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jason on 01/27/2010 at 01:22PM
Celebrating Haitian Rara with Djarara, Alan Lomax, and the Other Side of the Water documentary film
Barbés is hosting a celebration of Haitian rara music this Thursday night. From the Barbés site:
Rara is festival music usually played by marching bands. The music is played on drums and homemade bamboo horns (sometimes replaced by PVC pipes) and is often associated with certain aspects of Vaudou rituals. it's also a purely celebratory music which can have political and protest overtones.
This event was inspired by the re-issuing of Alan Lomax in Haiti, a legendary set of recordings commisioned by the Library of Congress in 1936-1937. At 7pm, the event begins with a presentation of recordings from this 10-disc box set.
The event also features a performance by Djarara, New York City's premier Haitian rara group, who have been active for two decades. Djarara performed live from Barbés this past September, with their amazing array of PVC pipe horns, in an event that was broadcast on WFMU's Transpacific Sound Paradise. Two medleys from the performance can be heard below.
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Djarara is "the only sustained rara band in America" according to the producers of The Other Side of The Water, a new documentary film that follows the group "through a hidden New York landscape of vodou temples, underground economies, violent politics, and ground-shaking music." The documentary is co-produced by Magi Damas and director Jeremy Robins, whose previously collaborated on the 2004 documentary "The Cause of Pierre Toussaint". The Other Side of the Water will screen at Thursday's event, and you can watch a preview after the jump >> |
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JoeMc on 01/06/2010 at 04:34PM
But Dad, It's Smokey
When I logged on to the FMA this morning, I really wanted to hear something happy, something that would make me feel a little more excited about starting my day. Lo and behold, after a couple of "not quite right"s, I found my tonic for today: Smokey!
I talk not of bears or Miracles here, but of Mr. Smokey Hormel, a man who needs no introduction to guitar enthusiasts. He's one of those guys whose guitar tone is pretty much recognizable out of the box; you've no doubt heard him on records by Tom Waits, Beck, Joe Strummer, Johnny Cash, and about five thousand other people. Lately, Smokey has gotten interested in Congolese dance music from the late 50s and early 60s, and that's the kind of stuff he's doing with his new outfit, Smokey's Secret Family.
Back in September of last year, Smokey's Secret Family appeared on one of WFMU's broadcasts from Barbés in Brooklyn, a series of remote broadcasts shepherded by Rob Weisberg of the Transpacific Sound Paradise program (Saturdays, 6 to 9). Here is a track from that concert, and a fine one it is.
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