Friday Night Special: Songs Not About Squid

In keeping with my recently stated intention to post an instant dewdrop of musical joy for your iPod each Friday night, what follows is a description of a number of electic laid-back global tunes all of which have nothing to do with squid.

Track Listing:

01 Don't Speak In English (Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodrigues confirm that Spanish or at least not English is the loving tongue.)

02 Dou dagbe we (Orchestre Black Santiago. Funky grooves de la Benin)

03 Dove (Cymande. 1970’s British + West Indian deep jazzy funk)

04 Down To The River To Pray (Alison Krauss. The sweetest American lady singer since Emmylou calls us to prayer.)

05 Dry Your Eyes (The Streets. Breaking up is never easy  to do.)

06 Dying Breed (Alison Moorer. Chilling country crooning from Steve Earle’s wife. The backstory: father kills mother and then himself. In front of her.)

07 Finger Lickin' Good (Jimmy McGriff & Groove Holmes. Hot Hammond B3 duel that will singe holes in your dancing shoes)

08 Four Walls (Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Wonderful remake of Ernest Tubbs claustrophobic classic)

09 Galiyan De Kakhan Wangon (Reshma. Punjabi folk from the desert belle)

10 Gari La Punda (Fundi Konde. The father of East African electric guitar plucks a contagious melody)

11 Gleams Of That Golden Morning (Bluegrass Cardinals. Bluegrass gospel from the masters out of California.)

12 God Bless The Child (Freddy Hubbard pays homage to Lady Day with his golden flugelhorn.)

13 Golden Rule (Charles Bradley. The R&B find of 2010 wonders why its so hard to make it in America today.)

14 Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen. Nothing more need be said, except Amen brother.)

15 Hound Dog (Big Mama Horton. Proof, if it is ever needed, that the original is the real thing.)

16 How Great Thou Art (Larry Sparks. A great hymn by a great American guitarist)

17 I Don't Think So (Shelby Lynne. Alison Moorer’s sister is in a disagreeable mood.)

18 I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good (Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington enjoy the majesty of each other on an all time classic.)

19 I Surrender All (Zion Harmonizers. New Orleans gospel group  harmonizing for heaven.)

20 I Want To Rest (Brother Claude Ely. Appalachian holiness tent meeting music. With power! )

21 Isa Lei (Ry Cooder & Vishwamohan Bhatt share guitar chops on a beautiful Hawaiian swooner.)

22 Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (Bob Dylan & George Harrison were good friends. George dropped by in May 1970 to jam.)

23 It's Your Thing (Grant Green. Scorching guitar work from Mr Green.)

24 Iye Iye Oh (Sir Victor Uwaifo. The boy genius from     Nigeria.)

25 Java (Al Hirt stirs the coffee pot.)

26 Don't Even Kick It Around (Vieux Farka Toure gets all jazzy)

Happy Weekend!

Listen here.

Celebrating one year: Pannalal Ghosh and Asad Amanat Ali Khan

Pandit Pannalal Ghosh and Asad Amanat Ali Khan

Tonight the Washerman’s Dog celebrates one year on the mystical musical blogroll of life! 

The past twelve months have been a total blast. My musical world has grown and I’ve made lots of new friends around the world.  And as with most journeys in life it isn’t long into the trip before you discover how little you DON’T know about music. I’ve been amazed at the depth of knowledge (not to mention record collections) of other bloggers and fans of the Washerman’s Dog.

Over 186 posts the music of Pakistan and India has been the most widely and regularly appreciated. And that is where the Washerman’s Dog has spent most of the year.  The number one most popular post was the collection of ghazals by Ustad Amanat Ali Khan. 

But in the top ten also are some classic R&B, African selections and good old American blues.  My few postings of gospel music have also been unexpectedly popular as has some jazz.   Thanks to all those who drop by regularly for a chat. Thank you for your comments and kind words and even corrections!

To celebrate the Washerman’s Dog presents two personal favorites.

First, the music of the son of Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, Asad Amanat Ali Khan.  Live vol 1 was a cassette left by a friend on his bedside table.  He was working for a short while with an aid agency in Peshawar. He had spent some time camping out on the floor of my house in Rawalpindi over the previous 12 months and I suppose it was his way of saying thank you.

There is so much to love about the music on this tape. The selection of songs is outstanding.  Asad opens with a barnstorming piece of Sufi poetry by Ghulam Farid (1845-1901), Punjab’s great mystical poet. The song Umaran Lagiyan Paba Par runs for 18 minutes, is sung in Punjabi and has to be one of the finest vocal performances Asad or any contemporary Pakistani singer has ever produced. A mad tabla keeps biting at the singer’s heels never letting him slacken the passion, rather chasing his voice to the very peak of pleading, demanding ecstasy. As honest and brutal as John Donne.  For this song alone the tape is worth your time.

Asad cools off with a gorgeous, gentle ghazal Meri dastaan-e-hasrat which while as long and as searching as the opening track, travels a much more subdued path. Asad’s phrasing is nearly jazz like. His singing as farouche to the same degree as it was bolshy on the opening track.

A bit of fun ensues next with a nice boppish ditty called Zara Zara in which Asad takes his audience on a mini tour of the world. This is followed next by two wonderful love poems Mein tujhe dil se pyar karta hun and Tum ne mujhe kho diya. In the first he declares his deep love and in the second he regrets that it was she who lost him. 

Back to Punjabi for a song whose title appears to have been left  off the cassette cover. And finally, the concert closes and the Volume 1 end prematurely mid-stream during another lovely Urdu ghazal, Hoton Pe Kuch Un ke Mera.

Unlike so many  ‘live’ recordings with canned applause and ‘wah wahs’ from the audience, the banter between Asad and his accompanists and the audience is spontaneous and heart felt.  He gracefully and with humor deflects the repeated requests for him to sing his father’s most popular song, Inshaji Utho.

The second selection is by the ultimate master of the bansuri (bamboo flute) Pandit Pannalal Ghosh. I first began listening to this record when I was probably less than 10 years old. My father bought it in Civil Lines, Allahabad. We played it a lot at home and is the reason why my favorite Hindustani classical instrument is the bansuri.

Born in Barisal, East Bengal (now Bangladesh) on July 31, 1911, Amulya Jyoti (nicknamed Pannalal) Ghosh was a child prodigy. He inherited his love of music and the bamboo flute (bansuri) from his grandfather, Hari Kumar Ghosh who played sitar, tabla, and pakhawaj and learned sitar from his father, Akshay Kumar Ghosh. He also learned music from his maternal uncle, Bhavaranjan Mazumdar who was a vocalist. The family first lived in the village of Amarnathganj and later moved to the town of Fatehpur.

Two apocryphal incidents happened to young Pannalal which had an influential bearing on his later life. First, at age 9 while looking for a stick, Pannalal found a flute floating in the river. He retrieved the instrument and so began his lifelong relationship with the bansuri. Two years later at age 11 Pannalal met a sadhu who held both a conch and a flute. The sadhu asked Pannalal if he could play the flute, and young Pannalal obliged. The sadhu gave him the flute and told the boy that music would be his salvation.

And indeed, it was so.

By 1939 Pannalal, who was already playing sitar, began to focus his attention on bansuri. Economic necessity drove him into performing music for the silent films in Calcutta. At an All India music competition he met music director and composer Anil Biswas and began to play in his musical productions. It was during one such production when Anil Biswas was directing music for a dramatization of a work by the renowned poet Kazi Nazrul Islam that Pannalal decided that he needed a bigger flute who's pitch and sonority would be more appropriate for both classical and light music. He met an old Muslim toy vendor who was also proficient in making flutes. With his help Pannalal experimented with various materials including metal and other types of wood, but decided bamboo was still the most suitable medium for a larger instrument. He finally settled on a bansuri which was thirty two inches long, with a sa (tonic) at kali doe (the second black key on the old harmonium scale). As a flute of this size was hitherto unknown, a rumor arose that Pannalal had had surgery to cut the webbing between his fingers to facilitate the large span required to cover the finger holes of the instrument. Of course, he had no such surgery, but through dedicated riyaz (practice), Pannalal invented and perfected the technique to play the large instrument. At this time he would get his bamboo to make flutes from discarded packing materials found at Diamond Harbor, the large port of Calcutta. Deforestation had not yet consumed the forest around Calcutta, and the bamboo was believed to have grown close to the city itself. He practiced hard and perfected the technique of vocal music on flute. At this time he realized the need for meend from madhyama swar to nishad or dhaivat shrutis in ragas like Bihag, Yaman, Bageshree and many others. He experimented and invented the seventh hole of madhyama. (http://adagio.calarts.edu/~bansuri/pannalal.html)

Pannalal Ghosh is credited with elevating the bansuri, an instrument mainly associated with folk and devotional music in India to a serious classical instrument. As such he is the guru of such better known contemporary players such as Hariprasad Chaurasia.

If you find Indian classical music somehow ‘hard’ to get into. Or you simply need help relaxing at the end of a long week, listen to Pannalal. All will become clear!

            Track Listing:

            Asad Amanat Ali Khan

            Live Vol 1

01.  Umaran Lagiyan Paba Par

02.  Meri Dastaan-e-Hasrat

03.  Zara Zara

04.  Mein Tujhe Dil Se Pyar Karta Hun

05.  Tum ne Mujhe Kho Diya

06.  Punjabi geet

07.  Hoton pe Kuch Un Ke Mera

Listen here. (These are unusually large files. Apologies. Quality is high.)

            Track Listing:

            Pannalal Ghosh

01.  Raga Yaman

02.  Raga Shri

Listen here.

Music for the Generals in Abbotabad: Vatican Shadow

Pakistan Military Academy insignia

For a time I worked as parking lot attendant.  The University of Minnesota was (is?) the largest university (60,000 students) in America and there were heaps of parking lots scattered across the sprawling network of campuses in the Twin Cities.  My job was to stand in the cold and hand every car a ticket. When the parking lot filled up, usually within an hour, I spent the next three hours of the shift inside a little cabin, studying.

On the walls of one particular cabin someone had started a list of band names. Each week it grew longer and longer. Yasser and the Gaza Highsteppers was followed by Meringue Fortitude which was followed by something equally silly.  It was a quiet perk of the job.

How about this band name?  Vatican Shadow. And this a name for their latest album Pakistan Military Academy.

Not exactly funny or even that inventive. But these are real names and the subject of tonight’s post.

I stumbled upon this record only last week.  And of course, since the Washerman’s Dog is mad about anything Pakistani, I read on. Here is what the website (boomkat) said, Ok, we're trying to stay relatively stush about these new Vatican Shadow releases at the risk of over-egging them, but really, this one is just f**king incredible. Like the 'Washington Buries Al Qaeda Leader At Sea Deck 1-3' series, he's drawing inspiration from the whole "did they/didn't they?" situation with Bin Laden earlier this year to make some of the darkest gear we've ever heard. Like the bastard savant offspring of John Carpenter, Michael Diekmann and Aphex Twin (don't know how that would work, but hey), he's in F19 nightflight mode on 'Prime Minister Defiant As Pakistan Outs CIA Agent' with droning, black synth-bass mass and narrowed-eye strings primed for the mission, while 'Whitewashed Compound Stealth Helicopter Crash' makes no bones about its epic intentions with majestically moody synth orchestrations and widescreen reverbs. The two other, more beat-driven tracks are excellent too, but this release is essential for the other two. One of our favourite releases this year, hands-down.

Now I’m a normal sort of guy and while I love music, dark ambient or death metal isn’t exactly my cuppa.  But I duly downloaded it because who the hell names a record for the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbotabad? Where aforementioned Bin Laden was done in.

This is dark music surely. I mean with the names being what they are you’re not going to get polka.  But for those who recoil at the thought of dark trance music, take heart. This album is very good. It’s moody and evocative. All synthesizers, some drum beats and a bit of ‘noise’ (but very tastefully done!)  And from what I can garner on the man behind Vatican Shadow, Dominic  Fernow,(the earnest young  lad from Wisconsin pictured below) this is him entering an ‘easy listening’ phase. I take it a lot of his other stuff is mostly industrial clang.

While this record will probably not make it to the top of the hit parade on FM Abbotabad, it is an unexpected rough diamond that is growing on me with every listen.

         Track Listing:

         01. Whitewashed Compound Stealth Helicopter Crash

02. Staccato Bursts Of Gunfire

03. CIA Contractor Freed Over Pakistan Killings

04.Prime Minister Defiant As Pakistan Outs CIA Agent

Listen here

  

Singing the Way I Felt: Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.

I was messing around with the harmonica... but I was 13 before I got a real good note out of it.

My grandmother, she say I shouldn't be playing. I should go to church. Finally, I say I'm going do this, I'm going do it. And she got where she didn't bother me about it.

I went to school, but they didn't give you too much schooling because just as soon as you was big enough, you get to working in the fields. I guess I was a big boy for my age.

Oh, I started out young. They handed me a cotton sack when I was about 8 years old. Give me a little small one, tell me to fill it up. I never did like the farm but I was out there with my grandmother, didn't want to get away from around her too far.

Of course that was my idol, Son House. I think he did a lot for the Mississippi slide down there.

I was always singing the way I felt, and maybe I didn't exactly know it, but I just didn't like the way things were down there-in Mississippi.

In 1943 Muddy Waters left ‘down there’ and moved ‘up’ to Chicago.

I wanted to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. Go back? What I want to go back for?

There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.

Muddy Waters went on to make some the most groundbreaking recordings in American music between the late 1940s and 1960s.  His massive voice and creening slide guitar playing, his natty dressing and his eye for talent (Little Walter, James Cotton, Otis Spann, Buddy Guy all got their breaks in Muddy’s band) made him the progenitor of classic electric blues. 

He was simply a Giant.

Tonight’s post is a 2 disc compilation of rarely heard outtakes and unrecorded tracks from his career with the famous Chess Records of Chicago. With early versions of some of his famous songs, live recordings from on the road and songs simply ignored at the time, these discs cover the entire span of his career as a performer in Chicago.  

There is nothing quite like a Muddy Waters’ led band in full tilt. It was a revolutionary sound.  But these recordings, often without a drummer or in a more stripped down setting are just as powerful. And still as fresh as the day they were recorded.

Spine tinglingly good stuff.

         Track Listing:

         Disc one

1-01 Hard Days

1-02 Muddy Jumps One

1-03 Burying Ground

1-04 You Gonna Need My Help

1-05 Rollin' And Tumblin', Part 2

1-06 Rollin' Stone

1-07 Country Boy

1-08 She's So Pretty

1-09 Oh Yeah

1-10 I Don't Know Why

1-11 I Want To Be Loved

1-12 I Got To Find My Baby

1-13 Crawlin' Kingsnake

1-14 Read Way Back

1-15 Tiger In Your Tank

1-16 Meanest Woman

1-17 I Got My Brand On You

1-18 Lonesome Room Blues

1-19 Messin' With The Man

1-20 Five Long Years

1-21 You Don't Have To Go

1-22 Elevate Me Mama

Listen here

                  Track Listing:

                  Disc Two

2-01 Thirteen Highway

2-02 Early In The Morning Blues

2-03 One More Mile

2-04 Come Back Baby (Let's Talk It Over)

2-05 My Dog Can't Bark

2-06 Roll Me Over Baby

2-07 Trouble In Mind

2-08 Trouble, Trouble

2-09 My Pencil Won't Write No More

2-10 Cold Up North

2-11 Streamline Woman

2-12 Rock Me

2-13 Standing Around Crying

2-14 Hoochie Coochie Man

2-15 Baby, Please Don't Go

2-16 You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had

2-17 I Feel Like Going Home

2-18 Where's My Woman Been

2-19 Rollin' And Tumblin'

Listen here.