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:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Al compás del mundo - programa #99 - Los Folkloristas

This week’s Al compás del mundo earns a pair of dedications. Primarily, to Las Folkloristas, a group of Mexican musicians who first came together in 1966 and who continue to the present day, delighting their public and educating them as to the breadth of folk music genres and instrumentation found in every corner of Latin America. The second dedication is to me and my sweetheart wife Claudia – we met at a concert of Los Folkloristas at the Sala Agora in Mexico City, in 1976. And yes, we too are still together. Get out your handkerchiefs and dry your eyes because there’s a story to be told as evidence that there’s a soulmate out there for everyone. You just have to make the effort to look, even if it takes you to a foreign land. And so it goes like this: I spent all of 1976 living in Mexico City, ostensibly to learn Spanish, but en realidad to loaf around, drink beer, practice my saxophone, and maybe, just maybe, look to meet a señorita. I lived in a pension (boardinghouse) owned by Jul
1 comment
Read more

Al compas del mundo - programa #114 - potpourri of fun, fun, fun

  Fun, Fun, Fun. And I do mean fun. Sometimes this summary of a weekly radio show veers off to a serious side, but not today. Not with this batch of winners. Not when we’re leading off with Los Xochimilcas. Like a mix of The Three Stooges and Spike Jones, they clamor for a round of “pulque for two!” with an eloquent danzón accompaniment. Then there’s Pigbag showing off some serious jazz chops…but is it jazz? Then again, who cares? Why fret over labels when we’re here to have fun?! So The Magnetic Fields’ tune isn’t exactly light-hearted glee and all, but fun comes in many packages. I had fun when I first heard I Die You Die. They sounded like the Velvet Underground had they hailed from West Virginia instead of New York. That’s not fun? Relatively speaking, there’s always room for Ennio Morricone. That lonesome whistle thrills me, along with the chorus of grunting injuns. A Spaghetti Western at its stereotypical best. Allen Toussaint, by the way, is one hell of a song writer, in case yo
Post a Comment
Read more

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