Sunday at Bob's #8 - Goodbye Casual

Goodbye casual sundays at Bob's, high season is back and the reservation list is getting longer and longer. My last shift ended at 2AM instead of the usual midnight. Late check-ins and errors in the counting delayed everything but well, the rest of the year is so pleasant that it's already forgotten. All that to say that the following two or three posts might include more quotes than usual since I have less time. This week's playlist is a bit in the continuity of the last one in the sense that I tried to remain consistent, picked songs that take their time to express themselves and did not make exagerated jumps in between moods. I hope you will like it, here it is.

It begins with the outstanding greek musician Kostas Bezos and The White Birds. Outstanding by his Hawaiian inspired version of Rembetiko (some of his songs even include yodel) which I find very unexpected but beautiful. Who knew that Greek popular music had a real kink for Hawaiian steel guitar music since the 1920’s? (...) If we consider the connection between the guitar’s ancient arabic roots, and the way it mutated into lap steel and ukulele styles out in the middle of the Pacific during the 1800s before becoming absorbed into Greek middle class and popular music of the 1920’s, then Kostas Bezos And The White Birds pushes the concept of Greek folk music as a bridge between East and West to totally new, extreme degrees for any listener who has a taste for this sound unmatched by their knowledge of it provenance. (source) I will probably include and write a bit more about Rembetiko in the coming weeks because it is very interesting.

Then we have a song by the marvelous Francis Bebey that was introduced to me five years ago by a Dutch drawing teacher of mine who was really into it. One song in particular stayed with me since then, Sanza Tristesse is not featured here but I strongly recommend it. Bebey was born in a poor family of Douala, economic capital of Cameroon. His dad, a pastor who plays accordeon, introduced him to music and raised him to the sound of Bach, Haendel etc. He also had an ear for traditional music through his neighbour who would play the mouth bow at night. Apart from being a great musician, he worked as a journalist for french and african radios. He was also a remarkable writer (Sanza Tristesse testifies) and in 1968 he won the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire for his book Le Fils d’Agatha Moundio.

After that come Les Filles de Illighadad (the girls from Illighadad), a band I discovered live in OCCII two years ago and I was instantly struck by the power and the mastery they express over their music. They truly use their voices the same way they use their instruments (it might sound like I am breaking through an open door but I think that in that case it is particularly true). It is very impressive on Imigradan how the vocals in the beggining echoe with the electric guitar that comes after. If you want to know more about them (and if you understand french) click here.

We go on with Nâ Hawa Doumbia from Mali who I encountered first on Awesome Tapes From Africa. I don't know much about her, I have four tracks on my computer that I play once in a while. I find the (complex) simplicity of her songs almost holy and could listen to it for hours.

Today's playlist features as well Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, a fresh and modern super-quintet which performs an electrified and highly danceable set of Turkish music led by Derya Yıldırım’s hypnotizing Saz and vocals. It combines Anatolian Folk and modern grooves, often contaminated by hints of Psychedelia, Jazz and Funk. (source) A band that, with Altın Gün and other, are spreading a contemporary version of the Anatolian Rock inherited from Erkin Koray (who was mentioned here a few weeks ago) and more, around the world. Ibrahim Maalouf and his breathtaking take on Oum Kalthoum's Alf Leila wa Leila. In Movement I we can hear him play around with the sentence Winta wana, ya habibi ana, ya hayati ana (you and me, my love, my life) sung so wonderfully in the strongly recommended original version. I wanted to make a comparison between that melodic repetition and the one happening right after in Mixed Feelings of Jean-Paul Estiévenart (who I saw completely randomly in Brussels a few months ago and then again in the Bimhuis with Urbex and was blown away). That pam-pam-pam coming back is the reason why I put those two songs back to back. I have the feeling they have a lot in common. 

We also have the South African Jazz band Mabuta, the intergalactic Luiz Bonfá from Brasil and the Moroccan band of the 70s Jil Jilala who I will most likely expand a bit more about in the coming weeks since I am off to Morocco from July to September and intend to explore.


That's it for this week!
Enjoy, and remember to check out before 10h30 (tea and coffee are served at the reception until 11h00).

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Kostas Bezos and the White Birds - Τ’Άσπρα Πουλιά στα βουνα (The White Birds In The Mountains)
2. Francis Bebey - Binta madiallo
3.  Les Filles de Illighadad - Imigradan
4. Na Hawa Doumbia - Demisen kulu
5. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek - Nem Kaldı
6. Ibrahim Maalouf - Movement I
7. Jean-Paul Estiévenart - Mixed Feelings
8. Mabuta - As We Drift Away
9. Luiz Bonfá - Leque
10. Jil Jilala - Hada Wa'dek Ya Meskin

Sunday at Bob's #7 - Rain in June

We were unlucky with the weather this week, I had gotten used to have sun in June but recently we had rain. It made me think of a verse by Jacque Brel: J'en suis venu à prier Dieu - Mais on sait bien qu'il est trop vieux - Et qu'il n'est plus maître de rien (To the point of praying to God - But we all know He’s far too old - And no longer in command). Although he is sad about a woman and not the temperature, I believe he expresses a feeling of powerlessness that can be transposed when witnessing climat change. One rainy day of June I stayed in and assembled this playlist. This time I allowed myself to include a few rather long track when I usually limit myself to one, underestimating the patience of the listener. I also tried to remain consistant and not jump from the donkey to the roaster. Whithout further delay, here it is.

It starts with a song by the Paulistana band (and by that I mean to say they are from São Paulo) Höröyá which is composed of West African and Brazilian musicians. Höröyá means freedom, autonomy in mandeng (...) their music brings some important African roots, it is a summary of some musicalities and it has a musical construction that does not follow the Western standard, not based on harmonic sequences or on melodic themes for instance. Höröyá´s  music is more focused on percussion bringing with it an essence of the African yards, the dance groups found in the Mandeng culture, a culture that has in Famoudou Konate one of its greatest representatives.(source)

We go on with a musician I discovered this year and cannot get enough of, for his capacity to explore so many different areas of music while remaining very coherent. I admire him as well for managing to greatly combine two genres that I love particularly: jazz and gnaoua. He has been featured here once before with Joachim Kühn and Ramon Lopez on the powerfull Enjoy. Majid Bekkas is also the co-artistic director of the festival Jazz au Chellah in Rabat since 1996. The song Bossoyo seems to me like a version of a song that comes back often in gnaoua music, I think that the song of Babkou Mustapha in the first playlist is one example. Although I have no proof of that at all.

The third track of the playlist is taken from an album that followed me since I am a kid, it was always around. Alla (Abdelaziz Abdallah is his full name) is an Algerian musician who built his first lute at 16 with a plastic can, a wooden piece, and bicycle brake cables as strings. Along his career, he developed a style he called Fondou, made of calm, improvised melodies that borrow to berber and arabic traditional music amongst other. A hypothesis as to the why of the term Fondou is that it is a combination of fond and doux which are French for substance and sweet, roughly, because fond is a difficult word to translate. I like that suggestion. His album is called Tanakoul, which means I am eating and I always found that intriguing but rather playful.

We take a jazz turn for the two tracks following with one taken from a quite interesting album that reunites a five exciting young musicians: Walter Smith III, Matthew Stevens, Joel Ross (he was included in last week's playlist), Harish Raghavan, and Marcus Gilmore. The album in called In Common. I added Unconditional Love because it is a song that is a rather rare example of a fully instrumental song in which I feel I understand the idea of it almost as if it had descriptive lyrics. When I listened to it the first time and read the title, I tought "oh yes, indeed". It doesn't happen that often but when it does I find it impressive because I guess someone with theoretical music knowledge would be able to explain its structure and make sense of it on a conceptual level when to my modest ears it remains an intuition.

We also have a song by Les Rallizes Dénudés, a japanese group I got into after reading this small text about them that you cannot read without wanting to have a glimps of it. We have Peter Doherty who I don't think I have to introduce, I really like his stuff as a loner guitar-poet. We have Mariana de Moraes who I litterally know nothing about but heard one album a bit randomly and quite enjoyed (I guess by now you know I am have a sweet tooth for Brazilian music). And we end with Philip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble who managed to make it twice into Sunday at Bob's with their majestic On the Beach.

Enjoy but only until 10h30 which is the check out time.

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Horoya - Travessia – Abu Bakr II
2. Majid Bekkas - Bossoyo
3. Alla - Espérance
4. Matthew Stevens - Unconditional Love
5. Mtume - Kamili
6. Morgen - Of Dreams
7. Les Rallizes Dénudés - Kioku Ha Toi
8. Pete Doherty - Music When The Lights Go Out
9. Mariana de Moraes - Reposta
10. Philip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble - On the Beach

https://lyricstranslate.com/fr/sans-exigences-without-demands.html

To the point of praying to God

But we all know He’s far too old

And no longer in command

https://lyricstranslate.com/fr/sans-exigences-without-demands.html

To the point of praying to God

But we all know He’s far too old

And no longer in command

Sunday at Bob's #6 - Fuma col fuoco in bocca

 
Fuma col fuoco in bocca... per non fare da bersaglio nella notte. He smokes with the fire in his mouth... to not be a target in the night. Last week I went to see Padre Padrone, the 1977 masterpiece from the Taviani Brothers and it was a blast. Happening the 1940s Sardinia, it is a very powerful but sensitive movie. It is constructed in a very interesting way and eventhough it lasts over two hours it never gets boring and always surprises. It depicts the life of a kid whose father takes away from school at age five to teach him the sheperd's life. The kid grows up apart from human society and has all the troubles in the world to enter it once adult. Today's playlist was an attempt to reflect the spirit of Padre Padrone, its harshness and sometimes its absurdity. I believe it is a selection that tends to go in every direction but I wanted to try to make it a bit spicy. Here it is.

It starts with a track by Egisto Macchi (who composed the soundtrack of Padre Padrone) from his album Il Deserto, an experimental and intriguing trip in the desert recorded in 1974. I like how this song just constantly seems to be promising to unlock some explosion of treasures and then doesn't but somehow manages to keep us in this state of excitement for a great gift.

After that comes a song from an album I have been wanting to include here for some time but never really figured out how. First because it holds many gems, Universal Beings is composed of 22 tracks of various lenghts. Second because it is truly a complete album in the sense that if I listen to it and think: that song goes in the next playlist, I face the impossibility of not including the one that comes after given how relevant the whole they form is. Makaya McRavens is a Paris born drummer, raised in New England
who is an important figure of this exciting young jazz scene that explores new musical territories with musicians like Shabaka Hutchings or Nubya Garcia who were mentioned here in the past weeks. I particularly enjoy The Fifth Monk because it takes the time it needs to establish a deep texture and play with it.

Alain Peters is a recent discovery. He is a poet from the French island Réunion who started music at a very young age. In the 60s he surfed along on the pop rock wave that went accross the island and swallowed séga and traditional music helped by vinyls sent from England by his cousin. It is only in the mid 70s that he turned back to maloya and rediscovered a national treasure along with the band Les Caméléons. They mixed Hendrix and The Beatles influences with séga and maloya rythms. Now I really am not a specialist of music from Réunion but I am a lover of the Réunion's creole sonorities, which in my opinion sounds a bit like honey.

A small interlude by Strong Arm Steady follows, they were mentioned in last week's post. And we go on with another recent discovery, music from East Europe that I discovered in the compilation Flammes du coeur - Gypsy Queens. I very much recommend that compilation which is made of very strong and deep songs that cannot leave you indifferent. These singers have amazing voices. Romica Puceanu has an intensity that I would be tempted to compare with the recent pieces by Elza Soares and reading about her makes me also somehow think of monuments of music such as Oum Kalthoum. I won't risk myself to write about something I really know nothing but here is a link to a text about Romica Puceanu that can spread some light on this beutiful area of music, if you understand french.

In today's playlist you will also find the Japanese rock band Kikagaku Moyo that I discovered on a Mixcloud page specialized in the matter, an extract of the Blue Note vibraphonist Joel Ross' first album KingMaker (he is also present on Makaya McRavens' Universal Beings), the guitar giant Baden Powell and James "Plunky" Branch who I have to investigate on a bit more. Susan Alcorn's beatiful take on Astor Piazzolla closes the selection.

That is all for this week, please mind the neighbours when smoking joints in front!

Enjoy,
Check out time is 10h30

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Egisto Macchi - L'Eco Delle Gole
2. Makaya Mccraven / Jeff Parker / Anna Butterss / Josh Johnson / Carlos Niño / Miguel Atwood-Ferguson - The Fifth Monk
3. Alain Peters - Plime La Misère
4. Strong Arm Steady - Smile
5. Romica Puceanu - Tinerete, Tinerete
6. Kikagaku Moyo -Dripping Sun
7. Joel Ross - III Relations
8. Baden Powell - Round About Midnight
9. Plunky - African Sunset
10. Susan Alcorn - Sodade

Sunday at Bob's #5 - First Leaves

I planted some flat-leaf parsley seeds last week and yesterday they finally sticked their green faces out of the soil to my great satisfaction and feeling of well done job. I spent most of my week painting in the studio and I must say I am very pleased with the works produced, I haven't had such a prolific week in a while. However being caged with oil paint and terpentine for entire days results in head pain but nothing that would discourage me from the thrill that it is. It is only the fifth Sunday at Bob's and I can already see some patterns in the music I select with Bubba Thomas' spiritual jazz or Alessandra Leão's brasilian vibes (eventhough musically Brasil is a continent). Anyhow, here is today's playlist.

We start with a song taken from the album of the Al tarab Muscat ud Festival of the Sultanate of Oman in 2005. I am really pleased to own a copy of this, which seems rather rare and expensive but more importantly very varied and impressive music. I don't know much about Mamdoh El Gebaly neither do I know about Abadi Al Johar or other masters present on the compilation. But I have listened to some of their songs thousands of times and keep on going back to that treasure of an album.

It goes on with a extract from the soundtrack of Guy Ritchie's The Man From U.N.C.L.E by Daniel Pemberton (The Counselor and more recently Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse). I am globaly not particularly fond of that soundtrack however it made me discover some gems such as Roberta Flack's version of Compared to What or Che Vuole Questa Musica Stasera by Profumo di Donna.

Then we have the British progressive jazz rock band Trifle, I came accross their great album First Meeting through Strong Arm Steady's In Search Of Stoney Jackson where a few seconds of New Religion is played on a fast tempo. This song somehow reminds me of Cocaine by Universe though I am not sure why, probably because of its structure where the first half of the song contains sung lyrics and a large part is some trippy intrumentals that make you lose your mind.

Bubbha Thomas & The Lightmen Plus One's album Fancy Pants is an album I stumbled upon super randomly after hours of scrolling blogs and I have to admit I wasn't disapointed. It is a piece of work in which the musicians take their time to transport us in a lot of different areas of their talent. I find it extremely vast, interesting and I doubt I am done discovering new aspects of it as I listen to it more and more.

I have to thank Youtube's algorithm for the next one because I was playing cards at the reception with a good friend when this song started playing and charmed us both by it's smooth take on Bill Wither's classic. I will probably try to dig in more into Sivuca's music I haven't had the time this week but from the little I heard he seems like a very exciting artist.

Today's playlist features as well the brasilian-influenced jazz trio from Turin Gialma 3, the great Alessandra Leão who doesn't stop to surprise me since I first discovered her music, Mr. Airplane Man who I saw for the first time live last year at Butcher's Tears in south Amsterdam, Timmy Thomas who, like a lot of people, I first heard sampled on Drake's Hotline Bling and Momo Wandel Soumah's unbeatable saxophone whose album I bought as a kid on a street market in Essaouira, the Moroccan city that hosts every year a Gnaoua festival.

It's already the end of this week but very soon the beggining of a new one!
No smoking in the rooms and remember to check out before 10h30.

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Mamdoh El Gebaly - Musiqa, Hawatir Misriyya, Maqam Rast
2. Daniel Pemberton - Out Of The Garage
3. Trifle - New Religion
4. Bubbha Thomas & The Lightmen Plus One - Blue Tip
5. Sivuca - Ain’t No Sunshine
6. Gialma 3 - Brushes Samba
7. Alessandra Leão - Partilha
8. Mr. Airplane Man - Don’t Know Why
9. Timmy Thomas - Take Care Of Home
10. Momo Wandel Soumah - Toko