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The Open Window airs at 6:30 am Mondays and 8am Thursdays at www.cjly.net (Kootenay Co-op Radio) in Nelson, B.C.
Listen to a podcast of this showCaetano Veloso: Livros, O Navio Negreiro, and How Beautiful from Livro (Nonesuch)
Brazilian artist, musician, singer, composer, political activist Caetano Veloso is sometimes likened to Bob Dylan for his impact on popular music. He is of the same generation as Dylan, but there is one big difference: the provocative music of Veloso (and Gal Costa and Gilberto Gil) was performed under a military dictatorship. All three spent time in jail for anti-government activity and had their lyrics censored. Their radical music, which was called Tropicalia, contained bossa nova, folk rock, art rock, jazz and poetic spoken word, and they felt the wrath of former fans, again like Dylan. Unlike Dylan though, he has remained relevant. He is now a world superstar without any of the usual trappings of pop stardom, making challenging music.
Kokopelli: Con Que la Lavare from Spirit (Independent)
This inspired and inspiring choir of young people from Edmonton contains four members from Nelson.
Cannonball Adderley: One for Daddy-O from Somethin' Else (Blue Note)
This 1958 album makes lots of greatest jazz album lists. Miles Davis is a sideman, and there is apparently some debate about who the leader actually was. With Cannonball on alto, Miles on trumpet, and Hank Jones and his brother Sam Jones along with Art Blakey on piano, bass and drums respectively, this is classic music that sums up the best of the late fifties. It's relaxed and fluid, but with that challenging Miles Davis directness . Cannonball's ecstatic break that opens his solo on this track is worth the price of the CD.
Satomi Saeki: Haru No Kyuku and Hakumei from Japanese Koto Music (Independent)
Satomi Saeki was classically trained in Japan and now lives in Victoria, B.C., travelling the continent (and sometimes back to Japan) teaching and performing. From the CD notes:
"Saeki's interest in performing koto music on the international stage was inspired by a concert in Hawaii in 1991. As she looked out into the audience, she noticed several Japanese American women were visibly moved while listening to traditional Japanese music. As a Japanese woman living in Canada and raising Japanese Canadian children it was an emotional state Saeki could easily identify with....."
This music in one word? Crystalline.
J.S. Bach: Sonata in G Minor for Flute, Harp and Cello-- Irena Grafenaur (flute), Maria Graf (harp), David Geringas (cello) from The Virtuoso's Bach Vol 4 (Philips)
The combination of harp, flute and cello, think about it. That's why I had to play it, and this piece added a lovely elegance to the show.
The Open Window airs at www.cjly.net Mondays at 6:30 am and Sundays at 10 am, PDT
Katsuya Yokokama: Tamuke and Honshirabe from Zen: Katsuya Yokoyama Plays Classical Shakuhachi Masterworks (Spectrum)
This solo shakuhachi music is genuinely meditative, not fake meditative like most of the new age music played in yoga classes these days.
The album notes say that this is "religious music which does not aim at variation or development but expresses repose, a sense of nature....."
In the moment, as they say, and surprising at every turn.
Duke Ellington: Bluebird of Delhi, Depk, Mount Harissa, and Amad from Far East Suite (Bluebird)
The Ellington orchestra toured the Middle East and Asia sponsored by the U.S. State Departm
ent in 1963. The trip was cut short by the news of the assassination of President Kennedy. "World music" was unheard of in those days. No one in North America save a few scholars was familiar with anything but Western music.
"The tour was a great adventure for us on what is indeed the other side of the world," Ellington wrote in the album notes. "Sometimes I felt it was this world upside down. The look of the natural country is so unlike ours and the very contours of the earth seem to be different. The smell, the vastness, the birds, and the exotic beauty of all these countries make a great inspiration."
"I hope much will go into this music," he continued, "but doing a parallel to the East has its problems. ....I don't want to try to copy this rhythm or that scale. It is more valuable to have absorbed while there. You let it roll around, undergo a chemical change, and then seep out on paper in the form that will suit the musicians who are going to play it."
Kokopelli: Con que la Lavare, Christmas Angel, Dubela, and Wanane from Spirit (independent)
This is the 50-voice Edmonton group that has been the big-city sibling to our own Corazon for some years, both ensembles having visited and performed for each other. Kokopelli's singers are a bit older-- most are out of high school, but they're still pretty young. They are coming to Nelson to perform twice next week, and three of their new members this year are my daughter Laura Metcalfe, Malaika Horswill, and Oscar Derkx. They all sang in Corazon for years and then moved to Edmonton to go to university and were welcomed into Kokopelli. I'm very excited to see them perform here, not only because of Laura, but the other two as well: I've known Oscar and Malaika since they, along with Laura, were on theatre and music stages in Nelson as little children.
Maurice Andre and Orchestre de Chambre directed by Jean-Francois Paillard: Johann Friedrich Fasch, Trumpet Concerto from Le Canon de Pachelbel & Le Concerto Pour Trompette de Fasch (Erato)
Following on last weeks Haydn Trumpet Concerto, another one, this time featuring the great Maurice Andre.
