online that the label may have been pressed by the famous Marsh Laboratories of Chicago – the very first record company to make electric recordings with microphones. However, there is no outward indication that it was pressed by Marsh (a logo or number, for instance). Whatever the case, this record is yet another example of how immigrants in the New York area created and independently marketed music for their communities.

In the early 1940s, Asllan started the popular Balkan record label, which released music by oud virtuoso Marko Melkon, Sephardic singer Victoria Hazan, and a host of fine musicians and singers. His Balkan Phonograph Record Store was at 42 Rivington Street in the Lower East Side, and eventually moved to 27th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues. While simultaneously offering Greek, Turkish, Armenian, and Sephardic music on the Balkan label, Asllan was behind at least one Albanian-American record label during the mid-20th century (Me-Re, with an ‘e’ – and possibly a label called Rekorde Shqiptare). His career lasted well into the LP era.

As a side note: this record is not in pristine shape, despite my valiant attempts at cleanup – it’s in average to poor condition with a pretty rough first 10 seconds. I’ve made a point to choose records in terrific condition for Excavated Shellac, so this is a good chance to hear what most 78s sound like! Put your ears on – the noise will fade into the background. When it comes to some records, one can’t be too picky.

Ajdin Asllan – Valle Devollice

Thanks to Joel Ackerman and Steve Shapiro, for help.

Technical Notes
Label: Mi-Re Rekord
Issue Number: 502
Matrix Number: 502 (504-3 crossed out in dead wax)

Kosta Šarćanski-Koča – Bačvansko Kolo

· 11 Comments ·

We’re starting 2010 off with a scorcher: a fine example of rural bagpipe music of the Balkans.

Preconceived, negative notions about bagpipe music abound, I believe, mainly because the instrument is primarily associated in the mainstream media with British Military processions. This, of course, is a frustratingly narrow view. Not only are there wonderful musicians and folk performances on the Great Highland Bagpipe of Scotland, but the bagpipe itself is a positively ancient folk instrument with varying types and styles stretching from Ireland and the UK, to Spain, across Europe, to Tunisia, and as far east as India. Urban and rural cultures all over the globe have used the instrument to accompany vocalists and dancers since the 12th century, at least. Chaucer famously referenced the pipes in The Canterbury Tales. Bosch, Breughel, and Dürer depicted them in paintings and drawings.

For the uninitiated, the bagpipe in its most basic form (which visually seems to reference the human stomach) is comprised of a few simple parts: a blowpipe, the bag (made of animal skin), the melody pipe (known as the chanter), and the drone pipe. Wood and animal skin – and that’s it. These basic ingredients are expanded upon (or not) depending on the culture and geographical location. There are numerous varieties of Italian zampogna with several variations on the numbers of chanters and drone pipes – the Hungarian duda often has a double chanter and one drone. The Tunisian mizwad and the Maltese zaqq have double chanters and no drone pipes. There’s the German dudelsack, the Bahraini jirba, the Cretan askomandoura, the Swedish säckpipa, and hundreds more variations. On Excavated Shellac, we’ve featured music performed on the Galician gaita and the binioù of Brittany.

Another bagpipe variation is the Serbian gajde, the bagpipe played here by Kosta Šarćanski. His particular gajde is the Banat gajde of Northern Serbia, which is similar to Carpathian models of bagpipes as opposed to other Balkan styles (like the Bulgarian gaita). It has a double chanter and is bellows blown. Here he plays a kolo, a traditional, upbeat folk dance more or less comparable to the horo in Bulgaria. The title, “Bačvansko Kolo,” might be a reference to the region known as Bačka, currently divided between southern Hungary and northern Serbia.

Kosta Šarćanski’s powerful performance was recorded September 18th, 1930, in Vienna, by Gramophone Company engineer Douglas Ewen Larter. Larter was known for his recordings of European classical music. It would be fascinating to know the circumstances of how he came to record a few dozen Serbian folk records in mid- to late September of 1930. Šarćanski performed numerous solos that day along with Stevan Bačić-Trnda, a musician from Sombor, Serbia. Šarćanski has been documented performing earlier gajde solos on the Edison Bell label, as well – as “Koča Šasćarnski” and “Koča Šašćanski.” (“Koča” is his nickname, and it’s separated with a dash from his last name on the record label. The term “Izvodi” on the label simply means “performed by.”)

Enjoy!

Kosta Šarćanski-Koča – Bačvansko Kolo

Technical Notes
Label: Victor (from HMV masters)
Issue Number: V-3096
Matrix Number: BL-6507

Many thanks to Steven Kozobarich. Also thanks to Ferenc Tobak and Mark Gilston for information on the bagpipes!

For more of the same, another Kosta Šarćanski performance can be found on the out-of-print Heritage CD The Ace and Deuce of Pipering.

“It is a well-attested fact that the bagpipes, when heard by persons who are not accustomed to them, give rise to violent griping pains in the stomach which closely resemble the pains of Asiatic cholera.” – New York Times, April 24, 1885.