Skip to main content

Al compás del mundo - programa #96 - Potpourri Planet Bounce Baby!

 


Reporting from San Francisco this week, though the program up was conjured in the town of Tequisquiapan, in the state of Queretaro, in the country of old Mexico. And this bi-national effort hopes to make the world an even smaller place by bouncing around the planet, sampling sounds of disparate peoples, hither and yon, speaking in voices that are ever more familiar due to promotions of unity and acceptance blah, blah, blah. What have we in common with human beings on the other side of the globe? Maybe there’s a clue found in the segues from song to song. Legions of listeners to Al compas del mundo have pestered me with one basic question: “What’s up with those segues?” So let’s take a closer look. There’s most definitely a logic behind selections, despite the apparent randomness one might perceive. A perfect example will be the current playlist.

To begin: Baby Huey was one of my favorite cartoon characters as a kid growing up in the 1950’s – a perfect place to start. “War’s” a proper follow up as we fast-forward to the present. Timely and topical. “Eighteen with a Bullet” continues the R&B groove and threat of violence. Robert Hill offers comic relief to lower the heat: “I can tell by your shape, you look just like an ape”. Insults are all the rage these days. Songs 5, 6, and 7 veer off into the African continent with sounds that electronica can only hope to render. Actually, Cheik Hamada’s piece matches up pretty closely with the melody laid out by Robert Hill – segue! Two fanfares from the Balkan regions up next as they offer a twin attack on quietude and subtle rhythms. Step up and step out. As we slide into a live cumbia by a group I never thought I’d play, Mexico’s Los Angeles Negros. Nothing wrong with them, but typically I find them too commercial. But screw it! This song moves me in a simple and effective way and it’s coming in. To be followed by another cumbia from the motherland, Colombia. Time to liven things up again? Tamikrest playing “desert blues” as it’s been labelled, shows that the Sahara region isn’t as desolate and backward as Westerners may be led to believe. And did I expect from Sudan (war there too) studio work as complex and successful as ReXus’s “Am Gorun”? Ethiopia’s right next door so Gigi works the segue trick. From Kenya come the Yahoo Boys, continuing an East African riff. And then we jerk to the far East which may seem like a leap, but contemporary Uyghur music from China could pass for most any modern music – yes, commercial – and it seemed like a good fit after several “modern” works of music from elsewhere. Kutumba from Nepal? Asian and mellow. A leisurely stroll out the door of this week’s program. - J.H.


 Runlist for a potpourri first broadcast 9-28-23

01 Baby Huey - Hard Times (USA)

02 Edwin Starr- War (USA)

03 Pete Wingfield - Eighteen with a Bullet (England)

04 Robert Hill - You Gonna Look Like a Monkey When You Get Old (USA)

05 Cheik Hamada - Yaben Sidi (Algeria)

06 Musique du Burundi – Akazehe (Burundi)

07 Madosini - Modokali 2 (Uhadi-Breimbau) (South Africa)

08 Fanfara Tirana and Transglobal Underground - No Guns to the Wedding (Albania and England)

09 Fanfare Ciocarlia - Iag Bari (Romania)

10 Los Ángeles Azules, featuring Pablo Lescano - La Cumbia del Infinito (Mexico and Argentina)

11 Los Guacharacos de Colombia - El cafetero (Colombia)

12 Tamikrest - Djanegh etoumast (Tuareg, Mali)

13 ReXus with Mo Rezeqi - Am Gorun (Sudan) ريكسوس × مو رزيقي - أم قرون

14 Gigi - Nana Enji (Ethiopia)

15 Hafusa Abasi and The Yahoo Boys - Sina Raha (Kenya)

16 Shahrizoda - Guzel Ertek (Uyghur, China)

17 Kutumba - Farewell (Nepal)

Rexus from Sudan


 


 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Funk and Soul

  Al compás del mundo - programa #169, 2-27-25, Funk and Soul   01 The Commodores - Brick House 02 Tower of Power - Drop It In The Slot 03 Parliament - Ride On 04 Sly & The Family Stone – Frisky 05 The Webb People – I’m Sending Vibrations 06 Ruby Delicious - Rock Steady 07 Mandrill - Git It All 08 The San Francisco TKOS – Herm 09 Ohio Players - Fire 10 Parliament - Mothership Connection (Star Child) 11 Kool & The Gang - Jungle Boogie 12 Chico and Buddy - A Thing Call the Jones 13 Little Ann – Possession 14 Lafayette Afro-Rock Band - Time Will Tell 15 Parliament - Ain't Nuthin' But a Jam Y'all   What did James Brown mean when he said “we’re gonna have a funky good time”? This “funky” of which he spoke, was it strictly musical (and danceable), or maybe sexual, sociable, or even political? Or maybe a little bit of each? Funk, funky, funkify, funkadelic, funkalicious…all pointing at the pleasure principle…a new dialect for the “blue...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nuyorican boogaloo cha-cha-cha

 I’m labelling this week’s playlist as “Nuyorican” music, the lion’s share of the players from Puerto Rico or of Puerto Rican ancestry.  Two notable exceptions are Joe Bataan, a Filipino-African American, and Mongo Santamaria born in Cuba. What they all have in common, however, was centered around the music scene of New York City where African American and Latino musicians forged a common ground in creating “boogaloo” dance music, mixing elements of R&B, Soul, and Latin dance rhythms. The boogaloo genre was fairly short-lived, enjoying popularity during the 1960’s before giving way to salsa, in what was largely an East Coast and Caribbean impulse. “Watermelon Man” and ”El Watusi” were early and major boogaloo hits, but truly, most of the titles included in the program were popular recordings in their day, whether cha-cha-chas like Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va”, or GFyEN’s guajira. I’ve gathered them here for an hour’s worth of revelation for those too young to have heard thi...
Post a Comment
Read more