Sunday at Bob's #46 - Superstar

 Hello everyone and welcome back for another hour of music with Sunday at Bob's. I hope you have been doing well. I have been doing great personnally however the keyboard issue I mentionned last time is still unfixed. Don't pay attention to the missing h, j, k, l or 5s, I will do my best with the virtual keyboard.

I usually try to limit the amount of fairly famous musicians in the playlist. Not that I don't enjoy their music but I started the blog as a way to archive music discovered by encounters and to take my turn sharing it. I also have to add that the understanding of who is a "famous" musician is very relative. I noticed that the only fact I moved from Amsterdam to Switzerland, with all the social changes that it implies, had a rather big impact on what I would pic for the playlists. For instance while in Amsterdam, I would be less conflicted by the idea of sharing relatively known French musicians such as Odezenne or MC Solaar, as I'd be confident they would be discoveries for most of my friends. Now that I am here, talking about these artists seem rather pointless. All that to say that in today's playlist, we will have a couple of superstars, hopefully futur superstars in the ears of some.

We begin with the legendary folk singer Sandy Denny, who I discovered through a special show dedicated to her career on NTS. I feel it had been some time we didn't hear good old folk songs here, and when I heard Sandy Denny's voice resonating in my atelier as I was beggining to paint I thought wow this goes in our next playlist no doubt. I think most people remember her group Fairport Convention rather than her solo career (?) but I'd personally put these BBC live sessions in a very reachable shelf and they would rarely get dusty.

Then we have a very beautiful Bossa Blues from the latest album by the brazilian pianist and singer Eliane Elias. It reminds me in a way of the Blues Maqams of  Anouar Brahem. It does not sound at all similar of course but in the statement through a title there is a common mindset, I think. The attempt to build bridges between genres that have more in common in depth than in surface. Something like that.

We go on with a magnificent song by Ángel "El Diferente" Canales. Born in Puerto Rico, he moved with his family to New York at the age of 8. He grew up in East Harlem. He acquired his nickname because of the way he distributes the structure of the choirs of his songs (generally, he uses two choirs with different lyrics in the montuno), his attitude on stage and because of the peculiar timbre of his voice. We have a good taste of it with his timeless hit Nostalgia.

Another hit song by a hit band of the Puerto Rican diaspora with the great Héctor Lavoe & Willie Colón. I highly recommend the song "Que Lio" as well, it has become my top 1 shower song and I now it by heart despite not speaking spanish at all. Special shout out at their album covers, very g.

Oh and then we have another song from this insanely rich musical area that it Brazil, with the very cool, very chill and very dancable Orlandivo. He is followed by a musician I've been wanting to feature here for a while, Tassos Chalkias from Epirus, and you now my love for Epirus music. A compilation of his work recently came out, it is called Divine Reeds, you can get it here and I very much suggest you do so.

The moment you fall in love with Epirote music, a new musical universe will open up to you! This ancient psychedelic folk with jazzy improvisations from the North West of Greece is unique and will touch your soul so deeply that epirotika aficionados always remember the place and the moment when they got to know this hypnotic and mesmerising music. (source)

We go back to Brazil with more superstars. No need to introduce Vinicius de Moraes, Toquinho or Maria Bethânia, I think if you've been folowing this blog for a while you most likely share my love for these monuments of music. Let us simply enjoy in amazement.

Another superstar comes after that, a jazz superstar I had the great honor to see live two summers ago in a magnificent park of Geneva. I had brought some friends along who did not get moved by the music of Ambrose Akinmusire more than that if I recall well. Which I can understand, it is not a super easy music to relate to. The song we have today is not amongst those however, I find it very smooth. You be the judge.

We carry on jazzly with a song from the Jazz is Dead series and before that a very cool love song from Jazzmeia Horn and Her Noble Force's latest album. I am in love with her use of the spoken word form. And on this song specifically it vehiculates so well the urge for detachment and careless mindset of a relationship's first sprouts. Her vibe reminds me a bit of Cécile McLorin Salvant, and that's something.

We close today's playlist with a bit of Polish jazz with a beautiful piece by Jerzy Milian.

Well I hope you enjoyed, I must say it was not easy with this annoying keyboard but I had fun. I can't wait to see you in two weeks.

In the meantime, take care and hand in your key before 10h30!

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Sandy Denny - The Quiet Joy of Brotherhood
2. Eliane Elias - Blue Bossa
3. Ángel Canales - Nostalgia
4. Héctor Lavoe & Willie Colón - No Me den Candela
5. Orlandivo - Um Abraço No Bengil
6. Caetano Veloso - Eleanor Rigby
7. Tassos Chalkias - Dirminitsa (The Bride’s Dance)
8. Vinicius de Moraes/Toquinho/Maria Bethânia - Apelo (Live)
9. Ambrose Akinmusire - An Interlude (that get' more intense)
10. Jazzmeia Horn and Her Noble Force - Let Us (Take Our Time)
11. Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad - Apocalíptico feat. Azymuth
12. Jerzy Milian - Wśród pampasów

Sunday at Bob's #45 - 5hjkl

 Hello everyone and welcome bac for another musical hour this sunday at Bob's! This week unfortunately I won't be able to expand too much because I have lost a couple of letters on my keyboard. It makes it super annoying for me to write, I have a virtual keyboard on my screen for the letters hjkl and the number 5. So what I will do is I will copy-paste what others have written about the musicians we have here today. I hope you'll enoy regardless, here we go.

Gwakasonné is the ecstatic articulation of Robert Oumaou’s artistic and political vision, a unified expression of his interests in American jazz, pre-colonial rhythms, Guadeloupian independence, and Créole poetics. Over the course of three albums, all released in the 80s, Robert piloted a revolving cast of musicians, a venerable who’s-who of Point-a-Pitre avant-jazz pioneers, to deftly intone his creative communal concepts. (source)

From the heavier rock and psychedelic sounds of Rachid & Fethi, Les Djinns and Les Abranis to the haunting folk music of Kri Kri and Djamel Allem and the Film soundtrack moods of Ahmed Malek, 1970s Algerian Folk & Pop documents a key period in the modern musical renaissance of a nation in transition. Most of these tracks are from 45 rpm singles, the key format during the early 1970s before the cassette took over as the medium of choice. Western musical influences can be heard throughout this extremely diverse record yet there is an undeniable Algerian sense of sadness contained here within a more tolerant space in time between two of the country’s most significant historical periods; National Independence from France and the darker times of a brutal civil war yet to come. Compiled by Hicham Chadly. (source)

Spare and haunting, the music of Ali Bahia El Idrisi's native Morocco comes shining through on this tasty CD, along with much more. His arrangements incorporate traditional instruments like oud, ney, darbouka and shakers right alongside fretless bass and and sampled loops. The effect is rhythmic, haunting, and engaging, with passionate vocals. "Gelfou Alfou Hadami" gets its groove from bass and organ, sounding like chillout Rai or the Nubian groovitude of Ali Hassan Kuban. The title track is similarly chillin' - but by the time you reach "Dodovoiz" the electronica is turned up a notch for an enjoyable though far less organic result, one that sounds like jazzy ethnolounge as much as North African music. (source)

Baligh Hamdi (بليغ حمدى‎ 7 October 1931 – 17 September 1993) was an Egyptian composer who created hit songs for many prominent Arabic singers, especially during the 1960s and 1970s.  (...) Baligh Hamdi frequently said that he drew upon musical ideas and aesthetics in Egyptian folk melodies and rhythms in composing his songs. He also drew on ideas that were floating around in the contemporary music of his time. His sound has a classical flavor due to the heavy use of the string orchestra. But he also made some use of electronic keyboards and guitars in harmony with the strings, or alternating with the strings, in many songs. (source)

Rich in musical associations yet utterly singular in its voice, joyous with an inner tranquility, the music of Natural Information Society is unlike any other being made today. Their sixth album in eleven years for eremite records, descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is the first to be recorded live, featuring a set from London’s Cafe OTO with veteran English free-improv great Evan Parker, & the first to feature just one extended composition. The 75-minute performance, inspired by the galvanizing presence of Parker, is a sustained bacchanalia of collective ecstasy. You could call it their party album. (source)

This is a fascinating release from New York's late eighties East Side art scene, the last gasp before the gentrification.  Rebby Sharp plays and sings a strange mix of folk and bluegrass, throwing in conscious lyrics with a fried sense of humour.  She is ably supported by guests such as the Shimmy Disc head honch, Kramer, and underground legends, Fred Frith and Tom Cora.  There's a lovely cover version of The Holy Modal Rounders' Hesitation Blues. (source)

As a child, James Thomas earned his nickname by modeling Ford tractors out of the red “gumbo” clay found in the hills of Yazoo County. He later adopted the moniker as a blues performer playing the Mississippi Delta region. Thomas first learned guitar and sculpture from his uncle, and his art proved a valuable source of income, supplementing the wages he earned picking cotton and digging graves. In 1982 Thomas’s clay sculptures were featured in Black Folk Art in America, 1930–1980, organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. (source)

Andrew "Andy" Brown (February 2, 1900 - August 1960) was an American jazz reedist. He played clarinet, bass saxophone, alto saxophone, and tenor saxophone, and is best known for his longtime association with Cab Calloway.

Early in the 1920s Brown worked in the bands of P.B. Langford and Wilson Robinson. He was a member of the house band at Harlem's Cotton Club starting in 1925. This group eventually came to be known as the Missourians  under bandleader Andrew Preer; by the end of the 1920s, Cab Calloway had taken leadership of it. Brown played in Calloway's band until 1945, including on many recording sessions and a tour of Europe in 1934. He appeared alongside Calloway as a performer in sound films including Hi-De-Ho (1937), Blues in the Night (1942), and Minnie the Moocher (1942). In the late 1940s Brown ran a music education studio in New York. (source)

D' Boys (pronounced as The Boys) was a Yugoslav synthpop/pop rock band from Belgrade.

The band was formed in 1982, consisting of two musicians: Peđa D'Boy (real name Predrag Jovanović, vocals, guitar) and Miško Mihajlovski, who reportedly "played the drum machine" and percussion. Jovanović was previously a vocalist for Lutalice, performed in cafes in France, spent some time on Goa beaches performing with jazz and rock musicians from all over the world, and was a vocalist for the German progressive/krautrock band Jane, with which he recorded their 1980 self-titled album. Mihajlovski was previously a member of the new wave/art rock band Kozmetika, and was one of the artists involved in the Izgled pop culture magazine. (source)

That's is for this week, I will see you next week with enough letters on my keboard to write something interesting!

In the meantime don't forget to check out at 10h30 maximum, and have a beautiful sunday,
The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Gwakassonné - Algérie 62
2. Les djinns - Nesthel
3. Bahia El Idrissi - Atahaddi
4. Baligh Hamdi - Sahara/Love Story
5. Natural Information Society - Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) I
6. Rebby Sharp - Just in Time
7. James « Son Ford » Thomas - 44 Blues
8. Alex Wiliams - The Thrill Ain’t Gone
9. Andrew Brown - You Made Me Suffer
10. D’BOYS - Sneana