by | March 6, 2014 · 1:00 am

From Bollywood to fusion

dola re dola

Performances of Bollywood dances among Indian diasporic populations are sites of Hindi film reception, and part of understanding this involves analyzing the dances as they exist in the films and the processes surrounding their transformation into performed works.

A comparison of the choreography of the song Dola re dola in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas (2002) with a newly choreographed version by the U.S. fusion dance troupe Chamak demonstrates how the latter dispensed with the former’s plot-driven elements and Bollywood glitz to become a display of the troupe’s perceptions of both their Indian-American identities and their cultural heritage.

This according to “Swaying to an Indian beat: Dola goes my diasporic heart—Exploring Hindi film dance” by Sangita Shresthova (Dance research journal XXXVI/2 [winter 2004] pp. 91–101.

Above and below, the Bollywood version; further below, Chamak’s version (performance begins around 0:25).

Related article: Globalized Bollywood

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by | March 3, 2014 · 1:00 am

Taarab redux

 

Taarab’s performers and audiences consider the genre to be a link to Egypt as another powerful place of coastal imagination, but it demonstrably owes more to centuries of exchange across the Indian ocean.

Despite the political agendas that engulfed Zanzibar in the mid-20th century, Swahili musical and urban sensibilities prevailed, and taarab continues to flourish. However, the older style of song text, which thrived on social commentary and improvisation, gave way in the 1950s to songs about the human condition, particularly romantic love songs.

This according to “Between mainland and sea: The taarab music of Zanzibar” by Werner Graebner, an essay included in Island musics (Oxford: Berg, 2004).

Below, Culture Musical Club performs old-style taarab with the legendary Bi Kidude (also above).

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More posts about Tanzania are here.

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by | March 1, 2014 · 1:00 am

Glenn Miller and Fats Waller

miller-waller

Glenn Miller and Fats Waller were born in the same year, 1904, and died on the same date, 15 December 1944 and 1943 respectively. Few pop idols survive changing fashions unscathed, but Miller and Waller seem to have done just that.

One does better to consider the overlooked similarities between Miller and Waller than to belabor their obvious differences. Too much has been made of a racial divide that turned them into emblems of black cool and white corn, but everyone danced to Miller, and more whites than blacks bought Waller records.

The era inspired similar goals: Waller encouraged people to laugh through the privations of the thirties; Miller induced them to romanticize American values during wartime. Both used jazz as a conduit to reach a larger public than jazz per se could command. Both were defined by the times; now they define those times for us.

This according to “Stride and swing: The enduring appeal of Fats Waller and Glenn Miller” by Gary Giddins (The New Yorker LXXX/14 [31 May 2004] pp. 85–87).

Today is Miller’s 110th birthday! Below, The Glenn Miller Orchestra performs Chattanooga choo choo with Dorothy Dandridge and The Nicholas Brothers in the 1941 film Sun Valley serenade. Miller’s recording of the song was the #1 hit record in the U.S. for nine weeks.

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by | February 28, 2014 · 1:00 am

The Tallis psalter

Tallis-Psalter

The Tallis psalter: Psalms and anthems, canticles, preces and responses (London: Novello, 2013) is a complete edition of the Psalter, enabling a performance within the Anglican liturgy for the first time in centuries.

The original Psalter contains Thomas Tallis’s nine tunes set to metrical verses by Archbishop Matthew Parker, and published around 1567. Many of the tunes have since been reworked as popular hymns.

Also included are Tallis’s surviving English anthems, including popular works and lesser-known miniatures. The volume is edited by David Skinner.

Below, The Byrd Ensemble performs Tallis’s nine psalms.

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by | February 25, 2014 · 1:00 am

Industrial musicals

bathroomscover

From the 1950s to the 1980s U.S. corporations commissioned a vast array of lavish, Broadway-style musical shows that were only for the eyes and ears of employees.

These improbable productions were meant to educate and motivate the sales force to sell cars, appliances, tractors, soda, and a thousand other products.

Though most of these shows were lost to the universe, some were recorded and distributed to convention attendees via souvenir vinyl records.

This according to Everything’s coming up profits: The golden age of the industrial musical by Steve Young and Sport Murphy (New York: Blast, 2013). Above, the cover of the souvenir album from American Standard’s 1969 musical The bathrooms are coming! (click to enlarge). Below, an excerpt from General Electric’s 1973 show Got to investigate silicones.

You can listen to more songs from industrial musicals here.

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by | February 23, 2014 · 1:00 am

Johnny Winter’s roots

 

In 2010 Johnny Winter decided to make recordings of some of the classic blues songs that had inspired him to become a musician. The result was his 2011 album Roots.

“The whole thing was a lot of fun,” Winter said in an interview. “They were songs I loved and grew up with, that I was influenced by.”

Recalling imbibing Delta blues from the source, as a sideman for Muddy Waters, he said “Playing with Muddy meant so much to me as an artist. It was a big pleasure, a big thrill. I loved every second I spent with him.”

This according to “Living blues talks to Johnny Winter and Paul Nelson” by Steve Sharp (Living blues XLII/5:215  [October 2011] p. 41).

Today is Johnny Winter’s 70th birthday! Below, Winter and his band plays Dust my broom, a song first recorded by Robert Johnson and later covered by Muddy Waters; the video is from Winter’s tour supporting Roots.

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by | February 20, 2014 · 1:00 am

Peter Brook and Carmen

Carmen

The 1981 premiere of Peter Brook’s and Jean-Claude Carrière’s La tragédie de Carmen at the Opéra in Paris sparked considerable controversy over its focus on the bleaker, darker aspects of the story.

In their revision of Bizet’s Carmen, Brook and Carrière attempted to be truer to Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella, emphasizing the basic components of its tragedy: sorcery, sexuality, obsessive love, and death. They removed the comic elements from Bizet’s work, reasoning that the composer had been constrained by a theatrical medium that demanded the inclusion of comedy.

This according to The tragedy of Carmen: Georges Bizet and Peter Brook by William Manning D. Mouat, a dissertation accpted by the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1996.

Above and below, Zehava Gal in the title role.

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by | February 17, 2014 · 1:00 am

“Exile on Main St.” redux

 

Recorded during the blazing summer of 1971 at Nellcôte, Keith Richards’s seaside mansion in southern France, Exile on Main St. has been hailed as one of the Rolling Stones’ best albums, and one of the greatest rock records of all time. Yet its improbable creation was difficult, torturous, and at times nothing short of dangerous.

In self-imposed exile, the Stones—along with wives, girlfriends, and a crew of hangers-on unrivaled in the history of rock—spent their days smoking, snorting, and drinking whatever they could get their hands on. At night, the band descended like miners into the villa’s dank basement to lay down tracks.

All the while, a variety of celebrities including John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Gram Parsons stumbled through the villa’s never-ending party, as did the local drug dealers, known to one and all as les cowboys.  Nellcôte became the crucible in which creative strife, outsize egos, and all the usual byproducts of the Stones’ legendary hedonistic excess fused into something potent, volatile, and enduring.

This according to Exile on Main St.: A season in hell with the Rolling Stones by Robert Greenfield (Cambridge: Da capo. 2006). Below, the complete album for your contemplation.

Related article: The Beatles’ white album

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by | February 15, 2014 · 1:00 am

Bach’s temperament

harpsichord tuning

It is unanimously accepted that the term wohltemperiert in the title of Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Klavier refers to a tuning that makes it possible to compose and perform music without restriction in all twelve major and minor keys; however, there are still divergent opinions about the tuning that Bach preferred for his composition.

One view is that so-called equal temperament was assumed, in which the octave is divded into twelve equal half-tones (the tuning which came to be generally accepted over the course of the 19th century). Other scholars dispute this, but do not agree among themselves about how the nuances of the inequality in tuning are to be divided among the individual major and minor keys.

This according to Valuable nuances of tuning for part I of J.S. Bach’s “Das wohl temperirte Clavier” by Mark Lindley (Berlin: Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, 2011), which is an open-access multimedia resource for students and performers of Bach’s work.

Below, Kenneth Gilbert’s interpretation.

More posts about J.S. Bach are here.

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by | February 10, 2014 · 1:00 am

Swinging at the Savoy

Savoy Ballroom 1

The development of the Lindy hop must be understood within the context of Depression-era black culture and the Savoy Ballroom in New York City.

For some young black dancers the Savoy became a way of life, and for serious Lindy hoppers the crucial part of the evening was showtime, when the best dancers took the floor and tried to eliminate each other. The improvisational section—known as the breakaway, when couples broke into solos—spawned many new steps and maneuvers that were subsequently incorporated into the dance.

This according to “Swinging at the Savoy” by Barbara Engelbrecht (Dance research journal XV/2 [spring 1983] pp. 3–10). Above, a moment at the Savoy Ballroom in the 1930s; below, a tribute to the great Frankie Manning includes vintage footage from the Savoy.

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