As a youth, I would occasionally imagine myself actually being skillful at something. Most often it wasn't the typical male fantasy of being a comptroller or an omboudsman, but instead, for some weird reason, playing lead guitar. The trouble with playing lead is that you have to come up with new ideas, or at least ideas, but I could have settled for at least a _new source_ of ideas to copy. The following recording could have been a good source, had I known about it and had it occurred to me, but I didn't, and it wouldn't have. Maybe one of you knuckleheads out there can make use of this. Good luck finding out where to send royalties you want to share.
the unidentified griot (professional musician)
The LP _Music and Dances of Occidental Africa_ (Olympic 6110) describes this track thusly: "The seron is a large harp-luth with 19 strings. The body of the instrument consists of a semicircular calabash with a skin stretched over it. The strings are made of twisted gazelle skin attached to the neck of the instrument by rings of plaited cowhead. After a prelude (variation of an air about Samori, famous Malinke warrior and the last to hold out against the French) the musician starts to hum and then sings the epic of the hero's feats and deeds of valor." The track on this LP doesn't seem to include this singing after the humming. This was recorded in Kankan, "seat of the Grand Cherif, highest Mohammedan personality of French Occidental Africa" (now northern Guinea). Enjoy.
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Awesome title. That walking bass line is actually pretty cool.
I was just googling more information on this album, and I'm sure amazed how fast blogsearch.google.com picks up on MOG entries. It shows your post and that it was added 3 minutes ago. Good for google.
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five-four, you are fast. Five or four seconds to respond. I'll try to return the favor, but my reflexes are not what they used to be.
I forgot to mention that the LP contained only music "entirely free" of European influence, and that the music is still in print.
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I have this LP, as part of a box set "Anthology of Music of Black Africa." I highly recommend, and great to know it's still in print. Thanks for sharing and reminding me to pull these albums out again!
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A great many thanks for the pointers and info! Guinean, hmmm? Globetrotting through sound. merci
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Ah, great to hear that this is still in print. I'm gonna have to track this one down. And I'm beyond curious to have at a Seron. Sounds like it'd be fun to mess with.
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Thanks for the feedback. Ye-ye girl, I bet your box set must have some incredible tracks on it. wassonii, globetrotting through sound is a good way to get out of the house, mentally at least. PC, another name for the seron is a kora, or maybe that's what it's called in Senegal or Mali.
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The seron sure looks like a kora and pretty much sounds like one too. I'll never forget my first exposure to this most regal of instruments. My girlfriend (now wife) was working for a massive international French hotel comany. Her boss couldn't give her the raise she deserved because of the penny-pinchers in Paris, so he offered to give her a vacation anywhere in the world where the company had a hotel and rig it as a business trip - and she could take her boyfriend along, too. To her boss's shock, she told him she wanted to go to Dakar. But he remained true to his word, and there we were. At that time, there was one flight a week from New York to Dakar on Air Afrique that got in on Sunday morning. On Sundays Dakar was shut tight as a drum, so we were pretty much confined to our very nice hotel (the Teranga, for anybody out there who knows Dakar). At dinner, same story - only the restaurants in the Western-style hotels were open, so we went downstairs to the Teranga's dining room. There, a kora player was strolling between tables, playing not romantic favorites but what were probably pretty standard Wolof songs. I got to see his fingers close up, and I can safely say I've never seen anyone play a stringed instrument that required so much skill and had such a heavenly sound.
The other great thing about that dinner was the food. When we read on the menu, among all the cliche French entrees, "Ask about our Senegalese specialties," we naturally had to. The waiter told us, "There are two Senegalese specials: Fish and rice, and chicken and rice." Sharon got the fish, I got the chicken. Both were astonishingly good, dishes far more complex (but just as earthy) as their descriptions would lead you to believe, When we were presented with the bill, I gave the waiter my credit card for payment. "I'm sorry," he said, "but you cannot use the credit card for the Senegalese specials." When we asked why not, he explained that the food we had just eaten was prepared for the hotel staff by two local women who came in every day and needed to be paid in cash. I peeled off the bills gratefully.....
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How about this for music entirely free of Western influence? Well, the producer and engineer are British, but does that really count?
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I love that.
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ivylander, great story. I bet there was wonderful hand-painted advertising imagery outdoors in the city.
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Oops, meant to say free of European influence. It's Pee Wee Ellis on the horn arrangements.
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Yep, Spike, virtually all the commerce was local, which was one of the charms of the place, Who knows if it's the same today - this was, after all, about 25 years ago.
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Wow. A lot of great info here. I was just going to say I liked the track. Got some digging to do. Sweet post.
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just got around to this post Spike; you know I love this. I am always continually amazed at these type of multi-stringed instruments and the dedication and craft it takes to play them. I found myself wishing for the singing at the end. Oh well.
Even though John's track went in another African direction entirely, it was a great counterpart and reading ivy's story was great. You just never know when you will get the chance to just dive in to something completely "other," and IMO, one shoud always take it, every time.
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just got around to your comment mktackabery; I know you love this. I totally agree with your last sentence (actually, your whole comment), and I wish that in the past I'd had the wherewithal to dive in to something completely "other" more often than I did, but then maybe I would have spread myself too thin. Who knows?