The Whole Music Experience

Dream Time The Didgeridoo of the Australian Aborigines Arc Music (2010) Want to get your root and sacral chakras open?   Listen to didgeridoo, a percussive-wind instrument made from eucalyptus trees hollowed out by termites.   More than likely, if you listen to global indigenous, new age, or world music, you have come across didgeridoos.   The players mastered circular breathing as they blow into the tubular instrument, often decorated with Australian Aborigines symbols (Dream Time).   Face it, this is an instrument with indigenous mysticism attached to it, but it is an almost rare occasion that you hear Aborigines music played on the didgeridoo in context and by performed by Aborigines musicians.   Dream Time opens a window to music of the Australian bush.   And listeners also get exposed to traditional vocals, percussion, and dance rhythms. So what does this music sound like?   The stickman-vocalist pounds out quick rhythms on ...

Ahmed Mukhtar & Sattar Al-Saadi Music from Iraq (Rhythms of Baghdad) Arc Music (2010) I have listened and watched oud players (an Arabic lute) from Lebanon, Turkey, and other countries, but Rhythms of Baghdad marks the first oud album by Iraqi musicians.   Here we have a duo of Ahmed Mukhtar (oud) and Sattar Al-Saadi on percussion (riqq, tar, dombak and other drums) performing sensuous modes and rhythms.   The robust opener, Souq Baghdadi features “a very old Iraqi rhythm called Gorgena,” but even listeners unfamiliar with the scales, and other architecture of traditional Iraqi music, will find this piece uplifting and full of light. The second piece Mantasf-al-lil carries a darker message.   “It describes a scene of Iraqi refugees on the ocean in the middle of the night looking for land to seek refuge in.”   The slow tempo and melancholic melody played on the lower end of the spectrum wed to tense percussion, convey the sadness and longin...

Daniil Trifonov, Valery Gergiev Mariinsky Orchestra Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 Mariinsky label Distributor--Harmonia Mundi While I returned to college in 2007, I relied on classical music for memory retention and for stress-reduction.   I recall listening to the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto, No. 1, along with pieces by Mozart.   The famous concerto seemed as familiar to my ears as melodies from the composer’s Nutcracker Suite .   Now, I’m listening to a new recording by a young Russian virtuoso Daniil Trifonov, who also performs songs by Schubert, Schumann, and Chopin’s Barcarolle .   Certainly, I feel impressed with Trifonov’s wide emotional palette and great dexterity as he interprets Romantic era music representing several countries.   Joining with the Mariinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev (no stranger to me), the program’s focus on the recording, Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 , lands on the piano...

Orchestra Popolare Campana Directed by Emilio Di Donato CM (Caserta Musica) Records According to the liner notes for Orchestra Popolare Campana, “Few places are more musical than Campania” of southern Italy (Amalfi Coast, Naples, Capri).   I’ll have to take writer Augusto Ferraiuolo’s word because I know little about regional music of Italy.   Certainly, I have heard traditional tarantata (tarantula) songs, in which a rousing one, Tarantella Tosta opens this album.   However, my experience with Italian orchestra music is relegated to movie soundtracks, such as the circus-like Fellini soundtracks composed by the late Nino Rota.   And of course, I have listened to Italian renaissance and baroque music.   Orchestra Popolare Campana threads sacred Christian chants with a carnival lament and primal tarantata into wondrous musical tapestry--the past and the present intermingling. Lead by the early music reed pipe, Ciaramella (which you’ll also...

Narasirato Pan Pipers Solomon Islands Cry of the Ancestors Arc Music If you follow traditional/folkloric music of the world, you have most likely come across panpipe players from the Andes and from Eastern European countries such as Hungary.   I have heard those pipes, but pan pipers from the Solomon Islands have only recently caught my attention on the CD Cry of the Ancestors .   Narasirato represent the Are’are people of Malaita Island and these musicians who sing, play panpipes, and traditional percussion perform music that oddly sounds like a deep forest circus rolling into town or resembles the panpipes of Andes musicians. When vocals appear, (such as on the track Prophetic Word ), they are delivered in raspy voices that soar to the heights of Native American pow-wow vocals.   Call & response voices compete with the jagged panpipes and drums that sound like a heartbeat slapping against one’s chest. Side Step with the Toes (an odd tit...

Best of Greece (The Athenians, Michalis Terzis, Kriteos... Arc Music Listening to Greek music reminds me of eating in Greek restaurants, Zorba the Greek and the movie My Big Greek Wedding .   I know as a music reviewer who has covered the Mediterranean I should know more about Greek music than bouzoukis and brief encounters with Greek blues known as rembetika.   I actually taste spanikopita while I listen to Best of Greece.   The acoustic instruments bouzouki, baglama (a Mediterranean lute), drums, and vocals set an exotic backdrop for winding up a summer’s day.   The music of several bands, The Athenians, Michalis Terzis, Kriteos, and Talking to Charos uplift and we visualize dancers working themselves into frenzies. This 2-CD set creates a dining or dancing atmosphere.   L isten to it alone or preferably in good company of friends and family.   Ugandan musician Samite once told concert attendees that in Uganda it’s not music unless ...