Archive | July, 2013

The All Around This World: Africa CD will only possibly come together because Amon has a large “musical family” of talented music-makers in New York, or currently based elsewhere but formerly based New York, who we can call upon to lay down top-notch tracks. Our primary go-to musician so far has been the instinctively talented multi-instrumentalist Sean Dixon. Sean, who performs in more bands around New York and beyond than one could possibly mention, has risen to a formidable challenge by starting us off with drum kit and bass on a handful of tracks. Amon has also been working with pianist Ethan White and horn/woodwind specialist Jon Natchez, who this NPR interview describes as “Indie Rock’s must valuable viagraforhealthyman sideman.” The revered “uncle” of this family, the musician, teacher and friend who brought me together with Amon, and introduced many members of of Amon’s New York-based African musical community to each other is Michael Markus, whose Wula Drum is the only source you should consider if you’re thinking of buying a West African djembe. DrumMagazine.com refers to Michael as “probably the world’s greatest non-African djembe player,” which is both incredibly high praise and, as far as I know, true.

Inimitable adventure, phase 2.

I spent last week in the recording studio, laying down tracks for a CD of website like this great global music for families to use as the aural textbook for the All Around This World program . . . but not that CD, to be used in those classes. The AATW Africa CD is far from becoming old news, but this week I started tracking for the next CD on my list — All Around This World: South and Central Asia. This season, scheduled to make its national debut in the spring of 2014–after having been thoroughly road tested in classrooms in Philadelphia–introduces families to 25 engaging and entertaining songs from countries such as India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Nepal as a way to connect them to the people who live in those countries.The producer is Samir Chatterjee–composer, master tabla player, historian and renowned teacher of Indian music and founder-director of Chhandayan, “an organization dedicated to promoting and preserving Indian music and culture.” [Watch Samir in an extraordinary tabla performace. Learn more about Samir.] We’re recording at Kaleidoscope Sound in Union City, New Jersey, with studio owner and mastermind engineer Randy Crafton.

The project couldn’t be in better hands.

So far, in week 1, we’ve recorded with two very talented Hindi-speaking vocalists, neither of whom have never before recorded vocals in English, a percussionist who came to the studio with a great bag of tricks, a bassist named Todd and a fantastic player of the bulbul tarang, commonly known as the “Indian banjo.” The bulbul tarang–an Indian variant of the Japanese taisho koto–sounded incredible, providing several tracks on the CD with an intriguing an almost other-worldly sound. Here’s a video of someone playing the bulbul tarang–a “typewriter-style” bulbul tarang, with keys laid out like they are on a typewriter, as opposed to a “keyboard-style” bulbul tarang, with keys that look more like a piano:

[wpspoiler name=”Typewriter-style bulbul tarang–the Indian banjo” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

Imagine this sound applied to your favorite All Around This World songs and you’ll be able to begin to envision the fun we had this week in the studio. Some photos of All Around This World’s Indian banjo player to come.

[Learn about the bulbul tarang from Chandrakantha.com]