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Haiti - The Alan Lomax 1936-1937 Field Trip Recordings - Harte Recordings HRT 103
10 CD Box Set with hard cover book.
Alan Lomax Visited Haiti In 1936-1937. This is the tale of his trip, the music he found. The result has been put together into a massive box set that tells the complete story.
On December 21st, 1936, Alan Lomax sent a report to Herbert Putnam at the Librarian Of Congress, about his first impressions after arriving in Haiti.
"I have looked about enough to be sure this is the richest and most virgin field I have ever worked in. I hear fifteen or twenty different street cries from my hotel window each morning while I dress. The men sing satirical ballads as they load coffee on the docks. Among the upper-class families many of the old French ballads have been preserved. The meringue, the popular dance of polite society here, is quite unknown in America and has its roots in the intermingling of the Spanish and French folk-traditions. The orchestras of the peasants play marches, bals, blues, meringues. Then mama and papa and kata tambours officiate at as many kinds of dances; the congo, the Vodou, and the mascaron. Then there seem to be innumerable cante-fables [oral tales punctuated by songs or rhymes performed by the audience]. Each of these categories comprise, so I am informed, literally hundreds of melodies; French, Spanish, African, mixtures of the three. The radio and the sound movie and the phonograph record have made practically no cultural impression, so far as I can discover, except among the petit-bourgeois of the coastal cities. And American jazz is hardly known here except among the rich who have visited America. Composition, by which I mean folk composition, is still very active. So I think I can say that unless a piece of sky falls on my head, this trip will mean some beautiful records for the Library’s collection."
Disc 1; Urban Music. Disc 2; Music Under the Arbor: Haiti's Rustic Troubadour Music. Disc 3; Marti Gras. Disc 4; Rara. Disc 5; Children's Songs; Disc 6; European Son / Romances. Disc 7; Francilia. Disc 8; Kraze Gato. Disc 9; Work Brigades and Worship. Disc 10; Zondo Ceremony / Sosyete Workbook
"Alan Lomax was capturing the human spirit in song... The music moves us... not only because the traditions it documents are disappearing, but because it lives and breathes anew each time it's heard." - David Greenberg. NPR's All Things Considered.
Memphis Blues Volume 4 (1929-1953)
Jenny Pope / James De Berry Document DOCD-5686
Although the blues city of Memphis is known, in particular, for it's Jug Bands, most notably the Memphis Jug Band, Jed Davenport and Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers and for some of the biggest names in vintage blues recordings such as Frank Stokes and The Beale Street Sheiks, Jim Jackson, Memphis Minnie and Robert Wilkins, to mention a few, there were also Memphis based artists who's styles were not straight out of the so called 'pre-war country blues' packet.
This album presents two artists who, unlike the names given above do not instantly spring to mind when the halcyon days of vintage Memphis blues is being discussed, yet there recordings are evidently those of regular, working professionals of the day. If tags and pigeon holes are to be used then Jenny Pope's performances seemed to be more rooted in the 'Classic Blues' era of the early twenties than the more driving, rhythmic blues of Memphis Minnie or Minnie Wallace, though, if anything Jenny is nearer to the latter rather than the former. She takes up the first six tracks singing her blues of hard times, drink and men and his given some fine accompaniment by Georgia 'Tom' Dorsey and Tampa Red and Judson Brown.
Many will know James De Berry from his handful of Sun recordings made in 1953. They're here, with the wonderful accompaniment of Walter Horton on harmonica ('Easy' is an absolute "must"), Houston Stokes, drums, Mose Vinson, piano and Ratmond Jones, drums on second session. All excellent, "down-home" blues. But De Berry's recording began in the same decade that Jenny Pope's finished. In a similar vain to Charlie Burse, James De Berry's early recordings are a blend of blues vocal set with the backing of blues/jazz band. Mellow blues and up-beat, good time, swing paced pieces are abound and it interesting to hear how De-Berry developed through to the fifties.
With Pope and Berry, this album takes a little time away from the mainstream of the typical Memphis vintage blues scene and presents a fascinating alternate view which transcended from an acoustic and somewhat sophisticated style developed in the early days of blues recording through to stark, raw, powerful electric blues of the 1950's.
Informative booklet notes by Chris Lee
Detailed discography
Charlie Burse and his Memphis Mudcats - Memphis Highway Stomp
Complete recorded titles 1939 Document DOCD-5687
If this isn't good time music then what is? Many will know Charlie Burse as being one of the central figures, alongside Will Shade, of The Memphis Jug Band. Yet, during the late 1930s at least Charlie had another musical interest, a band which he led called The Memphis Mudcats This band gave Charlie the ability to "open up" and unleash his artistic and performance eccentricities that he evidently held at bay during the MJB recoding sessions. The MJB was able to reach the level of jollity and a sound that would make the listener smile. Charlie's sense of humour and notable abilities as a musician created something more sophisticated one might even use the phrase 'surreal blues'! Put Cab Calloway at his most manic and Spike Jones and City Slickers together you have Charlie Burse and his Mudcats.
Charlie leads the way with some nifty playing on his National Tenor guitar (watch out for his solo on 'Magic Spell Blues') and behind him is the very competent, tight, Mudcats with guitar, alto sax, piano, double bass and drums. But that isn't the end of it. The humour is provided by the inappropriately timed interjections of police car sirens, duck calls, rattles (of the football rattle kind) and ridiculous drum, cymbal and cow bell rolls. Could this be the great grandfather of the Bonzo Dog Do-Da Band?
The fast pieces such as Beale Street Holiday and the excellent Scared To Death and many others are hectic enough, with Charlie occasionally throwing in an effected laugh. There first, slow piece Wee Smoking Mama doesn't arrive until the seventh track. But rather than settling down to a moment of decorum the hum our is even more effective with romantic passages being underlined with the odd rattle and duck call.
But who were The Mudcats? As it stands, they are a mystery band with every band member unidentified. It is obvious that they were of a professional standard and certainly swung and were very much in tune with both Charlie's
This is a superb album which stands out from the norm. A great collection that can be there on stand by when those blues get too heavy and things get a little too serious.
Informative booklet notes by Chris Lee
Detailed discography
Special “Financial Mischief Edition”
With New Release: “Bankers Blues”
As many of our customers and subscribers know, we got quite a bashing by those HBOS banking people. It has been a life changing experience and for us. It has brought into question the world that we live in and what such organisations such as the banks and its so called trustees are prepared to do in the name of money. Beware; we are witnessing asset stripping by the banks on a grand scale. It’s as if nothing else matters and to Hell to all to those that get in their way, despite the fact the world's economy, along with the livelihoods of thousands of innocent people, has been brought to its knees as the result of the finance world's fiscal mischief.
We have been very fortunate to have survived the battering that we have had and to pull the Document through, intact. If you have not been affected by Fiscal Mischief then you have done well and long may that be the case. If you have, then our thoughts are with you and we hope that the effects are not too deep or that they will not be long lasting.
It was as if we could not avoid bringing Bankers Blues out. Not Banker's Blues but Blues about the Bankers. As we worked on other things, including the time consuming effort of fighting off HBOS along with its parasites, including and in particular its appointed trustees and many others on the high finance band wagon, titles kept popping up at us; Mortgage Blues, No Money, We Sure Got Hard Times Now, Money Kills Love, Trying To Make A Living, Poor Millionaire, Save That Money and many more.
The appalling fact was that people have been here before and before that and despite cries, warnings, documentation and history itself, greed and the insatiable thirst for money, money, money, money at all costs, has not been suppressed or cured. Lil Son Jackson, Hop Wilson, One String Sam, Blind Alfred Reed and many others have known what it is like to have their livelihoods threatened if not decimated in the name of “market forces”.
The words of caution from the first hand accounts of past victims are all here on our latest, special production, ‘Bankers Blues- A Study In Fiscal Mischief’. Has anything, will anything be learned?
Those that have lost everything will not be heard because, conveniently for the perpetrators, it takes money to fight ones way through the court and that money was siphoned off into the fat wallets of the perpetrators themselves. A sophisticated, legal, mugging.
So, it is hoped that this album, this CD, will remain as a reminder, a cautionary tale. Listen to it, enjoy the music but more importantly regard it as a tiny, tiny thorn in the financier’s side. Better still, buy it as an ideal gift for your “favourite” bank manager or financial adviser and tell them that, next time, when they consider being party towards anything as outrageous as, let’s say “sub prime” which actually means “less than good”, they give a few tracks of ‘Bankers Blues’ a listen.
2010 Calendar Vintage Blues; Volume 7
With Free CD
From the very beginning blues recordings have inspired the visual arts. As recordings were being prepared for release, so graphic artists have scratched away with pen and ink in an attempt to depict their interpretations of song titles into advertisements for papers such as the Chicago Defender, New York Amsterdam News and The New York Times.The wonderful collection of Blues Image Calendars are a must for the walls of any self respectable lover of vintage blues. Over the last seven years these productions have been thoughtfully put together using the wonderful and often humorous advertisements placed by Paramount, Okeh, Vocalion and others.
The reproduction of the hand drawn illustrations and the original publicity photographs are excellent. The original advertisements for the blues recordings which appear on the CD are reproduced on the top half of each calendar month. Also included are brief biographies of each month's featured blues singer as well as birth and death dates marked in the date boxes of numerous important blues artists and other prominent African americans.
As with all of the previous Calendars, Volume 7 (2010) comes with a FREE CD.
The Eighteen tracks on this year's gem includes a previously unreleased gospel/blues classic by Frank Palmes and two never before released takes of an unreleased song by Blind Blake with Irene Scruggs.
EDISON PODCASTS To compliment the Edison series we have wonderful podcasts compiled by Larry Tedder:
You can now download individual tracks or whole albums from the comfort
of your home or work. By clicking this LINK you will be taken to the ORCHARD
WEBSITE and you will be able to browse the Document selections
already available in CD format.
For less than the price of most CDs on the market
Document presents The Catalogue. Click here for more details for the catalogue that's a collectors item itself!.
£12.49
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