The Whole Music Experience

Stevie Wonder Innervisions Motown/Universal (1973) Ah, Stevie, how did I forget you for so many years? I grew up with Stevie Wonder music surrounding me.   Then when I was in college, I took a dance class and our final performance featured Sir Duke .   However, after I discovered alternative rock, I stopped listening to soul music, and poor Mr. Wonder was relegated to the back closets of my mind.   That was until a few months ago when I heard Sir Duke playing the background at the food coop.   Stevie was back and just in time, since now I decided to include a chapter on soul music for my book-in-progress, Whole Music . Oh, I’m enjoying this. When Stevie released Innervisions in 1973 I was in grade school, but I heard the gritty socio-commentary Living for the City , the catchy Don’t You Worry “Bout a Thing , and the funky Higher Ground on a pop radio station.   However, at the time I did not recognize Wonder’s musical genius.   I knew nothing about song cr

Photo: By Patricia Herlevi I ask myself what are the chances that I will meet a didgeridoo player, enjoy exposure to crystal singing bowls at a spiritual shop, and encounter someone playing electric guitar on the sidewalk in one afternoon? Yet, one day last week, the sound universe revealed its diversity.  Along with that, I tracked my emotional and physical responses to the diverse encounters.  While I found the frequencies of the singing bowl and the didgeridoo relaxing and uplifting, the electric guitar (performing hard rock) did not appeal to my senses, and in fact, I experienced a fight or flight response.  I chose the flight. On another day, the sun came out and as I walked through a quaint neighborhood, I heard guitar blues coming over someone speakers, the music poured onto the street and some how, this felt like the right music for the right time and environment.  I bring these scenarios up because the majority of humans walk by musical sounds everyday and experience mus

Putumayo Presents African Blues Putumayo World Music (Release Date: April 24, 2012) While many world music listeners think of Mali when the topic of African blues comes up, African blues it seems traverses the African continent.  Personally, I’m glad that Putumayo World Music pointed that out to me with African Blues --a compilation that features plenty of groovy Malian blues, but also includes Taj Mahal’s collaboration with Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar, which by the way, is nowhere near Mali.  As it turns out, the track, Dhow Countries by Taj Mahal Meets Culture Musical Club of Zanzibar is my favorite song on the compilation.  Mahal’s dusky signature wed to the Arabic strings of the Zanzibar orchestra hits the spot.  Besides, it is the only song sung in English so I can understand the story in the song. So you’re wondering who else appears on the compilation.  The usual suspects such as Tinariwen (a Tuareg rock band from Mali), who teams up with Playing for Change