El Peru con Flor

El Peru con Flor Sinqueña
Conjunto Armonias, Orq: Matices del Peru
Iempsa, 72.15.1821, Lima, Peru, 1989

I still can't get enough of playing those Peruvian records I got a few weeks ago and this one by "La voz filamonica del Peru" is my latest favorite from that modest collection. The record situates itself right in the center between the other two I posted on a few weeks back; it's to the left of the western orchestrated, beautiful and smooth music of the singer Maria Jesus Vazquez, but well right of the raw huaylas by that Huanca orchestra I wrote about. The orchestra here has the characteristics of the traditional huayno orchestras of Central Peru and other Andean regions. Flor's voice is pretty straight forward without any frills, no emotive extroversion, but solid and sober. The language is Spanish (as opposed to Quechua). Most of the tracks on El Peru con... are  in the huaynos style (a dance), but a few tunantadas are also included. Below you can listen to an example of both. First the uptempo huayno Vas a Llorar, and then the slower tunantada Mi Ultimo Aviso. I'm in the process of learning Spanish but I'm not nearly far enough to understand Spanish language web sites (I can barely count till twenty) so haven't been able to find too much information on the singer Flor Sinqueña. Translated sites don't go much beyond calling her "Flower Sinqueña. I once saw a film about rocker Neil Young on German TV; they translated the name Johnny Rotten in the song lyrics of Hey Hey My My as Johnny Verdorben.

Appalachia

Instrumental Music of the 
Southern Appalachians
Tradition Records, TLP 1007
Recorded in 1956

I do not like the sleeve, and it's not quite of the same caliber as some other field recording collections from the region (say Mountain Music of Kentucky, recorded by John Cohen), but it is still a great find, especially on a red tag 50% day at the Goodwill with a red price tag of 99 cents on it. You can't even buy a candy bar for 50 cents anymore, and the vinyl is in great condition. Finding field recording records in itself makes for a good day at thrift store. The field work on this record wasn't too extensive, everything was recorded in a few days and only two or three families were involved. It was all recorded in the summer of 1956 in Virginia and North Carolina by Diane Hamilton, Liam Clancy, and Paul Clayton. They're all instrumental versions of well known traditional ballads. In the liner notes the story for each song is outlined. The recordings are of good quality and the musicianship is of good quality as well. Below you can find a small sampling of the tunes on the record. Cripple Creek is performed on a fiddle by Hobart Smith, Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad on guitar by Etta Baker, and Sally Goodin on dulcimer by Mrs. Edd Presnell. Two of the three tunes are typically played on a different instrument than you can hear here. Sally Goodin is really a fiddle tune while the fidle tune Cripple Creek is mostly played on a banjo.

Maria Callas

Maria Callas as Lucia di Lammermoor
Opera in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti
Recorded in Florence, Italy, 1953
Seraphim, IB-6032, New York, 1968

One of the few truly great and historically significant performers whose records can be found real cheap at any thrift store is Maria Callas. I've gathered so many opera recordings over the years that I stopped collecting the genre, only for Maria Callas I make an exception. A whole shelve is dedicated to her records. One of the outstanding performances the soprano Maria Callas is remembered for is her role as Lucia in Donizetti's opera Lucia di Lammermoor. Her dazzling 1953 recording, directed by Tulio Serafin, made her the biggest star of classical music in the world. She was born in America in 1923 but didn't make her American debut until 1954, the same year as Elvis Presley's. I had heard Maria Callas as Lucia before but when I found this 2LP set by Seraphim, I had to play the whole opera right away. The aria I selected to share is called Il dolce suono...Spargi d'amaro pianto, it takes place at the end of scene one in act 3, when Lucia goes mad after after murdering her husband on the wedding night. The scene is known as the "mad scene" and is, according to the liner notes "the most famous, most challenging, most brilliant music ever written for the coloratura soprano". I'm not sure if it's my favorite scene from the opera but surely the most recognizable and iconic. I don't think it sounds all that "mad", maybe a little cuckoo, but not insane. The record I bought at a Goodwill store is in mint condition except for precisely the mad scene that has skips and scratches. The previous owner must have played that many times while leaving the rest as new. Lucia di Lammermoor was written in 1835 and premiered that year in Naples. You can listen to the full 11+ minutes of sheer cuckooness below.

Huaynos, Huancas, and Huaylas

Orquesta Seleccion Huanca – Lo Mejor del Huaylas
Fabricado por "El Virrey" Industrias Musicales S.A.
VIR–0001194, 1983, Peru

Lo Mejor del Huaylas is the traditional Peruvian record I promised to write about last week. It's an LP recorded by the Orquesta Seleccion Huanca directed by Freddy Centty. The terms "Huaylas" and "Huanca" are a little confusing because they both could refer to a geographical area or village in Peru, or to a dance. Huanca furthermore is the name of the Quechua Indians of Central Peru. I believe that the "Huaylas" in the title refers to the musical form (dance) and the "Huanca" in the name of the orchestra to the Native Central Peruvian Quechuas. In the form of the CD series Traditional Folk Music of Peru produced by Smithsonian Folkways I already had quite a selection of Huaylas and Huancas but until a few weeks ago I did have any commercially produced local examples of either style. To make it even more confusing I found a record by the singer Flor Sinqueña singing "Huaynos" at the same store I found the Huanca record. Of the three terms "Huaynos" is the most popular and generally known style of music from Peru. Be it Huaynos, Huancas, or Huaylas, if I find a record tagged with any of these terms in the thrift stores I'll take it. They're worth collecting and so far none has disappointed me. You can download Rompe Catre the first track from Lo Mejor del Huaylas here, and/or listen to it below.

More Marias

Maria Jesus Vazquez – Mis Canciones Favoritas
Ariel International Records, serie Hispana
ALP-6002, Empire Rec. Corp., New York City

The part of my record collection labeled Just South of Texas is rapidly approaching the magical number of 1,000 LPs. Part of the latest additions of my Latin collection are 8 Peruvian records picked up at a Goodwill in Miami. One of these is yet another Maria, the most prominent first name of all these Latin records. And this Maria is the second Maria I'll pay attention to in the series presented here. The singer is María Jesús Vázquez (1920-2010), known as La Reina y Señora de la Canción Criolla. She is a national treasure of Peru and her music is said to "had the feel of Peruvian creole taste". I have quite a bit of Peruvian music, both popular and traditional, but the Vázquez record sounds to me more general Latin than specifically Peruvian. To hear music that is totally Peruvian in flavor make sure to check back in next week when I will post a song from a record of the most exciting huanca music you will ever hear.  

The song I picked from Mis Canciones Favoritas is Si Pensaras Volver .

Le Mystère des Voix Serbe

Serbian Folk Music
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
RTB Records, 2510057, Belgrade, 1981

That the unique brand of polyphonic singing that entranced the world since 1988 didn't solely belong to Bulgarian state choirs has become clear to me since my record collection of Eastern European traditional music has stretched well beyond the iconic Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. All throughout the Balkan and well into Russia examples can be found of groups of singing women (and men as well) in that same spellbinding style that won The Bulgarian State Television Female Choir all those music awards in the early 90s. Case in point is this Serbian Folk Music album I picked up at the Kiwanis Thrift Store in Cape Coral, it is one that could be considered authentic. You know it's authentic when you hear side B open with a shepherd woman calling to a group of young women on another hill in another part of the village, you can hear the sheep too. But for the song of this week I chose a song by two groups of three women, all in their fifties and sixties, and all from the village of Gornji Krčimir near Niš. It's a harvest song called Граδајте, Да граδамо that translates as "You grasp a big bunch, and we do too".

Carlos Gardel

Largaron... Carlos Gardel
Colección Musical No. 174
EMI – Odeon 4174, 1973
Impulsa la Música Argentina

As promised last week I would pay homage to the legendary Argentinian tango singer Carlos Gardel. I selected two songs from a handful of albums I have of his. The first is ¡Leguisamo Solo! from the album with the beautiful cover Legaron... Carlos Gardel, the second is Mi Buenos Aires Querido from Memorias de Carlos Gardel, an album with an ugly cover. Every major metropolitan city has its signature song it seems (New York, New York by Frank Sinatra, Aan die Amsterdamse Grachten, Oh Champs- Elysées, and so on) and Mi Buenos Aires Querido is the one for Buenos Aires. A beautiful instrumental version of this can be found on Gato Barbieri's El Pampero, recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1971. (Listen to Barbieri's version of Mi Buenos Aires Querido below as well). ¡Leguisamo Solo! was the opening number on my first mixed tape I made in 1999 consisting of Latin American music. It was then that I considered my Latin American thrift store record collection large enough to start making these tapes. I called it Just South of Texas, it was around the same time I compiled Just South of 1600, filled with Medieval music, again because I considered that (thrift store) collection large enough as well.

Carlos Gardel, the King of Tango, was born as Charles Gardes in Toulouse, France on December 11, 1890. His mother moved to Tierra del Fuego in Argentina because of the gold rush. Gardes spent his childhood in Buenos Aires and became an Argentinian citizen in 1923. In 1915 he was wounded as he was shot by, rumor has it, Che Guevara's father. On June 24, 1935, at the height of his career he died in a plane crash near Medellin, Colombia.

(source: Wikipedia)

Memorias de Carlos Gardel
Arcano DKL-3146
RCA Records, 1964
Manufactured in U.S.A.