Hello everyone, welcome back after a loooong break! I hope you and your loved ones have been doing good, enjoyed a beautiful sumer and stayed healthy. So many things have happened in the past months I can't even begin to tell you. Surely it is the case for you too. I mentionned in the last posts that I was living an wifi-less life, this is all over now. For various reasons (main one being that we live in an age where every effort is put into keeping us connected) I had to install that evil stuff in my appartement again. One of the good things about that is that I went back to browsing blogs and discovering new music rather than browsing my old hard drives. Another good thing that happened recently led to the fact I most likely will have more time in the coming year to share music here, so I will do my best to keep the reception up to date. Alright now let's see if I haven't forgotten how this works. Sit back, turn the volume up, press play and enjoy.
We begin with a beautiful acappella song by The Singers Unlimited. Michelle is a song I tracked down after listening to a recent rap album the other day. A very beautiful thing with rap is that the sample selections are always leading you to super interesting music. I think I mentioned a few years back the possibility of making a playlist only with songs sampled by rappers. I love you, I love you, I looooove you. What a pleasant song isn't it?
We go on with the singer I have been listening to the most in the past months. Cheb is a Moroccan musician from the region that produces Morocco's finest (and only?) sprakling water, Oulmès. On a personal level I am always attracted to songs when I can understand some words, sentences from a language I don't master. I think that was my first appeal to Cheb's music. But it turned out to be so much more than that. There is a deep understanding, respect and reappropriation of Moroccan' musical culture in his songs. Whether it be from the berber music with influences such as the great Mohamed Rouicha, who we listened to here some time ago, or popular music like Najat Aatabou for instance. So for me it is really a revival of the soundtrack to my childhood breakfasts before going to school. In a saucer my father used to put olive oil and a tea spoon of honey, we would then break bread and dip it in, all that with Maghni singing his best songs in the background. I am not gonna go into his lyrics which I gather are a big part of his success and worth being studied, mainly because I don't understand them enough. I will just say they are sung in true Moroccan dialect, which is always a pleasure for me. I also wanted to add that such posture towards artists of the past is I think something that deserves attention. While Cheb is creating something new (he uses hashtags such as #NEOCHAABI or #POSTCHAABI on his Instagram) he is not dismissing at all Moroccan's popular heritage, quite the opposite. It is a posture I am actively trying to incorporate in my personal art practice. Ket diri lhar, yak al har fabor?
With the next song I wanted to make a shout out to the begginings of this blog. Brazilian guests at Bob's were probably the most musically enriching individuals I've met in my life. They were definitely a trigger for this initiative. We've had many discussions and they have showed me so much from this huge musical continent that is Brazil. I recently acquired a live album by Geraldo Vandré, but I don't know much about him. It begins with a song that sounds like it has political resonance, the kind of resonance typical from the late 60s. But I won't adventure myself into statements about a period and place I know nothing about. He is amongst those brazilian musicians who were forced to exile by the dictatorship in place since 1964. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil went to London (where they made musical discoveries that had an interesting influence on them, this can be heard very well on Veloso's 1972 album Transa recorded in London, for instance) Gilberto Vandré went to Chile and then to France. Anyway Se a Tristeza Chegar is amongst those songs that taste like honey to our ears and it gives me chills everytime I listen to it.
After that we have a song by Onça Combo, a group I discovered in one of my bandcamp journeys. It is difficult to gather more informations about it than the sober description on their bandcamp page given the fact I do not speak brazilian.
A folk jazz trio from Brazil exploring northeastern brazilian
traditions, spiritual jazz, minimalism and free improvisation. Active
since 2015 in Brazil and Belgium. (source)
We go on with the immense Barış Manço and the Kurtalan Ekspres, who we have here for the second time at least so I won't expand too much on them except to say it is always a thrill to listen to.
Then we have the great Cheb Zergui with a song featured in a very cool compilation of Algerian raï of the early 1970s. In other words a type of raï we are not accustomed to in the western world. Most of us know about Khaled, Cheb Mami, 123 Soleil etc. But who knows the early Cheb Khaled? The sexy trumpets of Wahrane surrounding tragic love songs? Anyway here is the link to it, it is called 1970's Algerian Proto-Rai Underground.
After that the great (understatement) multi-disciplinary artist Lonnie Holley invites us to reflect through a beautiful composition on a crucial question. How far is spaced out? Lonnie Holley is one of these artists that forces respect. It is through such art practice we realise how strong is the urge to build things is in most of us. Do we think too much? Holley was born in the 1950s Jim Crow era, south of the United States. He claims to have been traded at age 4 for a bottle of whiskey. These are the kinds of life paths we cannot even begin to fathom. I won't expand too much on his life but it seems interesting to me to link it with this urge to make things that I mentioned before. This urge is bigger than school, bigger than universities, bigger than museums and galleries. Not much can stop it and the examples we have of attempts to contain it have always turned out unsuccessful and temporary. We talked a bit about Brazil before, abour Greece some time ago. Let us keep that in mind.
SAT by Boban Markovic is a tribute to years of my life that are behind me. It is with nostalgia that I look back, with a smile that I dance with Boban. Kostas Pitsos and Christos Papadopoulos' Syrtos and Kenny Burrell's Soul Lament are other tributes to that life. I used to close my shifts on Kenny Burrell. Then we have two beautiful songs, one by Matt Elliott and the other by Michio Miyagi. And we close this episode with the oldest surviving complete musical score, the Epitaph of Seikilos, performed by Michael Levy.
Ὅσον ζῇς φαίνου
μηδὲν ὅλως σὺ λυποῦ
πρὸς ὀλίγον ἔστι τὸ ζῆν
τὸ τέλος ὁ χρόνος ἀπαιτεῖ.
While you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and Time demands his due.
I wish you all a great sunday, and I see you very soon!
Check out time is 10h30. Please return your keys before that.
The receptionist
Playlist:
1. The Singers Unlimited - Michelle
2. Cheb - في إنتظار السندويش
3. Geraldo Vandré - Se a Tristeza Chegar
4. Charles Aznavour - Qui
5. Onça Combo, Thomas Rohrer, Julian Sanchez - O Autoproclamado Campeão
6. Barış Manço & Kurtalan Ekspres - Ham Meyvayı Kopardılar Dalından
7. Cheb Zergui - Ana dellali (I Cuddle Myself)
8. Lonnie Holley - How Far Is Spaced Out?
9. Boban Markovic - SAT
10. Kostas Pitsos/Christos Papadopoulos - Syrtos
11. Kenny Burrell - Soul Lament
12. Matt Elliott - What’s Wrong
13. Michio Miyagi - Variations on Sakura
14. Michael Levy - Epitaph of Seikilos (Complete Ancient Greek Melody Composed by Seikilos, Son of Euterpe, 1st Century CE - Arranged For Replica Lyr)
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