In Review--Dance of Spiders

-


World 
Newpoli 
Tempo Antico 
Beartones
  
My first impressions of the Italian Tarantata folkloric tradition came from grainy video footage of Italian women spinning in a trance caused by the bite of a tarantula spider. I experienced my second impression of Tarantata when Alessandra Belloni’s Dance of the Ancient Spider (Sounds True) showed up in my mailbox in 2006.  At that point, I gleaned the wisdom of the true purpose of this ancient ritualistic dance and the rousing songs that accompanied the frenzied dance (to heal women’s sexual issues and repression).  While the dance and songs explore healing components, you can also find the tradition presented as folkloric music in concerts and on recordings.
 
The founding members of Newpoli explored their Italian culture after arriving in the US to study jazz at Berklee College of Music.  On their third recording Tempo Antico, the musicians travel as far back as the 1500s where they dug the roots up of some early music gems.  The musicians led by the dual vocalists, Angela Rossi and Carmen Marisco perform on folkloric and early music instruments from Italy.  We feel like we are enjoying the Italian renaissance at times and at other times like we’re observing a folk ritual that dates back hundreds if not thousands of years.  We hear passionate vocals singing irresistible melodies over exotic lutes, violin, frame drums and the Italian oboe (ciaramella).
 
Listen to the lively Trapanarella which hops and skips along or the hypnotic Pizzicarella or the ballad, Funtana che ddaje acqua which sounds like it hails from an Italian renaissance courtyard. As we listen to this recording we engage in time travel, darting between the Middle Age (Amore Amore) to the early 20th Century (Dicitencello Vuje) with the bulk of the songs hailing from the 16th and 17 centuries.  Certainly, the musician’s scholarly efforts deserve applause as does the beauty of their performances on this recording.

http://www.newpolimusic.com


Newpoli in concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5W5K5KiZVg

Vintage Tarantata footage found on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoWjMK93Lv8

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to Peyote Songs & The Native American Church

-
Image
Father Peyote: Songs of the Native American Church Introduction to the Peyote Church Ceremony This is an archival article written in 2003.  It's not updated.  For more recent recordings, go to Canyon Records website, http://www.canyonrecords.com When some people speak of Native American ceremonies, the peyote ceremony or the ingestion of the hallucinogen peyote (contains mescaline) usually surfaces. However, there is too much false information being passed around in the non-native community surrounding peyote meetings. The first thing people need to know about the Native American connection to peyote is that the plant is sacred medicine ingested as a sacrament during healing ceremonies of the Native American Church. The second thing, people need to know is that the Native American Church is not a set structure like the Christian Church. The peyote meeting could take place in a Navajo hogan or a teepee. And finally, since the peyote meeting does in part derive fro...
Read more

21st Century Musical Healer Series--Heather Hannan

-
Image
 Healing with Sound and Reiki Based in Toronto, Canada, Heather Hannan has proven with her own life healing experiences the enormous power of sound frequencies. She acts as a bridge between the mundane world (real estate) to other spiritual dimensions (past life regressions, quantum physics, Reiki, sound frequencies,  and other cutting edge work). I met Heather through my Linked In group Musical Healers and I'm delighted to include her work and insights on this blog. As you know, raising music and sound consciousness takes a world-size village of folks, just like Heather dedicating their lives to working with the healing power of sound.  Whole Music: When did you discover and begin exploring sound healing? Heather Hannan: Ten years ago I was at a crossroads in my life and looking for a group of like-minded people with whom to explore my gifts and talents through meditation. Little did I know that via the meditation group I joined I would be i...
Read more

Talking about Timbre

-
Image
Wikipedia As I mention in my book Whole Music , when I was a child I fell in love with timbre and the voices of the individual instruments we listened to in music class.  Each instrument conjured a specific emotions or feeling in me.  The French horn caused me to feel majestic and the cello invoked melancholy.  My moods would shift with each instrument that I heard and my moods would shift quickly. Today, I listen to more than timbre, but I have an understanding of how tone, frequencies of the tone and timbre (the color of the tone) affect me on all levels.  And I wonder what listening to an entire symphony does with its many voices, themes, keys, musical passages etc... In the concept of "whole music" I prefer not to separate musical components, but in the case of this post, I will present solo instruments for your listening and feeling pleasure. If you keep a music journal (and I hope that you do by now), write down the emotions that come up with each instr...
Read more