Sunday at Bob's #17 - Tralala

Good afternoon, good evening, good morning you are listening to Sunday at Bob's and the vibe is good. This week's playlist introduces reggae I believe for the first time, spicy. Since I take two weeks instead of one to compose them, the playlist are growing up slightly differently than before. When before i could have it in the back of my head for a full day and make the tracklist in a few hours, I now slide songs in a folder when I think they could be interesting and end up with a bunch of songs from different moods and times at the end of the week. I guess the playlist might be less harmonious but maybe more exciting, let's see.

The introduction is made by Paraguayan harpist Sergio Cuevas with a wonderful song I heard first on Nicolas Jaar's album Sirens. I have very little information about Sergio Cuevas, as a matter a fact that is the only song I ever heard from him, if anyone has more please share.

We pursue with a move I am not used doing in these playlist. Theo Parrish recently released Wat you gonna ask for is a 9' long track on which he is improvising around a piano loop on very good company. "On What You Gonna Ask For, Parrish collaborates with a group of Melbourne-based musicians. Among them are three members of the neo-soul quartet Hiatus Kaiyote (Simon Mavin, Perrin Moss and Paul Bender). Silent Jay, who has previously appeared on Rhythm Section, plays the saxophone and Lori sings the lead. The result is an improvised live jam built around a simple piano riff. At ten minutes long, there's plenty of time to appreciate each musician's contribution—Lori's casual vocal delivery and Paul Bender's bass stand out particularly, as does the loose and dusty percussion." (source)

After listening to that I had to dig a bit more on that neo-soul quartet and I was not disapointed. Proof being that the following track is by them. Breathing Underwater is a very cool track to listen to while cycling through park under the freezing sun of November.

Then comes the almighty Carlos Paredes and his flawless fado guitar. The sort of flute playing in the beggining reminds a lot the melody of a brazilian song called Canto De Xango. I haven't got much to add except that it provoked the next song to be one of a Bob's regular singers, Jorge Ben Jor. His album A Tabua de Esmeralda is truly a gem. I chose Errare Humanum Est as a wink to the Mc Solaar song featured on SAB#15. Pffff je pensais créer l'harmonie...

We enter now the french rock parenthesis of our journey.  First with Messieurs Richard de Bordeaux et Daniel Beretta who are asking you where is their hash, their opium, their kiff. And then with one of my all time favourite song writer and singer, Jacques Higelin. He, on the other hand, askes if his guitare is a rifle. A question that deserves some reflection. His explosive lyrical talent is to be admired here without limits. "Je le sais, parceque tout ce qui brûle est rouge, je le sais. Le sang qui roule dans mes veines est rouge". He passed away last year and with him a whole page of my childhood, his album Illicite was the only one we had with curses in the lyrics, we would play it over and over delighted and amazed to hear on CD words we were not allowed to say in real life. "Casse toi connard, et chaud devant!"

The parenthesis ends a bit abruptly and Bach takes over. Czech guitarist Vladislav Blaha does us the honor.

And now... the reggae. First Nina Simone. If I was to feature such a monument of music here I had to do it in an unexpected way otherwise it would have been to easy. I knew this song because is had been sampled by Jay-Z on the only album from him I listen to repeatedly (the song is called Caught Their Eyes with Frank Ocean, the album 4:44). The story of that song is quite fascinating, as is anything involving Nina Simone, and the story of the album even more so, here is a glimpse.

"Veteran jazz producer Creed Taylor decided to sign Nina Simone to his record label after seeing her perform live in 1977 at Drury Lane, and together they would record "Baltimore," (...) Sessions for the album were very tense, with Simone disagreeing with Taylor's production choices—particularly his interest in a reggae sound, which first caused Simone to ask "What is this corny stuff?"Simone's difficult behavior delayed production, but she would eventually record her vocals for the album in a single hour-long sitting. The place of recording may have had something to do with Simone's behavior, as she would later call the historic barn where Baltimore was recorded "a basement in Belgium where I was forced to sing songs in order to get out of there." (source)

The closing track is by Gregory Isaacs who was shown to me by a math teacher when I was twelve and I never stopped listening to that dude. Night Nurse has been many time my shift closing, couting money album. Cutie Cutie is a song I find very interesting, I really enjoy the small electronic addition in the chorus, and his singing is just unbeatable as always.

That's it for today!
Don't forget to check out before 10h30!

Enjoy,
the receptionist

Playlist:

1. Sergio Cuevas - Lagrimas
2. Theo Parrish - What You Gonna Ask For (Theo's Mix)
3. Hiatus Kaiyote - Breathing Underwater
4. Carlos Paredes - III Mudar de Vida (Musica de Fundo)
5. Jorge Ben Jor - Errare Humanum Est
6. Messieurs Richard de Bordeaux et Daniel Beretta - La drogue
7. Jacques Higelin - Est-ce que ma guitare est un fusil
8. Vladislav Blaha - Bach-SuiteN3 BWV 995 I
9. Nina Simone - Baltimore
10. Gregory Isaacs - Cutie Cutie

Sunday at Bob's #16 - Stay At Home

Welcome back for a new Sunday at Bob's! I hope it works with you, I must say I find this new rythm exciting and think the playlists it gives more interesting. So far. Today's Sunday is from home, but it tastes the same. Here it is!

This past weeks I came back to a discovery I had made a few months back with Alain Peters and his Maloya revival. I kind of left it there and contented myself with his beautiful songs, but there is so much more and this week you won't have one, but two songs from that timeless repertoire of music from the Réunion island. Maloya is with séga one of the two major musical genres of the Réunion, it is a genre of both music and dance. Its créole version comes down from its African ancestor, performed by slaves of the island. In the late 1950s, the French government, which localized  the Réunion (made the island a French department), bans the Maloya in an attempt to slow down cultural expressions which could enhance a desire of independance. The same faith was given to any type of communist music. After decades of clandestine concerts, Maloya came back under the spotlights in the 1970s with musicians like Danyél Waro. I propose to you today a song by the band Carrousel and one by Zanmari Barré that I find especially beautiful.

After that we have a brazilian interlude with the great Candeia from Rio, followed by a wonderful version of the classic California Dreamin' by José Feliciano. Comes then a song I am fascinated by as it can be found in pieces in a lot of other songs such as Careless Love, The Longest Train and more. I am talking about In the Pines, this time performed by The Louvin Brothers. In 1958, Claude Lévy-Strauss published a very interesting article called La structure des Mythes in which he defines what myths are and proposes a method to analyse them. He expresses the opinion that there is no true version of a myth that would be, for instance, the oldest one but rather its true form should be found in the ensemble of versions it proposes. The various versions of In the Pines and the fragments of it that can be found in other more remote songs made me think of that. At some point I think folk songs passed from a generation to another probably serve a purpose related with the one myths are.

Before we jump to the arabic part of today's playlist, we make a stop in London with the supergroup The Good, the Bad and the Queen composed of Damon Albarn, Tony Allen (who we will meet again), Simon Tong and Paul Simonon. Interesting album that I recommend if you don't already have it.

We take a turn and enjoy a song taken from an exciting album by flamenco guitarist Juan Martin which enlighten us on the links between flamenco and arabic music, Musica Alhambra. Fairuz takes over with a melancholic tune influenced by jazz that gave its name to today's playlist. Then comes another magic song from the Muscat Oud Festival of Oman. And we end with the wonderful Ghalia Benali with a song I cannot comment with words given the precision with which every note reaches its target.

That's it for this week, I hope you like it!

 Check out time is 10h30 no matter what.

Enjoy,

The receptionist. 

Playlist:

1. Carrousel - Oté Maloya
2. Zanmari Baré - Belbel an ler
3. Candeia - Cabocla Jurema
4. José Feliciano - California Dreamin’
5. The Louvin Brothers - In the Pines
6. The Good, The Bad & The Queen - Three Changes
7. Juan Martin - Evocacion - de Damasco a Cordoba
8. Fairuz - Khaleek Bel Bayet
9. Salim bin Ali al-Maqrashi - Samai Rast, Maqam Rast
10. Ghalia Benali - Ya Msafer