Saturday 8 August, 2009

V/A - 2nd Juju Anniversary: A Lucky Selection


Mr. Lucky is a veteran in the trade of music-blogging and sonic-sharity. He has created, murdered and survived no less than 13 music blogs since 2006, such as Orang Aural, Squeezo, Cut-Out, Border Music, Infinity in Sound, Cineville, Mr. Lucky and a thousand others, endowing the sharosphere with a million sounds of his choice just for the love of humanity. Currently he is profitably running a psychic hut for the mystic misfits of our era, his longest venture so far.

Mr. Lucky was not only an inspiration for the creation of Bravo Juju but has also been a supporter, an ally and a friend of the Ewing Clan almost since day one. We were thus very happy when one of his secretaries informed us that Mr. Lucky had accepted our little challenge: to make a selection of some of the music he had enjoyed the most in the Bravo catalogue for the past two years, and create a compilation to mark the anniversary - no limits whatsoever. But one needs limits, of course, and Lucky decided to restrict his selection to artists he discovered here over this 2-year span. In the end, he produced a fine, diverse, and very personalized collection of 16 tracks, to which he was also kind enough to add a brilliant cover.

We can't think of a better way to celebrate two years of Jujuness than to invite one of our readers/listeners to offer us this sort of selection/feedback. A warm thank you to Lucky for all the work.
There are no plans to murder J.R. yet.


bravo juju | 2nd anniversary
a lucky selection

♠ 1
Dig d'Diz & Mondriaan String Quartet - Ontaarde Moeders (Unnatural Mothers): Moeder (Mother 1) (1996)
- from "Dig d'Diz meets the Mondriaan String Quartet"

♠ 2.

Rova Saxophone Quartet - Escape from Zero Village (1981)
- from "As Was"

♠ 3.
Alejandro Viñao - Go (1) - tape composition (1981)
- from "Hildegard's Dream"

♠ 4.
Robert Marcel Lepage - Le Sourire de la Joconde (1992)
- from "Ambiances Magnétiques: La Bastringue Migratoire - vol. 1"

♠ 5.
Lata Mangeshkar & Padmini Shivangi - Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973)
- from RD Burman's soundtrack "Yaadon Ki Baaraat"

♠ 6.
Balinese Gamelan - Angklung kembang kirang (1993)
- from "Anthologie des Musiques de Bali Volume 2 - Gamelan Virtuoses"

♠ 7.
Lonnie Johnson (w/ Blind John Davis, Andrew Harris) - He's a Jelly-Roll Baker (1942)
- from "She's Your Cook But She Burns My Bread Sometimes"

♠ 8.

Henry Mancini - Your Father's Feathers (1961)
- from "Hatari!"

♠ 9.
Orkest De Volharding - Misha Mengelberg: Dressoir (1991)
- from "Trajekten"

♠ 10.

Peter Blegvad & John Greaves - Like A Baby (1982)
- from "State of the Union"

♠ 11.

Dhol, Divali percussions at Haridwar (1998)
from "Ganga - Les Musiques du Gange"

♠ 12.
Kaffe Matthews - Skagerrak: The Air Hostess (1999)
- from "cd Cécile"

♠ 13.
Joe McPhee Po Music - Blues for New Chicago (1981)
- from "Topology"

♠ 14.
Jimmie Revard & His Oklahoma Playboys - Dirty Dog (1936)
- from "Doughboys, Playboys & Cowboys: The Golden Years of Western Swing"

♠ 15.
New Winds (Robert Dick, Ned Rothenberg, JD Parran) - St. Louis Thank You Notes (1989)
- from "Digging it Harder from Afar"

♠ 16

Sentiu Dukun - Tari Belian (Benuaq) - a ritual healing ceremony (1997-98)
- from "Bornéo: Musiques des Dayaks et des Punans"


total time: 75'27
Compiled by Lucky.


megalucky@320
rapidjuju@320

Wednesday 5 August, 2009

Hossein 'Oumomi - Persian Classical Music (1993)


Hossein Omoumi was born in Isfahãn, Iran, and began his musical education singing with his father. At age 14 he began to study the Ney, the traditional reed flute of Iran. In 1962, Omoumi entered the National University of Iran to study architecture, but also played the ney in musical competitions, later entering the National Conservatory of Music in Tehran.
His performance career has included appearances at many of the major festivals and concert halls in Europe and the United States, including San Francisco’s World Music Festival, UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall and Wadsworth Theater the Getty Center, in Los Angeles, the World Music Institute and Asia Society in New York, and Theatre de la Ville in Paris.
Omoumi is a noted scholar and teacher of Persian music, having served on the National Conservatory and Tehran University in Tehran, Center for Oriental Music Studies of Sorbonne University in Paris, UCLA in Los Angeles and the Ethnomusicology department of the University of Washington in Seattle. He is now Maseeh Professor in Persian Performing Arts of music at the University of California, Irvine, UCI. He is also an architect, having received his Doctorate from the University of Florence, Italy.
His research on the making of the Ney and percussion opened new possibilities and introduced significant innovations to the Ney, Tombak and Daf.

01-07. Dastgâh-e Homâyun
08-12. Avâz-e Dashti
13-21. Dastgâh-e Châhârgâh

Hossein 'Omoumi - ney
Madjid Khaladj - tombak, daf

Recorded in 24-25 June 1992
Released by Nimbus Records in 1993

Humbly dedicated to Chris Kenmo.

link@320

Monday 3 August, 2009

Strings With Evan Parker (2001)


At the start of 1997, Evan Parker invited 23 musicians into the studio to record some large and medium scale improvisations. The most focused result was a performance by the strings with some electronics, heard here as Flying Spark.

A year later, this inspired Parker to just invite string players, some of whom use electronics, to a recording session. The session resulted in about two and a half hours of magnificent music, all of which is heard here in the order of performance. (Less than one minute of music has been edited out.)

Having invited these performers into the studio, Parker basically just let them get on and make music. The results were so good that he did not join in until towards the end of the session. After the first five improvisations, he asked the ensemble for a piece to be used as an accompaniment for an overdubbed saxophone solo. Two and a half years later he did overdub the ensuing piece, and the end result is Double Headed Serpent. Since the original piece is also very fine (and quite different) in its own right, it is also included without the overdubbing as Single Headed Serpent.

Following this extended dense drone-like piece, there was a complete contrast with two short, plucked group improvisations and a bowed one. After this, each member of the ensemble chose a subset of four to six players, resulting in the Sub-Groups. Some of these included Parker playing for the first time that day. The final and longest piece of the day - The Spider's Web - was the only time all ten musicians performed together.

The performances show the influences of both of the great English traditions of group improvisation - those of AMM and SME. Evan Parker had been a member of the Spontaneous Music Ensemble in 1967 when the SME method was first put into practice; but he has also been an admirer of AMM since his first exposure to them around the same time, and has been invited to guest with them occasionally in the intervening years. Starting with his work with the Music Improvisation Company in 1968, he has been involved in exploring ways of combining the AMM and SME methods. By now, these two methods, and the ways to combine them, are 'in the air' - lingua franca to most improvisers on the scene, as can be heard here. Martin Davidson (2001)

DISC A
1. The Sitting on the Roof Series 1
2. The Sitting on the Roof Series 2
3. The Sitting on the Roof Series 3
4. Laughing in the House
5. Another Fire Drill
6. Double Headed Serpent

DISC B
1. The Ghost Series 1: (Pizzicato)
2. The Ghost Series 2: (Pizzicato)
3. The Ghost Series 3: (Arco)
4. Sub-Group Marcio Mattos 1
5. Sub-Group Marcio Mattos 2
6. Sub-Group Rhodri Davies
7. Sub-Group Mark Wastell
8. Sub-Group Peter Cusack
9. Sub-Group Phil Durrant
10. Sub-Group Hugh Davies
11. Sub-Group John Russell
12. Sub-Group John Edwards
13. Sub-Group Kaffe Matthews

DISC C
1. The Spider’s Web
2. Single Headed Serpent
3. Flying Spark

PHIL DURRANT: violin
KAFFE MATTHEWS: violin & electronics
MARCIO MATTOS: cello
MARK WASTELL: cello (except C3)
JOHN EDWARDS: double bass
RHODRI DAVIES: harp
PETER CUSACK: bouzouki, guitar & electronics
JOHN RUSSELL: guitar
HUGH DAVIES: strings, springs & electronics (except C3)
SUSANA FERRAR: violin (C3 only)
PHILIPP WACHSMANN: violin (C3 only)
EVAN PARKER: soprano saxophone (A6, B10-B13 & C1 only)

All recorded in London, 4/1/1998 (except C3, 10/1/1997)
Evan Parker was overdubbed on A6 (5/7/2000). C2 is the same piece without overdubbing.
Released by Emanem in 2001.

disc a :: disc b :: disc c @320