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Death: In observance of el dia de los muertos

Blind Gary Davis sang it: "Well, death will go in any family in this land / It come to your house and it won't stay long / You look in the bed and one of the family be gone." Or another factual bit of advice by Fred McDowell: “You may be high, you may be low/ You may be rich child, you may be poor/ But when the Lord gets ready, you got to move.” Or William Shakespeare’s take on the unknown consequences of death: “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot.” Ay, there’s the rub - this uncertainty and dread that has led to the founding of religions and belief systems worldwide…and a funeral industry worth umpteen millions. But after all is said and done, we’ve no inkling as to what, if anything, awaits us. Vera Hall and Dock Reed assure us “Death is Awful.” But how do they know? [Continues Below] 


Run List for Al compás del mundo – programa #152,
First broadcast 10-31-24
Episode: Death (in observance of el dia de los muertos)


01 Oscar Chavez - La Muerte (Mexico)

02 La Banda de Música de Totontepéc Mixes – Funeral March (Adios para siempre) (Mexico)

03 Zelia Barbosa - Funeral do Lavrador (Brasil)

04 Vera Hall and Dock Reed - Death is Awful (USA)

05 anonymous - Zande song of transition (Central Africa)

06 New Orleans Traditional Jazz Band - Just a Closer Walk with Thee (USA)

07 Test Department - Funeral (England)

08 Finbar Furey and Mary Coughlan - The Parting Glass (Ireland)

09 Balkan Brass Band - Serbian Funeral March (Serbia)

10 Fairouz - Ya Oum Allah (Lebanon)

11 Blind Willie Johnson - Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground (USA)

12 Ministry of Miracles - Song to Call African Ancestors (South Africa)

13 anonymous - ancient Nordic funeral song (Norway)

14 Músicos del Maestro Victor Manuel Lara - En tu memória (funeral march) (Guatemala)

15 Terence Blanchard - Funeral Dirge (A Tale of God's Will - A Requiem for Katrina) (USA)

16 Original Dixieland Jazz Band - New Orleans Dirge (USA)

17 Olider Montana - Caja de madera (Nos vamos como vinimos) (Colombia)

18 Magnificent Sevenths - Funeral Procession Taps - Battle Hymn of the Republic (USA)




It’s an interesting study: how various cultures around the world musically address the  issue of death. Dirges - the word bespeaks lugubrious sentiments – aren’t always conforming to the slow, painful sounds associated with the genre. Witness the “Zande Song of Transition” and the “Song to Call African Ancestors” from South Africa, both show a livelier and zestier approach to celebrating the passing of loved ones. New Orleans jazz funerals have long marched to that notion of high-stepping while wiping the tears away. Deeply Catholic countries (ay, there’s the rub again) like Mexico and Guatemala, however, are often responsible for the gloomiest visions of plodding agony. Look up “marchas funebres” and you’ll hear any number of potential horror film soundtracks and excruciating farewells. Most of the pieces selected for this program fulfill that notion but the exceptions can be merely wistful like “The Parting Glass,” heroic as sounds the “Nordic Funeral Song”, or as a children’s ditty starting things off with “La Muerte” by Oscar Chavez. Perhaps the greatest departure from depths of despair comes from Olider Montana’s “Caja de madera (Nos vamos como vinimos)” or “A Wood Box (We leave the Same Way We Came In.”) It’s a straightforward untroubled view of the reality that awaits us all. The lesson would appear to be if you gotta go, why not while dancing a polka? -JH


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