KTK28: LES ANTILLES part1

Ladies & gentlemen...

After arriving at Fort de France last tuesday, we continue our little visit of the Caribbean islands. For the next 2 weeks, we'll have a nice overview of that great melting pot called French Antilles. Well, you probably know the story: "taken from Africa, brought to America. Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival...".

Today, get ready to dance with some spicy 70's tunes from Guadeloupe, Haiti, Dominica, Saint Lucia and Martininique. LES ANTILLES (Carabine 49539 from 1976, first Lp of a 2 Lp's set) is a great occasion to start a party!

What an awesome amount of influences we got here: Indian spices, various Latin American and African music styles and French Kreyol for the lyrics. 10 groovy tunes: great vocals, lots of drums, sax, trumpets and off course caribbean instruments. As clearly stated on the cover "super ambiance" that you can translate by "hot atmosphere" so... get ready to dance zouk, compas, biguine...

 

TRACKLIST:

MARTINIQUE

01 LA CEINTURE DE SECURITE (S.E Maurice)

02 FESTIVAL PUISSANCE 8 (J.Rebus)

03 ADIEU VIOLONCELLES (Edgar Godert Septua)

GUADELOUPE

04 MINNIN VINI (Pierre Labor)

05 MOIN TENI EN ZAMI (Pierre Labor)

HAITI

06 NOUVELLE FORMULE (Haitian folklore)

07 VOLONTE (Haitian folklore)

DOMINICA

08 TONTON BICHOT (J.Joseph / G.Thomas)

09 NOU KA JOU KAN MEME (B.Thomas)

St LUCIA

10 CA OU CE CA OU (Tony Valmont)

"NOU KA JOU KAN MEME" (we'll play music even if we don't get payed anymore...)

You'd better not break your back today while dancing

 as we'll have the part 2 of this double gatefold LP's set

coming very soon!

KTK27: MAURICE ALCINDOR "PILULES"

Mr Maurice Alcindor

Ladies & gentlemen, we are now arriving at Fort de France, Martininique. We're starting a little journey around Caribbean islands / West Indies. It's going to be a short trip but we'll get a pretty good view around many places: Guadeloupe, Haiti, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Trinidad-and-Tobago and today Martininique.

Our host Mr Maurice Alcindor is a legend here: stand up comedian, singer, radio Dj and even if he retired from RFO radio in 2010 (at the age of 80!) he still happen to sing in concerts. Today we'll enjoy "PILULE / OUVE LA POTE LA BA MOIN" (Célini Disques RCG 5041, early 70's). Celini Disques where pretty active at this time, putting up many lp's and ep's from all the islands around (most of the time with those highly recognisable rough  hand drawn covers. It's interesting to note that they released a 2 volumes compilation CD of some of those recordings "Souvenirs Creoles" (1964/1978).

So, here we have 2 great biguine songs backed with a great "jazzy band", it's an hot, spicy, dancy and quite funny Ep (well, funny if you can understand a little this delicious kreyol language from French Antilles). As quite often here the lyrics are about "love". Understand, sex, couple troubles and other things that can lead to funny songs. "Pilule" is about free birth control pills (that just came out at this time) and "Ouvé la pote la ba moin" about a man locked out who begs his lover to let him in and promise to be a good man...

TRACKLIST:

01PILULE

02 OUVE LA POTE LA BA MOIN

The photos comes from the movie BIGUINE by Guy Deslauriers (2004)
it seems to be pretty interesting...

Thanks for flying with KTK

KTK26: MOONLIGHT ON THE RIVER IN SPRING

 Ladies and gentlemen...

Today is the last day of our trip around China. We already had a little view of various music styles but it would have take years to get a full tour and we'll have to fly to some other places soon...

We'll finish our journey with some traditionnal Chinese instrumental music, MOONLIGHT ON THE RIVER IN SPRING (China Record Company M-032 from early seventies) played by the Shanghai Traditionnal Orchestra. 

The best descritption I could give about this record is a quote found online (from a seller who prabably quoted it from somewhere else).

"Silk-string and Bamboo-wind is a form of Chinese instrumental folk music. It uses mainly silk-string and bamboo wind instruments. This type of music can be found in many parts of China. It is especially popular in the southern part of Kiangsu province. The instruments used are the Er-hu, the San Hsien or 3-stringed lute, the Pipa, the Yangchin, the flute and the Hsiao etc. It has a clear, charming style and a lively free rhythm. The five pieces written on this record show the variety of sound used to create this music. The music is descriptive. On a moon-lit night in spring, a sheer mist covers myriads of flowering trees along the river banks. Silvery waves ripple on the lake. The sounds of bells and drums from a distant temple can be heard now and then in the night air. A small boat appears in the distance. The fisherman is singing his evening song. His oars disturb the placial water and widening rings of water lap at the river banks. Gradually, the boat drifts farther and farther away, the night deepens, the river and all on its banks sink into quietude."

TRACKLIST:

01: MOONLIGHT ON THE RIVER IN SPRING

02: THE SONG OF HAPPINESS

03: SAN LIU

04: CHUN HWA LIU PAN

05: POCESSION SUITE (in 4 parts)

 

The images are exerpts from Jianzhi

a traditionnal form of chinese papercuts

thanks for flying with KTK

KTK25: THE WHITE-HAIRED GIRL (part 2)

"Ladies & gentlemen..."

That's not the echo of last week's ballet music that you ear now... It's just the "part 2" of THE WHITE-HAIRED GIRL...Today, you'll  enjoy the second part of the most popular "modern revolutionnary ballet" of China.

THE WHITE-HAIRED GIRL (China Record Company M-938 from 1971). This 10' record is the part 2 of a 2 lp's set (we talked about the first LP last week). It also come with a booklet (included here). It's quite nice I found this early seventies set compete and in good shape, it's a great piece of cultural history of china and the cover is pretty sweet (so bad the booklet does not include any pictures).

Don't expect anything surprising out of those 2 lp's, it's the full deal as you can expect from those kind of propaganda ballets: High quality on all levels! full luxurious orchestra, powerfull chorus and great lead singers who gets this ballet close to contemporary "musicals"... Well, you won't be disappointed.

TRACKLIST:

Adapted by: 

"The White-Haired Girl" Ballet troupe of the Shanghai School of Dancing

Music played by the school's orchestra.

Conductor: Chen Hsieh-yang

Singing: 

- Chorus

- Chu Feng-po (female solo)

- Chien Yung-ho (male solo)

 
There is a serie of 70's lo-fi style

silkscreen prints online about:
THE WHITE-HAIRED GIRL

 See previous post for "part 1"