Category Archives: Performers

by | September 28, 2024 · 6:00 am

Jazz in India

Arriving in India in the mid-1930s in search of performance opportunities and a better quality of life, African American jazz musicians significantly contributed to the growth of jazz and Western popular music in the country. In 1935, Bombay’s premier hotel, the Taj Mahal, hired the first all-African-American jazz band to play in India. The eight-member band, led by Leon Abbey, a violinist from Minnesota, included a host of experienced musicians who had performed alongside jazz legends. Their success and influence attracted local Anglo-Indian and Goan musicians, who began to perform jazz in the cosmopolitan centers of India. In Bombay, Goan musicians incorporated Western popular music into local cabaret performances and even into early film songs. In this context, African American musicians played a pivotal role in broadening the landscape of Western popular music in India, shaping early Bombay cabaret songs and the hybrid sounds of the emerging film industry.

Goan jazz musician Rudy Cotton.
Members of Duke Ellington’s orchestra in India with tabla player Chatur Lal.

The presence of jazz orchestras in Bombay during the 1940s and 1950s highlighted various historical connections. These orchestras supplied essential musical resources for creating cabaret scenes in Hindi-language films. African American jazz musicians residing in India inspired local musicians to join urban jazz orchestras, which led to the development of a vibrant jazz cabaret economy. This economy was centered around recording in film studios, collaborating with film music composers, performing as backdrop dance bands in movies, and engaging in ghost composing and arranging.

Furthermore, ragtime and jazz were performed in Calcutta’s hotels and clubs, which were vital to the social lives of the elite during colonial India. While the musicians were often European or American, especially when foreign bands were brought in for a season, some ensembles included Anglo-Indian members. These Anglo-Indian musicians served as intermediaries, transmitting theoretical knowledge of Western harmony and teaching the use of Western instruments to subsequent generations of musicians in post-independence India. They were also the first Indian musicians to perform jazz and blues standards in Calcutta and Bombay around World War II, playing a significant role in the spread of jazz and blues music throughout the country.

This according to “Orchestras and musical intersections with regimental bands, blackface minstrel troupes, and jazz in India, 1830s–1940s” by Bradley G. Shope, Global perspectives on orchestras: Collective creativity and social agency, ed. by Tina K. Ramnarine (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2017, 226–241; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2017-33724), and “Jazz and race in colonial India: The role of Anglo-Indian musicians in the diffusion of jazz in Calcutta” by Stéphane Dorin (Jazz research journal 4/2 [November 2010] 123–140; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2010-19314).

Also, visit the online exhibit Finding the groove: Pioneers of jazz in India 1930s-1960s. The exhibit is based on archival materials collected by Naresh Fernandes at the Archive and Research Center for Ethnomusicology (ARCE).

Comments Off on Jazz in India

Filed under Asia, Jazz and blues, Migrations, Performers, Popular music, Reception, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | September 25, 2024 · 6:00 am

Youssou N’Dour, cultural ambassador for African music

The Senegalese singer, songwriter, musician, and politician Youssou N’Dour was born just six months before Senegal achieved independence. His mother hailed from a long line of griots, or gawlo, who served as hereditary musicians and custodians of oral history in traditional Senegalese culture. In contrast, his father, who did not come from a griot background, discouraged him from pursuing a career in music. Nevertheless, at the age of 12, Youssou began performing at local events, including kassaks (circumcision ceremonies) and ngentes (baptisms). By 13, he had his first major public performance with the song M’Ba, marking the start of his professional singing career.

For a brief period, N’Dour attended the École des Arts but quickly lost interest in classical Western music education. In 1975, he joined Ibrahim Kassé’s Star Band, the house band at the popular nightclub Le Miami. After two years, he left the band along with several other members to form a new group, Étoile de Dakar, in 1977. In 1984, Youssou N’Dour was invited to perform in Paris alongside the Ghanaian-English band Osibisa on April 4th, celebrating Senegalese Independence Day before an audience of 12,000 at the Espace Bala. Among the attendees was British rock musician Peter Gabriel, who was so captivated by N’Dour’s voice that he later traveled to Dakar to meet him.

N’Dour performs Nelson Mandela on his 1987 tour with Peter Gabriel.

In 2012, N’Dour declared his candidacy for the Senegalese presidential elections. His song Fekke ma ci boole became an anthem for his political campaign. Although he was ultimately disqualified from the election due to alleged irregularities with his signatures, his candidacy played a crucial role in uniting the opposition. In addition to his political endeavors, N’Dour has received numerous honors for his musical and humanitarian work, being appointed as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and a FAO Global Goodwill Ambassador in 2000. In a recent interview, N’Dour spoke of music’s power to bring people together. According to him, “When you’re a musician you speak a universal language that overcomes divisions and [can] bring people together, remind them of our common humanity and promote understanding and solidarity. Music is a melody and a word that can speak of love, friendship, peace, and subjects that concern us all, such as the environment and immigration – subjects that we all experience in our daily lives. Also, throughout my career, I’ve always been open to world cultures while putting an African stamp on them.”

Read the new entry on Youssou N’Dour in MGG Online.

Comments Off on Youssou N’Dour, cultural ambassador for African music

Filed under Africa, Performers, Politics, Popular music, World music

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | September 21, 2024 · 6:00 am

The voice of el pueblo

The Mexican singer-songwriter Amparo Ochoa is considered one of the most remarkable and versatile performers of the Mexican canto nuevo movement (related to nueva canción). Born in Culiacán in 1946, Ochoa grew up singing at various school events and with her father. She later taught in rural grade schools in her home state where songs were an essential part of her teaching. Her deep connection with Mexican and Latin American audiences is often expressed through her innate charm. This sense of popularity is not only rooted in the political messages of the songs she performed but also in the influential platforms where she showcased her talent.

The widespread perception of her voice as representative of the people is rooted in the rich vocal traditions of early 20th century Mexican musical theater, which evolved throughout the century and were recontextualized during the Latin American Cold War. These vocal strategies, deeply impactful on listeners, shaped their understanding of el pueblo and fostered sympathy for movements opposing dictatorial regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. This interpretation of her voice foregrounds the role of music and song in the ideological and political frameworks of the time and expresses how the emotional resonance of her voice influenced listeners’ subjectivity.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by reading “La voz del pueblo y para el pueblo” Amparo Ochoa’s vocal trajectory: From the Mexican Revolution to the Latin American Cold War” by Natalia Bieletto Bueno (Journal of interdisciplinary voice studies 5/1 [2020] 9–28; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2020-72069).

Below is a video of Ochoa performing the song A que te tiras cuando sueñas mexicano on a Mexican television program.

Comments Off on The voice of el pueblo

Filed under North America, Performers, Politics, Popular music, Voice

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | September 11, 2024 · 6:00 am

Front 242’s electronic body music

The Belgian band Front 242 was formed in 1981 by programmers Patrick Codenys and Dirk Bergen. The lineup expanded a year later with the addition of Daniel Bressanutti (Daniel B. Prothese) and vocalist Jean-Luc De Meyer. Drawing initial inspiration from Kraftwerk and Throbbing Gristle, their music is known for its hard-hitting rhythms and pure electronic sounds, making it instantly danceable. This innovative approach led to the creation of a new musical genre: electronic body music (EBM). Front 242’s groundbreaking albums have significantly influenced a host of subsequent bands.

In 1982, Front 242 released their debut single and album, Geography. By 1984, with the release of the EP No Comment, the band’s sound took a harder edge, setting them apart from the burgeoning synthpop scene and establishing their distinctive sonic landscapes. By 1987, Front 242 had gained a record contract in the U.S. through Chicago’s Wax Trax! Records, which featured a diverse roster of mostly European aggressive synthesizer acts later lumped together under the term “industrial rock”. The U.S. market, at this point, appeared ready for Front 242’s brand of innovative electronic music. The following year, they released their third LP, Front by Front.

The band quickly attracted the attention of major labels and signed with Sony/Epic Records. Their single Tragedy for you received immediate promotion on MTV, but some fans of their earlier work did not take to their new major label sound. By 1991, Front 242, along with Ministry and Skinny Puppy, became key figures in a global industrial music movement. During this period, they released two albums that marked a significant departure from their earlier style, leading to a split with some longtime fans. In 1995, Jean-Luc De Meyer left the band to focus on his solo project, Cobalt 60, but Front 242 reunited the following year and embarked on a world tour. In describing advice he would give to other electronic musicians, Patrick Codenys says,

“Use your human abilities and your senses; think about what you want to achieve and construct before you are taken by the technology. Electronic music can be very mental, even conceptual. Each album needs a philosophy. Research how to program because it is also a big part of how you will use the creative tools like synths and production to serve your artistic ideas.”

This according to Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon: Das Lexikon der schwarzen Szene (2003). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

Now in their fourth decade of existence, Front 242 are on their final tour performing in Mexico, the United States, and Europe beginning in March 2024 and ending in their hometown of Brussels, Belgium in January 2025. Below is their video for Tragedy for you, a song that some say signaled the end of the 1980s EBM era.

Read a related Bibliolore post:

Skinny Puppy’s last rights

Comments Off on Front 242’s electronic body music

Filed under Mass media, Performers, Popular music

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | September 4, 2024 · 6:00 am

Lester Young, saxophone giant

The tenor saxophonist Lester “Prez” Young grew up in the New Orleans area, where his father led a family band that toured the country with tent shows. Young initially played violin, trumpet, drums, and alto saxophone in the band before switching to tenor saxophone in the late 1920s. He began his professional career in the Midwest, performing with bands such as Walter Page’s Blue Devils in 1930 and Bennie Moten‘s band in 1933, which also featured the young pianist, Bill Basie. In 1934, Young briefly joined the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra as a replacement for the renowned saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. However, his distinctive tone was not well received by the other musicians, leading him to leave the band after a few months and return to Kansas City. There, he played with Andy Kirk and made his first recordings in 1936 with a small group around Count Basie. Young continued to be associated with Basie’s band, with occasional breaks, until 1944.

Cover art for Lester Young Trio album.

Young’s solos on Shoeshine boy and Lady be good quickly became classics, influencing many fellow instrumentalists. In the late 1930s, he also collaborated on numerous studio recordings with singer Billie Holiday. In 1944, Young was drafted into the army, where he was court-martialed for drug possession and served several months in prison. After his discharge, he was signed in 1946 by impresario Norman Granz, who featured him prominently on his Jazz at the Philharmonic tours. During this period, Young led his own bands, typically composed of younger musicians influenced by bebop, and recorded extensively, including notable sessions with pianist Teddy Wilson.

Unfortunately, alcohol and depression, worsened by his military experiences, led to frequent hospitalizations starting in 1955. In January 1959, Young accepted a gig at the Blue Note Club in Paris but returned to New York soon after due to health issues. He died in New York, ultimately succumbing to the effects of alcoholism.

Cover art for album with the Oscar Peterson Trio.

Lester Young significantly influenced cool jazz saxophonists such as Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, and Al Cohn, who drew inspiration from his introspective vocal style and improvisations grounded in motivic details. Even bebop musicians like Charlie Parker were notably influenced by Young’s melodic lines, particularly during the early stages of his career. In one of his recording sessions, Young said, “I don’t like a whole lot of noise . . . trumpets and trombones. I’m looking for something soft. It’s got to be sweetness, man, you dig?”

Find the entry on Lester Young in MGG Online. The photo at the beginning of the post is of Lester Young at the Famous Door in New York City, September 1946.

Listen to Lester Young perform at Birdland in New York City here Live at Birdland | Lester Young (bandcamp.com)

Comments Off on Lester Young, saxophone giant

Filed under Jazz and blues, Performers

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | August 31, 2024 · 6:00 am

Labor’s troubadour

The musician and union educator Joe Glazer, known as “labor’s troubadour”, made significant contributions to work and union songs through his composition, performance, study, and recording from the 1940s to the 2000s. Although not as widely recognized outside labor circles as Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, Glazer played a crucial role in documenting and providing a soundtrack for many of the 20th century U.S. labor movement’s struggles. Glazer, who referred to himself “an agitator for all good causes”, recorded more than 30 albums, wrote a book about labor music, and recruited a new generation of protest singers.

Born in Manhattan on 19 June 1918, Glazer was the son of a tailor in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Growing up in the Bronx, he admired crooners like Gene Autry, and often played along with them at home on his guitar. He later joined the textile workers as an assistant education director and capitalized on his boss’s suggestion to use the guitar as a tool to inspire and rally workers. During his travels, Glazer encountered an early version of the song We shall overcome at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, which he later recorded with the Elm City Four in 1950. The version he first heard had been adapted from Black tobacco union workers who first sang it on a picket line in 1946.

In 1950, Glazer wrote Too old to work, a protest song inspired by the United Auto Workers’ campaign for occupational pensions. Just four days after Chrysler workers in Michigan adopted the song, the manufacturer capitulated to the union’s demands. The song quickly became a powerful tool for organizers, educators, politicians, and musicians, cementing its place as one of the most influential pension songs in the U.S. labor movement.

This according to “Too old to work: Joe Glazer, labour music, and occupational pensions” by Simon H. Buck, (Comparative American studies 18/3 [2021] 281–301; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2021-10611).

Listen to Solidarity forever and The give away boys by Joe Glazer below.

Solidarity Forever | Joe Glazer | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (bandcamp.com)

Comments Off on Labor’s troubadour

Filed under Labor, Performers, Politics, Popular music

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | August 9, 2024 · 6:00 am

Trinidad’s steel drum tradition

The steel drum, or steelpan, developed in Trinidad in the late 1930s, is not a drum but a tuned idiophone, akin to a tuned gong. Unlike membranophones, the steel pan does not have a vibrating membrane. Its creation process involves hammering the lid of an oil drum into a concave shape and denting different sections to produce various pitches. While tuned gongs have a long history, this innovative technique of converting an oil drum into a musical instrument is a relatively recent development.

During British colonial rule, the steel drum was banned throughout Trinidad because the colonial government believed that Africans living on the island would communicate secretly using the drums and create an uprising. This led musicians to seek alternative instruments. They created tamboo-bamboo bands by beating bamboo tubes with mallets and supplemented their ensembles with bottles, tin pots, garbage can lids, and car brake drums. The steel drum’s development can’t be attributed to a single individual, but Trinidadian drummers such as Ellie Manette, Winston Spree, and Neville Jules made significant contributions to its musical development in the 1940s.

Building a steel drum involves several precise steps: cutting a barrel to a specific length, hammering the lid into a concave shape, marking the positions for each note, hardening the metal, and then carefully tuning and shaping each section. Steel drums are played using rubber-headed mallets of various thicknesses and lengths. While the arrangement of the individual notes is not standardized, tuning typically involves intervals of thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths, with major or minor seconds being less common. Performers of the steel drum are known as panmen, though by the 1990s, women comprised about 15 percent of steel drum musicians.

Steel bands first gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s in the slums of Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. During this time, rival gangs often clashed in the streets, which negatively affected the reputation of steel bands. The calypso musician Mighty Sparrow famously captured this sentiment in a song, highlighting the stigma associated with steel band musicians:

“If your sister talk to a steel-band man
The family want to break she hand
Throw she out, lick out every tooth in she mouth,
Pass! You outcast!”

Despite these early challenges with the image of steel bands, they were eventually embraced during carnival celebrations and came to symbolize national identity, especially during the independence movement of the 1950s.

Celebrate World Steelpan (Steel drum) Day on August 11 by reading the entry on steel drums in MGG Online.

Watch an energetic live performance by the captivating BP Renegades Steel Orchestra from Trinidad below.

Comments Off on Trinidad’s steel drum tradition

Filed under Instruments, Performers, Politics, West Indies

Tagged as , , , ,

by | August 6, 2024 · 6:00 am

Lexikon Progressive Rock

Bernward Halbscheffel’s Lexikon Progressive Rock: Musiker, Bands, Instrumente, Begriffe provides more than 500 articles that feature not only classics of prog rock such as Procol Harum, The Nice, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, and King Crimson, but also more recent groups like Dream Theater, Gazpacho, Glass Hammer, Porcupine Tree, Shining, Spock’s Beard, and Grand General. Representatives of progressive metal are also included, among them Opeth, Symphony X, and Epica. Although British and American prog mainstream is dominant, the lexicon also offers articles on obscure bands like Ozric Tentacles and The Legendary Pink Dots; progenitors of art rock like Roxy Music and 10cc; and the Canterbury scene with Delivery, Soft Machine, Henry Cow, and Caravan.

Entry on the band King Crimson in Lexikon Progressive Rock in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

Learn some tips for accessing multilingual content in RILM Music Encyclopedias by watching this video on the RILM Resources YouTube channel.

Halbscheffel features currents of retroprog, neoprog, and new artrock. The 2013 edition replaces some earlier articles on foundational musical terms with new articles that are specifically relevant for progressive rock, such as the entry on polyrhythmics. New articles focus on current bands like Nosound, Knight Area, and Flying Colors. Halbscheffel aptly summarizes this all-encompassing approach in the article Progressive rock, where he focuses on the history of the genre less as a stylistic history than as a history of a functionally oriented inventory of rock techniques and processes.

Learn more about this encyclopedia and many others at RILM Music Encyclopedias.

Two bands featured in the encyclopedia, the Legendary Pink Dots and Procol Harum, perform in the videos below.

Comments Off on Lexikon Progressive Rock

Filed under Performers, Popular music, Resources, RILM

Tagged as , , , ,

by | August 2, 2024 · 6:00 am

DAF’s electro-brutalism

As pioneers of electropunk and techno, Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF, which means German-American Friendship) are regarded as one of the more innovative bands in new German music. Their song lyrics were provocative and minimal, featuring unusual synthesizer sounds set to cool drum beats and rejecting common song structures. The duo was founded in Düsseldorf in 1978 by Robert Görl and the Spanish-born Gabi Delgado-Lopez. The two had met a year earlier through the local punk scene. Together with three other musicians, they released their first LP Ein produkt der DAF in 1979. The album featured the sound that DAF became known for: electronic minimalism, which led the group to be associated with contemporary acts like the U.K.’s Throbbing Gristle and New York City’s Suicide.

DAF’s music became even more rhythmic on their second album Die kleinen und die bösen (1980). This was followed by the provocative single Der Mussolini (probably DAF’s best-known work to date) featuring lyrics that emphasized confrontation and minimalist beats that reduced the stiff marching style and thundering speech of reviled fascist dictators to a novelty dancefloor craze. Visually, their homoerotic leather outfits fit in well with the early synthpop duos of the day (OMD, Soft Cell, Blancmange, Cabaret Voltaire, Wham!) even though they never belonged to that scene. Overall, DAF’s style proved to immensely popular and made them one of the five biggest-selling acts in Germany in 1981.

By 1982, the group was finished. DAF’s final album Für immer was released after they disbanded–although today both Delgado-Lopez and Görl claim they never formally disbanded. The reason for ending the group was musical, explained Gabi-Delgado in an interview, and in his estimation the minimalist concept for the band had run its course. In the mid-1980s, however, the electronic music scene came to be dominated by DAF epigones. Their influence outlived their existence and inspired entire electronic (sub)genres like Detroit techno, Chicago house, German techno, industrial, and electronic body music (EBM).

This according to Das ist DAF: Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft: Die autorisierte biografie by Miriam Spies and Rüdiger Esch (Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, 2017; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2017-46785). Also find the entry on Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft in Das Gothic- und Dark Wave-Lexikon: Das Lexikon der schwarzen Szene (2003) in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

Listen to a compilation of DAF songs below.

Comments Off on DAF’s electro-brutalism

Filed under Europe, Performers, Popular music

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

by | July 30, 2024 · 6:00 am

Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras

The Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos is considered one of the foremost Latin American composers of the 20th century. He was deeply interested in Brazil’s folk music traditions and was instrumental in setting up the country’s music education system, emphasizing native songs. His interest in Brazilian folk music resulted from visiting with different communities and listening to their music during his travels to various regions of Brazil as a young cellist. While living in Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos began playing guitar and performing with popular musicians around the city. His mother disapproved of the company he kept, and as a result, he left home to pursue an itinerant life traveling around Brazil while supporting himself by playing cello and guitar. He also continued to learn about the folk music of the areas he visited.

Villa-Lobos later distinguished himself as a conductor, bringing several modern works to the attention of his audiences and consistently composing. His output of over 2,000 works includes everything from chamber music to the larger forms. His lack of formal academic training, far from hampering his development, compelled him to create a truly distinct and original technique.

Villa-Lobos’s prolific output includes the Bachianas brasileiras suites, a group of pieces based on original melodies patterned after the folk songs and Brazilian Indigenous tribal chants treated in a Bach-like fashion on Latin American instruments. The aria is arranged in an AABA form, with the first and last sections performed by a soloist and the repeated first section by the wind instruments followed by the chant:

“Lo, at midnight clouds slowly pass by, rosy and lustrous,

O’er the spacious heaven with loveliness laden,

From the boundless deep the moon arises wondrous,

Glorifying the evening like a beautiful maiden.

Now she adorns herself in half unconscious duty,

Eager, anxious that we recognize her beauty,

While sky and earth, yes, all nature with applause salute her,

All the birds have ceased their sad and mournful complaining:

Now appears on the sea in a silver reflection, Moonlight softly waking

The soul and constraining hearts to cruel tears and bitter dejection.”

Read the entry on Heitor Villa-Lobos in Band music notes (1979). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

Below is a performance of Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras, no. 5 by the Spanish cellist Antonio Martín Acevedo and the Argentinian guitarist Marisa Gómez.

Related posts in Bibliolore:
Villa-Lobos’s choro no. 10

Comments Off on Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas brasileiras

Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Musicology, Performers, Popular music, South America

Tagged as , , , , , ,