CD Artist Selection for October 2011 Grupo Rebolú Grupo Rebolú’s CD, Abriendo Caminos (or Opening Roads), offers the listener ten high energy tracks featuring the sounds of Colombia’s northern Caribbean coast. Nine of these tracks were written by the group’s director Ronald Polo with arrangements by co-director Morris Cañate. Friends since childhood, Ronald and Morris grew up together in Barranquilla, Colombia and first met as youngsters enrolled in the Escuela de Música de Barranquilla, Carlos Franco. Morris comes from a family of traditional musicians and dancers, and it was his aunt, an instructor at the school, who encouraged him to enroll. Ronald’s brother pushed him to join, and Ronald quickly made up his mind that music was going to be his life. They began as dancers in the school, and having won their category at Barranquilla’s annual carnival, the youngsters continued to develop as artists. By the time they were 17, they had recorded a CD and the school encouraged their group to travel internationally. Thirty members of the school performed in France, China, Japan, Spain and Portugal playing Colombia’s traditional music and some of Ronald’s original compositions. This experience profoundly shaped the lives of Ronald and Morris, and when they came to the U.S. years later, they immediately began planning a new group. Gabrielle Hamilton recently sat down with Ronald and Morris and Johanna Castañeda, a vocalist in the group and Ronald’s wife. They talked about Rebolú’s CD and what traditional music means to the group so far from their homeland. Here are some excerpts from that discussion: Gabrielle: When did Rebolú officially form in NY? Morris: The name actually came along in 2004 or 2005 with the thought of putting together a band, but we didn’t actually get together until 2008. And it started with my student in Chicago offering me a gig, and we put together a band for the show and Rebolú grew out of that. Ronald: The first person to come to the United States was me and I asked Morris if he wanted to come and three years later he came with Fabian Diaz. The idea was to start a group because we all played together in the school and Fabian was one of the best musicians we had in Barranquilla. He played everything—gaitas (native flute), percussion, and trumpet. He decided that he wanted to move to Boston and then died suddenly of appendicitis. But it was really the three of us when we started here. We started a group similar to Rebolú. From there, Pablo Mayor invited me to sing with Folklore Urbano. Gabrielle: Tell me about your writing process. Do you hear the music first? Do you sit down with Morris? Ronald: The composing comes naturally. If I come up with an idea at any moment of the day, I’ll record the song on my cell phone with whatever melody I have. Then when I get home I write out the songs. And then I meet with Morris and show him my ideas and ask him what he thinks. Most of the time, he’ll tell me: “I like this song; we can arrange it like this” and we figure out the percussion. Johanna: He has tons of voice recordings in his cell phone, because he comes up with stuff in the middle of the day at work. Gabrielle: It seems to me that there are three different themes on your CD: songs about love and relationships, songs celebrating the traditional rhythms, and songs about immigration experiences, such as the last song: Manana me voy de aqui (I leave here tomorrow). Johanna: It’s all life experiences! Ronald: Yes, I write about things that happened to me or Morris or Johanna. La Manga is about my hometown. It’s named La Manga because it looks like a sleeve with one street running down from the mountains into the town. It’s not a town of rich people but they’re happy and I always think of my hometown. El Viejo José is about my dad, so I call him “Old Joe” and Morris’ dad too, who is also José. And Morris’ middle name is José too. Gabrielle: And La Sorpresa? It seems to be about all the singer’s bad relationships. Morris [laughing]: That’s not me! Ronald [laughing]: It’s not only me! What I do when I write a song is try to find the humorous part and the true part too. So it’s not only my story but the story of a lot of my friends and a lot of different cases. If you hear the first verse it is about a man meeting a woman close to the river, but after he gets to know her he finds out that she married, and the next woman he meets is pregnant and the next is drunk. And so the chorus sings “don’t bother me!” Now, the second CD of Rebolú is coming out with more surprises! And I think I’ve grown up now, so the lyrics are nicer and explore issues like death. In one song, death visits the singer, they argue and the singer pleads with him to give him a little more time to write music. Gabrielle: What does Grupo Rebolú mean to you? Morris: Rebolú balances my life in the city. New York is not an easy city; you have to be strong and work hard and Rebolú is my escape. Ronald: Rebolú is my other son; it’s my future; it’s the hope that things are going to be better. It’s cool music. Gabrielle: What do you want your listeners to hear when they listen to your CD? Is there anything you want to tell listeners who perhaps do not understand Spanish? Morris: I want people to feel the positive energy of the group. Ronald: People should know they are listening to traditional Colombian Caribbean rhythms: gaitas, tambora, puyas, chande, bullerengue, cumbias, fused with a New York style. That’s my starting point. We are traditional musicians, so what I do is take traditional rhythms from the north coast of Colombia and add other sounds of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Mexico, Peru. Everything you hear, you can get something from; and that’s what I do, picking up the vibe from Latinos based in New York City. We’ve created new sounds and a new group and I think it is a great band to hear and to see. To contact Grupo Rebolú go to: www.gruporebolu.com

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CD Artist Selection for November 2011 The Dawnland Singers “Our old ones will be here with us as long as Earth abides….” —from Gwsintow8ganal [Honor Songs] (2009), The Dawnland Singers The Dawnland Singers released their CD Gwsintow8ganal [Honor Songs] in 2009 as a way of paying honor to people whose stories deserve telling. It is the second CD by the Dawnland Singers, a Native American performance group that was formed in 1993 when they were featured at the Abenaki Cultural Heritage Days in Vermont. The core of the group consists of Joe Bruchac, an Abenaki storyteller and author, along with his two sons Jesse Bruchac (a teacher of the Abenaki language who created the first Abenaki language website) and James Bruchac (an animal tracker who is also the director of the Ndakinna Educational Center), as well as Joe’s sister Marge Bruchac (coordinator of the Native Studies program at University of Connecticut/Storrs Campus). All are skilled storytellers and involved in the research of traditional Native American culture, with hundreds of publications among them. Rounding out the group are John Kirk, a talented multi-instrumentalist who also helped with some of the arrangements on the CD, and Ed Lowman, bass player, both of whom have become “adopted Abenakis” and feature prominently in Honor Songs. Presentations by the Dawnland Singers typically include new and traditional northeastern Native music mixed with Abenaki storytelling. Shortly after coming together as a group and recording their first CD in 1994 (called Alnobak), they performed at many sites and festivals in the Northeast, including the Champlain Valley Festival, the Old Songs Festival, The Eight Step, Caffè Lena, and Kanatsiohareke. They even opened for the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan concert in Highgate, Vermont. As their busy lives made it more and more difficult for them to meet after their first recording, they were finally able to come together in 2009 to record this most current CD. Following is information taken from a phone conversation with Joe Bruchac about their project: HONOR Gswintow8ganal, means “Honor Songs” in the Abenaki language, and the tracks pay homage to important people and events in Native American culture. As Joe Bruchac says, “We wanted to remind people of those who deserve to be honored.” Such people include well-known figures like Jim Thorpe (on the ballad-like track 6), an American athlete who was born on Indian territory in Oklahoma and raised Sac and Fox (his native name was Wa-Tho-Huk, which translates as “Bright Path”). Thorpe attended an Indian boarding school as a youngster, and although he went on to become one of the greatest athletes of the early 20th century, he dealt with racism at a time of great prejudice towards Native Americans. Track 16, “Indian Boarding School,” lyrically touches on the experiences of those at the infamous boarding schools, which were primarily focused on assimilation into the majority culture. Some tracks honor warriors, both past and present. Track 17, “Metacomet (King Phillip)” pays respect to the 17th century Wampanoag chief who fought British colonists in what became known as King Phillip’s War, a pivotal event in New England history, while track 9, “Wawanolet (Song for Greylock)” refers to the 18th-century chief of the Abenakis who similarly fought colonial settlers. “In Babylon,– track 3, reminds us that there are those in the present day who deserve to be honored and remembered as well, by honoring Iraq war veterans. LANGUAGE As a language spoken by just a handful of people, Abenaki features prominently in “Honor Songs” as a language deserving of recognition. Says Joe: “One of the main goals of the CD was to produce good music. But we also wanted to draw attention to the language.” Many of the songs, written by Joe and Jesse, are in Abenaki, and combine words and phrases from the language in combination with vocables, or syllables that have no direct translation. Jesse, who is fluent in Abenaki, is an avid researcher and teacher of the language, In addition to compiling the only Western Abenaki online dictionary (www.westernabenaki.com), he consults on various projects. One of his current projects includes doing research on wax cylinder recordings from the Siebert collection, a collection of Algonquin texts (Abenaki is an Algonquin language). At a recent gathering of Algonquin language speakers, it was discovered that there were errors in the translations, and Jesse and others are working to provide more accurate renderings. It is evidence of their commitment to keeping the language alive, and the CD is one more way to pay respect to the language and maintain its vitality in the culture. MUSIC The music on the CD is a mixture of various styles. “We wanted to create a tapestry of Native American sounds with more modern ones. It’s a blending of the traditional and the modern.” One track that is particularly representative of this is “Indian Boarding School” (track 16). As Joe explains it, the song flips between the past and the present, with modern, non-Native instrumentation at the opening, but a traditional chant that comes in to represent the children at the boarding school. “Warriors in the Twilight” (track 19) is another track that incorporates this sort of dual sonority. Other tracks represent a more subtle blending of the traditional and modern in terms of instrumentation. The Native American flute, made out of river cane or red cedar and with only five or six finger holes, traditionally has somewhat of a background role or is used as what Joe calls “mood music.” But in certain tracks on the CD, the Native American flute takes on a more lead role, as in “As Long as Earth Abides” (track 1) or “In Babylon” (track 3). Jesse is a versatile flute player, and has expanded the boundaries of Native American flute technique by playing it more virtuosically and so that it has more of a central melodic focus. Traditionalists will also hear some clearly modern instrumentation. The two tracks mentioned above incorporate guitar, bass and violin, all non-Native instruments played by John Kirk (who helped arrange several of the tracks) and Ed Lowman. The choice to incorporate these instrumentalists on the CD was quite purposeful. Joe puts it this way: “The CD blends together the atonality of Native American music, and the chromaticism and instrumentation of modern music.” COMMUNITY The Dawnland Singers are a tight community of musicians, but the CD effort drew upon other less visible, but equally integral, members of the community as well. Swift Eagle, a Pueblo and Apache Indian who came from a musical and silversmithing family, greatly influenced Joe as a young adult when Joe first saw him play at Frontier Town, a tourist attraction in the Adirondacks. Swift Eagle’s son, Powhatan, made some of the first flutes that Joe and later Jesse now own. Another important influence for Joe was Maurice Dennis (Mdawelasis, or “Little Loon” is his Abenaki name), who created the Indian Village at Enchanted Forest and first taught Joe some Native American traditional songs. The creation of the CD in many ways pays respect to them as well. And of course, the CD wouldn’t have come into existence without the logistical means of creating it. For that, Joe and the rest of the Dawnland Singers tapped into their tightknit community of traditional music lovers, recording at the home studios of friends Donald Person (Studio 14) and Jack and Connie Hume (Windy Acres Farm). Honoring community is at the very root of Honor Songs, and in so doing, they honor the humanity of community, as well as the individual backgrounds of those that make up the community. To contact the Dawnland Singers, go to: www.josephbruchac.com/honorsongs.html

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CD Artist Selection for December 2011 Æ This 2010 CD by the duo called Æ, comprised of Eva Salina Primack and Aurelia Shrenker is a treasure of women’s voices—if you love groups like De Boca en Boca or compilations such as Wizard Women of the North, you’ll love the harmonies on this CD. It is primarily an a cappella work with some accompaniment by Primack on accordion and Shrenker on panduri (traditional three-string lute from eastern Georgia), with violinist Jesse Kotansky on two tracks. The 14 tracks feature Georgian, Albanian, Greek, and Ukrainian songs, with two old-time songs from this country, “Across the Blue Mountains,” and “Wind and Rain,” as well as a Corsican song. How does this mix of Eastern European, American, and Corsican fit together? Eva explains the Corsican song came from the time they were on tour in Europe and had a week of rehearsal on that island. She heard traditional songs from there and “when you start listening to polyphonic music from one tradition it is a gateway to other polyphonic music.” So she wanted to learn these songs too. Eva and Aurelia learned these songs in three and four parts, but wondered where were the songs in two voices? The piece on the CD, a hymn to the Virgin Mary from the 12th century, is the only one in two voices they ever heard. Describing the entire CD, Eva comments “They are all mountain songs—Balkan mountains, Corsican, Appalachian mountains. They are not that dissimilar. That’s the idea of these songs that weave together.” The title of the group and cd, Æ works on many levels for the duo. It is a Celtic rune that joins the sounds A and E together, pronounced “ash,” and means a dual nature–exactly two. For the duo of Aurelia and Eva who perform the music of the old and new this is perfect symbol to represent what they do. Eva and Aurelia Eva grew up in California and by seven years old started going to the Balkan camps there. For the last seven years, she has taught at the camps. She sings in Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, Macedonian, Romani, and Ukrainian. While working on a BA in Ethnomusicology at UCLA, she met Aurelia who had moved out there for school from Massachusetts. Aurelia had grown up listening to old time songs and playing the mountain dulcimer with her family, but at a young age became very much interested in the Georgian music scene. Within in a few months of meeting, Aurelia and Eva were singing together. They realize they have come to this music from the outside, but because of their dedication they have become integral parts of the communities they perform with—Eva is considered one of the preeminent singers and interpreters of Balkan vocal music. Aurelia is currently in Georgia on a Fulbright scholarship but they will have some workshops and performances as Æ in the spring as well as some upcoming solo gigs. 2012 Calendar Æ May 3, 2012 Jalopy in Red Hook, Brooklyn June 21, 2012 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston Eva Salina Primack January 13-14, 2012 Zlatne’s Uste’s Golden Festival, Grand Prospect Ballroom, Brooklyn March 23-25, 2012 Singing Workshop through Turtle River Harmony with Brendan Taiffe and Luke Hoffman, Vermont April 15, 2012 Jalopy in Red Hook, Brooklyn Contact Information: Website: www.aesings.com Visit Eva’s website for more information: http://www.evasalinaprimack.com/music/ash-ae. Or visit them on Facebook.

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