A Workout for Bustling Sounds of Africa
The News Review:
- A Workout for Bustling Sounds of Africa
- Goran Bregovic and his Wedding & Funeral Music rchestra at Royce Hall
- Experiencing New rleans’ music scene free and inexpensively
- There’s no such thing as “too much” of New rleans music and its …
- Islands come to Kalamazoo
A Workout for Bustling Sounds of Africa
New York Times
Blk Jks (pronounced black jacks) are less indebted to tradition. They sometimes hint at the bounce of South African pop and like other African bands they sing (mostly in English) about social and philosophical questions. Yet just as often they turn westward: to Jamaica for the propulsion of ska and the echoes and spaces of dub reggae to the Police for a blend of snickering staccato rhythms and gauzy guitar reverb to psychedelia and progressive rock for shifty structures and bluesy guitar lines that wander far afield. Their songs often alternate between contrasting sections with sudden shifts in tempo and meter that confounded would-be dancers. It’s as easy to imagine Blk Jks on a bill with the Mars Volta or a jam band as with fellow African bands. But they easily had enough in common with Mr. Touré’s music to join him and his band for the set’s finale “Sarama” a song from “Fondo” that grew into galloping modal funk with the Blk Jks guitarist Lindani Buthelezi answering Mr.
Goran Bregovic and his Wedding & Funeral Music rchestra at Royce Hall
Los Angeles Times
The musical pieces were chockablock with shifting meters that hopped rolled shuffle-boogied and roared ahead like a locomotive. The frenzy had real incentive behind it as the bandleader stuffed cash in the musicians’ instruments as they played. Bregovic’s compositions are slyly referential similar in rhythm and instrumental texture to the polka-inspired mariachi even or the chunky thump of reggae. During Friday’s two-hour-plus show he made scholarly points about the musical minglings along the ttoman trail and their relationship to the polyglot of pop and classical styles found in contemporary music. His gnarled tangles of rhythms and solo vocal styles could be cousins to Turkish musical hues which have borrowed heavily from various Anatolian cultures; one song bore a distinctive similarity to “Hava Nagila. ” The orchestra’s six-man vocal ensemble and two Bulgarian singers recalled the close harmonies of the Greek and Russian rthodox church choral traditions. Royce Hall’s newly beefed-up PA system further stretched the Balkan canvas with somewhat redundant extra drums and programmed deep-bass frequencies.
Related from Lloydgreenmusic: Goran Bregovic and his Wedding & Funeral Music rchestra at Royce Hall
Experiencing New rleans’ music scene free and inexpensively
Louisiana Weekly
That’s what’s being offered when the New rleans rock-steady group 007 makes three appearances in New rleans this coming weekend June 26 and June 27 2009. The group lays down the rock-steady groove a style of Jamaican music that was a successor to ska and precursor to reggae at Tipitina’s as a part of its Free Fridays series. n Saturday 007 heads to the Louisiana Music Factory for a 3:00 p. in-store show in support of its album You nly Drop nce.
There’s no such thing as “too much” of New rleans music and its …
Louisiana Weekly
"Hearing them pretty much changed my whole way of looking at this style of music" says Simien who was particularly impressed with the group’s use of harmony. Simien who also integrates reggae tunes like Jimmy Cliff’s "Johnny Too Bad" into Zydeco. He credits guitarist and harmonica musician Ras Cloud who he met during a Downtown Alive concert in Lafayette for turning him onto reggae music and suggesting that it be paired with Zydeco. "He said to me ‘We have to find a way to come behind the reggae and the Zydeco together because they’re the same’ Simien recalls. "nce I got to know Cloud I started listening to reggae – Bob Marley Jimmy Cliff Toots & the Maytals. Some of the old ska music if you listen to it is very similar to Zydeco songs. " Four years ago Simien and his band headed to Cuba and that experience also found its way into his music.
Islands come to Kalamazoo
Battle Creek Enquirer
This year’s musical lineup will feature 14 acts including Culture Zareb Taj Weeks and Adowa – all of which hail from the Caribbean as well as Pato Banton Dread 1 Sound System and the local band Zion Lion. The festival also offers an opportunity to visit Little Jamaica the name given to the vendor area where merchants from across the region will be selling handmade drums jewelry and Caribbean-style food and drinks such as jerk chicken and island cocktails. Even if you’re not familiar with reggae music or Caribbean culture Toth said anyone can appreciate the festival’s “island hospitality. “I call it the happiest weekend in Kalamazoo” he said.
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