Al compas del mundo – programa #83 - Potpourri of jazz and international music

This Al compas del mundo blurb has to be written at warp speed. They’re honking at the curb and I need to be leaving – “Now maggot! Now! So what’s on this week’s list? Charlie Mingus’s little-heralded gem inspired by Mexico and, I’m just guessing, its myriad señoritas; Cuban beatnik jazz from Cachaito, the last bassist of the famous Cachao family line of bassists; one of the most compelling rhythmically swinging jazz tunes you’ve never heard, by Terrence Blanchard – that Hand Jive/Bo Diddley beat never sounds old; Illinois Jacquet with “Bonita”, more love tossed at the young mujeres down South; plus jazz and world music sonorities that, I believe, complement the show perfectly. Okay? Adios!

List for Potpourri of jazz and international music - first broadcast 6-29-23

01 Marc Ribot and the Prosthetic Cubans - Como Se Goza en el Barrio (USA y Cuba)

02 Charles Mingus - Tijuana Gift Shop (USA)

03 Orlando 'Cachaito' Lopez – Redencion (Cuba)

04 Terence Blanchard - You Asked, I Came (USA)

05 Orchestre Poly-rythmo de Cotonou - Mi Ni Non Kpo (Benin)

06 Randy Weston - African Village Bedford-Stuyvesant (USA)

07 Orchestra Ethiopia – Besetchet (Ethiopia)

08 Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth - Stone by Stone (USA)

09 Sa Grama - Rói Couro (Brazil)

10 Illinois Jacquet – Bonita (USA)

11 Cheik Lo - M'beddemi (Senegal)

13 Radio Tarifa - Bulerias Turcas (Spain)

Cachaito cruzin' in Havana

Comments

British Invasion - 1960s

I wanted to declare “Kick out the jams, mo’fos!” as a signpost towards the message in this week’s Al compás del mundo radio show, but that actually came about a little later. As humanity descended ever deeper into the Cro-Magnon state, Iggy Pop and the punks claimed that honor. What we have here instead, is a post-WWII let’s shake up the political order a bit, and no, not everyone has signed up to be an unconscious consumer attitude. There’s something afoot with these lads. Not exactly revolutionary fervor, but most certainly promoting a change in the general way of things. Recalling Che Guevara’s famous quote “Do Wah Diddy Diddy”, the Animals, Yardbirds, Rolling Stones et. al. pouted and preened – some more than others – in a way that hadn’t quite been done before. Youthful vigor ensued. These groups pushed the evolutionary chain of popular music a step further and we’re all better off for it. Set list Al compás del mundo programa #183, 6-5-25 - The British Invasion, 1960s 01 Yar...

India y Nepal y Tibet

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...

Guitarras del mundo

Choosing music and writing about “the guitar” opens many doors. I could have gone off in any number of directions and with a singular narrow focus - but I didn’t. Instead, I threw a whole bunch of varied tunes against a wall to see which ones stuck. Sometimes there’s a continuity and other times none: just two aesthetically pleasing pieces that worked well in tandem and, hopefully, were preceded and followed with similar morsels. Usually, that is how these programs come together. I receive a divinely inspired revelation for a certain theme, region, or style of music and build it from there. Baden Powell, Brazilian beatnik poet and guitar master, seemed to me an obvious choice to begin the program. From there (as you can well see) we stick around Latin America a bit; segue into Spain, notorious as a guitar hotbed; head South to North Africa for the venerable Bombino (yes, again!) and more of that desert blues ilk; logically morph into a short blues set and settle at the bottom sid...

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