This week (07/27/11), the chart of favorite World Music albums (and the definition is a loose one) from radio producers, presenters and critics across Europe, who vote every month for their favorite albums. The full chart has 100 albums and I'll post it elsewhere on the blog. But July's top ten starts with a new release from one of Cape Verde's many talents. (Cape Verde is an archipelago off the west coast of Africa heavily influenced by Portuguese music because of the many traders and sailors that visited in decades and centuries past.)
Teofilo Chantre was born on the island of São Nicolau. At the age of thirteen, he and his family left Cape Verde and migrated to Paris. But as a teenager he wrote songs inspired by the traditional morna and coladeira of Cape Verde. He was also deeply influenced by Brazilian music, and wrote several songs for the album Miss Perfumado by the legendary Cesaria Evora.
Chantre has also established himself as a respected performer. His albums include Di Alma and Viaja and most recently , Mestissage (link in French) his soulful, lilting ballads in Portuguese and French sitting on a bed of accordion, double bass, guitar and drums. The track on the show: "Tu Verrais."
On her latest album Afrodiaspora, Peruvian diva Susana Baca looks beyond native influences to New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Pernambuco in Brazil. The foundation of the album is Spanish guitars and cajon - the rhythms are cumbia, son and the Peruvian lando. The album includes a collaboration with Reggaeton band Calle 13 from Puerto Rico led by stepbrothers René Pérez Joglar and Eduardo José Cabra Martínez. They won album of the year at the Latin Grammys two years ago and are outspoken supporters of independence for Puerto Rico. The song is "Plena y Bomba" - named after the two different styles of music found in the predominantly African regions of Puerto Rico.
At #8 another of a glittering generation of lady Latin stars. Paula Morelenbaum and her husband Jaques are mainstays in the ever dynamic Brazilian music scene and were in the band that toured with legend Antonio Carlos Jobim from 1984–1994. She has also worked with Japanese composer and keyboard guru Ryuichi Sakamoto. But her new album Agua is a collaboration with Rio-based Joao Donato - and is quintessential Brazilian bossa nova. On the show "Cafe com Pao."
From the beaches of Rio to the deserts of north Africa for #7, a new release from Omara "Bombino" Moctar, a young Tuareg guitarist and songwriter. Raised during an era of armed struggles for independence among the Tuaregs, a nomadic people in Niger and Mali, his music captures the spirit of resistance and are reminiscent of fellow Africans Tinariwen and Ali Farka Touré - as well as John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Page. His new album is called Agadez - which has quite a story behind it. American filmmaker Ron Wyman encountered Bombino while traveling near Agadez, a Tuareg town in northern Niger. Wyman says he was blown away by the cassettes he heard and asked Bombino to come to Cambridge, Mass., to record at his home studio. They later finished the album in Niger. Try "Tar Hani (My Love)" from Agadez.
Onto the latest in a Nigerian dynasty, with a horn section that could have graced his father's many albums. Seun Anikulapo Kuti heads up Egypt 80, the extraordinary combo first fronted by his renowned father Fela. From Africa With Fury: Rise sees Kuti finding his own idiosyncratic voice as songwriter, singer, and band leader, its songs marked by a provocative edge that's more than a little reminiscent of Fela. As co-producer John Reynolds puts it: "Amazing beats, horns, chants, all beautifully crafted and delivered with the punch of a Jūdan master. A most incredible force, Seun carries a great soul which will touch everyone who meets him.". Here's the title track and an interview with the man by Afropop's Banning Eyre. Last month #6 ; this month #6...
An album that seems destined to remain in the European World Music chart indefinitely is this month at #5. It's Uniko with Finnish accordion players Kimmo Pohjonen, Samuli Kosminen joining the celebrated Kronos Quartet.
As someone from NPR so elegantly put it: “I feel like this music could be soundtrack for a thriller set during a blizzard in Lapland. The soundscapes build to giant avalanches of strings and electronics, aided by the Finns’ tricked out accordions and sampling. Then poof! We’ve just fallen off the cliff, floating downward in silence.” On the show this week, the Third Movement, "Plasma," as played live in Helsinki in 2004.
At # 4 this month, a new entry and a new album from the renaissance man of Argentina, Juan Carlos Cáceres. Growing up in Buenos Aires, he was a student of Fine Arts during daytime, trombonist at night, agitator (and opponent of the then military regime), and became established at the famous Cueva de Passaroto, a jazz club and epicenter of revolutionary trends. His new album is Noche de Carnaval and he talks about it here. A master of experimentation, Cáceres has left the bandoleon or Argentine accordion in the closet and instead used the bass clarinet, sax and cello on which to base the songs. Jazz with an occasional hint of tango.
The son of the late, great Ali Farka Toure, Vieux Farka Toure, has a new album, called Secret. The Malian musician combines traditional melodies with western riffs and influnces - and voices, like Dave Matthews, who sings on "All The Same." Also helping out are Eric Krasnow, Derek Trucks and John Schofield.
There's tremendous variety on the album - as one reviewer put it: "Vieux Farka Touré is very much his own man as a musician and recording artist, which is an astonishing thing to say about someone whose career has been so short and whose father was so dominant in the field. It is exciting to wonder where his creativity and talent will take him next. Judging from this release, it could be anywhere."
An established favorite among the European chart-makers is New York's Wade Schuman and his nine-piece band - called Hazmat Modine - clocking in at #2 this week. They venture in many different directions on their latest releast - Cicada. Two harmonicas, a three-piece brass section, guitar, steel guitar and percussion - it's all in there. The songs here are often blues-based, but always different....On a couple of tracks they get help from Natalie Merchant and the Gangbe Brass Band from Benin in west Africa....One of them is " Child of a Blind Man" - though Natalie is absent on this live performance.
Which brings us to a thoroughly unexpected chart-topper and a new entry to boot. This month a European act gets to look down at the rest of the field, and it's clear the taste for Balkan horns is growing. The album is Balkan Brass Battle - an efferverscent and almost delirious collaboration (or should that be competition) between the Boban & Marko Markovic Orchestra from Serbia and Fanfare Ciocarlia from Romania - a twelve-piece Romani brass band from the northeastern Romanian village of Zece Prăjini.
Think of it as music by drinking contest. There's an hilarious video to prove it. On the show, Fanfare's signature track "Asfalt Tango."
World Tour is on air every Wednesday at 7pm ET, on Atlanta's Voice of the Arts - WMLB 1690AM - and online at 1690wmlb.com.
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