Artist: V.A. (Soundtrack)
Title: Listen…OKA!
Label: Oka Productions
Release date: February 1, 2012
Genre: African music master meets intensely creative, egalitarian hunter-gatherers to create gorgeously recorded, deeply complex score for feature film.
Azam Ali and (most of) the members of Niyaz played two shows in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving week. I left from my home in Maryland on Sunday the 20th and travelled to the northeast suburbs of Philly to visit with family. Monday afternoon I headed into the city and found the venue, Ibrahim Theatre, at International House on Chestnut St. Having a few hours to spare, I sought out the Occupy Philadelphia site to get a first-person view of the encampment, and perhaps some perspective that the media was not presenting.
Returning to the venue for the show, I was pleased to find a somewhat ethnically mixed crowd, and a dance floor! Raquy and The Cavemen, from NYC, opened the show with their energetic mix of drums, guitar and kamanche (Persian spike fiddle). Azam, her husband and co-writer Loga Ramin Torkian, and 3 others took the stage. They performed several songs from Azam’s latest release, From Night to the Edge of Day as well as favorites from the two Niyaz recordings. Azam invited the audience to the dance floor towards the end of the show, and it filled with mostly women, swirling, arms lifted, hips swinging.
Date: Monday, November 7, 2011
Venue: Lucky Cheng (NY)
Reviewed by Matt Cole
On Monday, the 7th of November, Butch Morris led his newest project, the Lucky Cheng Orchestra, in a two-set conducted musical adventure at Lucky Cheng’s (the current residence of Nublu) in Lower Manhattan, the latest in a weekly residency, which started in early September, and will last until the end of November. This night’s players included Tom Swafford on violin, Nicole Federici on viola, Meaghan Burke on cello, Areni Agbabian on voice, Christoph Knoche on bass clarinet, flute, and harmonica, Doug Wieselman on clarinet, Stephanie Richards on trumpet, Brendan Ross and Octavia Romano on guitar, Tom Zlabinger on double bass, Joe Hertenstein and Kenny Wollesen on percussion, and William MacIntyre on vibraphone. This night’s show was also videotaped by the BBC for a news segment.
Artist: Sibiri Samake
Title: Dambe Foli
Label: Kanaga System Krush
Genre: Malian traditional music
Independent record label Kanaga System Krush (K.S.K.) released this fall Dambe Foli. Sibiri Samaké’s second and long-awaited album featuring traditional Mande/Bamana Hunters’ music.
