Skip to main content

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


Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Al compas del mundo, programa #92 - Japan

The Japanese historically have been a most creative people, excelling in aesthetic conventions like architecture, painting, culinary arts, theatre, music, and more. A craftsman’s care and an artist’s flair have come to define everyday household objects such as articles of clothing and kitchen ware, designed with a sensibility that imbues them with import and elevated status. After WWII in the United States however, an item inscribed “made in Japan” usually indicated a tchotchke of mediocre quality. A perfect example is the large number of Northwest Coast Native American-style bone totem poles made for the tourist shops in the Northwest. There is a distinctive difference in these “artifacts” from the real, home-made variety that illustrates someone from another culture tackling aesthetics they don’t fully comprehend. And that leads us to some of this week’s musical choices. Imitating Western pop, rock and jazz, Japanese artists have recorded many forgettable efforts – not unlike those o...
Post a Comment
Read more

British blues of the 60s y 70s

  This has to be one of my favorite programs. The British blues scene gave us a healthy dose of reverential and, admittedly, imitative music that awakened a youthful audience suffering from pop fatigue on both sides of the ocean. Of course, the blues, as interpreted by young white musicians who couldn’t have been much further from the Mississippi Delta or the South side of Chicago, can be considered as cultural appropriation. At the same time, those involved in the scene have reminisced that playing the blues was largely a visceral reaction to a compelling combination of rhythm, lyrics and energy that was distinct from the British music scene up to that point. I don’t believe anyone at the time felt guilty playing the songs of their Southern US heroes. Does it make a difference that a number of these groups went on to earn far more money than the originators ever dreamed of? Probably, though many of the greats – Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson and others – profi...
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