Al compás del mundo   #193, 8-14-25 - Tuff Vibes, vol. 1 - reggae   01 Sons of Light - Land of Love 02 Devon Russell - Jah Hold the Key 03 Judah Eskander - Jah Light 04 Barrington Levy - Look Youthman 05 Al Campbell - Fight I Down 06 Barry Brown - Warmonger 07 Don Carlos - Plantation 08 Anthony Johnson - Hey Mr. Rich Man 09 Eddie Constantine - Tenement Yard 10 Burning Spear - Jah Jah No Dead 11 Desi Roots - Weed Fields 12 Johnny Clarke - Blood Dunza 13 Earl Cunningham - Jail House 14 Lacksley Castell - Guiding Light 15 Cornell Campbell - Hard Time 16 Noel Ellis - Memories 17 Prince Jammy - Throne of Blood   Here’s another contribution to the Al compás del mundo radio program from flesh and blood prodigy, Ras Haas. A long-time collector of Jamaican vinyl, Ras has claimed that honorific title due to an abiding interest and participation (as a consumer) in the island’s musical scene. For me it’s an entire playlist where almo...

  192, 8-07-25 – worldly potpourri   01 Juluka - Ibhola Lethu (Sovany) (South Africa) 02 Hany Mehanna - Dala (Egypt) 03 Aung Win Group - Mother River (Myanmar) 04 Insan Olmaya Geldim - Kirpiğine Kaşına (Turkey) 05 Luis Enrique Casal - El Arbolito (Panama) 06 Lola Flores - La Faraona (Spain) 07 Dengue Fever - Seeing Hands (Thailand and USA) 08 K.R. Nagati - De l'Orient à l'Orion (Tunisia) 09 Kalyi Jag - La Romnjasa (Roma, Hungarye) 10 Jaime Pineda - Cuando el viejo se enamora (Colombia) 11 Liam O' Maonlai - Amhrán na hEascainne (Ireland) 12 Yayah Ratnasari & Bhinneka Group - Bau Tapi Ngeunah (Indonesia) 13 Mulangeni Sounds - Kwathu ku Mulangeni (Malawi) 14 Red Baraat - Sialkot-Zindabad (India and USA)   This week’s program, it’s a worldly potpourri. Or maybe, a weirdly potpourri in its logic or lack thereof. It’s a big ol’ grab bag of stuff. Culled from a file of worthy Al compás del mundo fodder that resides on the fringes where poten...

  Historically, the tango (and its close cousin, the milonga) has been considered an example of world cultural property, i.e. something to be nurtured by the likes of UNESCO. It was born in the 1880s in back streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina and across the river in Montevideo, Uruguay. Considered a lewd, low-class form of entertainment, particularly due to its intimate couples dance moves, it, of course, became the favorite of the masses. Many a music producer has learned that lesson: don’t tell the masses what they should listen and dance to. By the early 20 th  century France seemed to have a soft spot for the tango, as well as Hungary, Britain, Germany, and other European centers. Record production, cabaret shows and radio broadcasts from the 1920s onward served to introduce this seductive sound to an ever-wider audience. Why did the tango captivate the public far and wide? One could ask the same about reggae music, Cuban rhythms, rock and roll, and other musical trends em...

W here a human voice is heard in today’s program it’s often starkly different from what most Westerners might find pleasing and melodic.  But I must remind my listeners that the West probably did not invent the concept of vocalizing as accompaniment to plucked/blown/percussed musical instruments. Why do we sing in the style that we do? I imagine there are knowledgeable tomes wrestling with that idea. I ’ve read that vocals were meant to imitate the sounds made by instruments...or vice versa? The chicken or the egg? I’m not here to answer that question, in spite of the college course I had taken of “Music Cultures of the World” decades ago. What I offer is the opportunity to pay attention to and digest musical expressions performed by people steeped in the traditional ways of their culture.  T here is a geographic component to lumping together India, Nepal and Tibet as the Himalayas served to isolate and circumscribe the peoples of those northern regions. But here’s where I fud...

  These are mostly old songs, as the notion of riding a train is largely an old experience. Who rides trains (or used to)? Hobos, guys on the lam, the lovelorn, wanderers, and fellow travellers. Today’s playlist consists of mostly bluegrass and blues, but rockabilly and rock ‘n roll join in. Even gospel takes its turn ferrying the faithful up to the pearly gates. Trains are linked to a wide range of situations and feelings. They can serve as a means of escape, freedom and joy, abandonment and sadness.  Doc Watson went so far as to wish mayhem on the train that took his girl…“I wish to the Lord, that train would wreck, kill the engineer and break the fireman’s neck.” But trains are like that, adept at taking men’s (and some women’s) babies away. They can also bring them home. Most any instrument can imitate a train sound, the harmonica, fiddle, guitar...and the human voice including a muted hand-trumpet by the Golden Gate Quartet, otherwise performing acapella. Train songs can ...

  This week’s playlist went right over my head. Or maybe, under the radar…I’m not sure. I do know what I don’t know, however that plays out, and I didn’t know the performers or music in this week’s Al compás del mundo radio program. It’s the brainstorm of guest programmer, Ras Haas, a card-carrying member of the familial tribe, though admittedly, of a different generation. This should be apparent as you’ve not heard any of this genre previously on the show. And what genre is it? Not sure. These songs came out of the 1980s and, I’m told, they’re post-disco and an incipient lead-in to rap…or at least it served as fertile ground for a wealth of sampling taken by that next musical movement up.  When Ras passed the finished product on to me, I admittedly had some reservations, disco being a hateful creature in my geezer mind – and it sounded close to disco. But a few listenings have cleared some space and I sense a trend emerging. Funk is foremost and that’s nothing new for most an...