Marc Savoy with Dewey Balfa and D.L. Menard: Made in Louisiana - Cajun Accordion Music

One of the all-time great Cajun jam-sessions, by three masters of the genre. Listen & dance!

Marc Savoy - accordion, Dewey Balfa - fiddle, D. L. Menard - guitar

Lotsa hype below, in case you needed any hints…

In the 1970s, Marc Savoy, who had made several visits to the Pacific Northwest, decided it was time to make a recording featuring his incomparable Cajun accordion styling on accordions he made in his shop in Eunice, LA. We shipped studio recording equipment to Mr. Savoy, and this recording was made in his house on a Revox HS77 by John Watt. This is some of the best traditional Cajun dance music ever recorded, played in the traditional, acoustic, manner by three masters of this music.

Recorded in Marc Savoy's home in Eunice, Louisiana, by John Watt on a Revox HS77 recorder using three AKG D190 mikes, mixed to stereo with a Sony mixer. CD made from original session analog tapes, transferred to Tascam DA30 MkII DAT from an Otari 5050B recorder, using a Digitech VTP-1 preamp with A/D conversion. Transferred to PC computer using DAL CardD Plus. Edited with Cool Edit Pro. CD master done with Samplitude CD to HP 6020 CD burner.


Marc Savoy is a native of Eunice, Louisiana who began playing Cajun-style accordion at the age of 12 and now builds the "Acadian" - the most sought-after accordion in the music world today. This collection of instrumentals, recorded in Eunice in 1976 and reissued on the Voyager label, runs through waltzes, one-steps, two-steps, and other traditional dance tunes with the great Dewey Balfa on fiddle and D.L. Menard on guitar. This trio makes the genuine, rooted Cajun music that has the feeling of a shady porch by the bayou. You can almost hear the bare feet slapping on the floor and the wind whistling softly in the Spanish moss. (Trenton Times)

*****

Savoy is a brilliant cajun accordion player using here mostly the ten button German accordion, an instrument of great fullness and in the hands of this expert, an instrument of endless variety from the fleet notes of "Eunice One Step" to the oompah of "Chere Petite" with its laconic melody. A special treat is the marvelous back-up guitar work of D.L. Menard here, particularly "La Valse A Macareau" where he pulses the movement of the song. Any guitarist can learn a great deal from hearing his timing, building and pulse. This is Marc's album and a very strong statement of the Cajun-Louisiana sound. He switches to the three-row diatonic accordion to do a couple of Zydeco tunes like "J'suis Parti a Lafayette." Good album recorded in Louisiana where Marc lives. (Victory Review)

*****

The next gem in our Cajun music crown is Voyager's release of a 1976 recording featuring accordionist (and squeeze-box maker) Marc Savoy backed by two other stalwarts of Louisiana music, Dewey Balfa on fiddle and D. L. Menard on guitar.

Made in Louisiana is an all-acoustic session with a real down-home barn dance feel; it sounds like it was recorded live in the studio. Most of the 13 tracks (12 instrumentals, one vocal) follow a similar pattern in that Savoy takes the lead much of the time, but he steps aside once or twice on each tune to allow Balfa to carry the melody for a while. Menard's role is basically a supporting one, but his guitar is recorded at a level that allows you to hear and enjoy what he's playing.

Voyager Recordings should be commended for making this session available. Made in Louisiana is a perfect example of simple and spirited music performed by artists whose love and enthusiasm for their heritage shine through on every note. (Dirty Linen)

*****

Savoy is widely known for his recordings with Michael Doucet. These sessions, which were recorded at Savoy's home in 1976, have been digitally remastered and consist mostly of little-known Cajun gems from the repertoire of Doc Guidry, Chuck Guillory, Dennis McGee, Iry LeJune, and other masters. All of the selections feature fiddle and guitar accompaniment and, except for Balfa's heartfelt vocals of "La Branche du Mûrier," all are instrumental. The last two tracks are zydeco tunes that Savoy plays on the three-row accordion. It's a little unusual these days to listen to a predominately instrumental collection of Cajun tunes, but Savoy plays them as well as anybody could. This is Cajun music in as pure a state as one is likely to hear these days. (Dirty Linen)

*****

Seattle's own John Watt journeyed to the Savoy homeplace in Eunice, LA in 1976 to record Marc's neo-baroque Cajun accordion along with his pals, the late Dewey Balfa on fiddle, and D. L. Menard on guitar, for a wonderful set of rousing instrumental (Dewey sings "La Branche du Mûrier" as the only vocal). This represents some of the finest Cajun music ever put on a recording device. It is Louisiana music at its traditional best, including a couple of pieces with Marc on a 3-row diatonic box, laying down some zydeco rhythms. It's a wonderful recording, the only drawback being its meager 33 and a half minute playing time. (Victory Music Review)

*****

This is a timely release of some recordings made in Eunice, Louisiana in 1976, featuring accordionist Mark Savoy, accompanied by D.L. Menard and the late Dewey Balfa. "Timely" because much of the cajun and zydeco music being played and recorded today is buried beneath layers of drums and electric instruments, and it's good to be reminded how soulful the combination of fiddle, accordion and rhythm guitar can be. Savoy builds and plays his own accordions, and the selections here reflect his deep roots in the culture and music of Louisiana. "Viens Me Chercher," "Eunice One-Step," and "La Branche du Murier" are among my favorites. (Dirty Linen)

*****

In March 1976, Seattle Folklore activist John Watt journeyed to Eunice, Louisiana to record what would be one of the decade's most significant Cajun albums. At center stage in the production was accordionist Marc Savoy, a highly respected instrument maker and player who had accompanied several of his peers on their own album projects. Backing him on the session were guitarist D.L. Menard, long regarded as a music legend in Cajun country, and fiddler Dewey Balfa, whose 1964 appearance at the Newport Folk Festival had sparked nationwide interest in his people's music. Savoy's album, originally released in 1976, has just been reissued on compact disc by Voyager Recordings, a largely fiddle-oriented label operated by Seattle musicians Phil and Vivian Williams.

Although John Watt had been interested in folk music for many years, he had contented himself with listening rather than playing until Marc Savoy introduced him to the Cajun "button" accordion. "I got to the three-or-four-chord stage in the early parts of the Folk Scare in the Sixties," he explains, "and then fell in with a bunch of people who played music much better than I could, so I went back to running PA systems and tape recorders. Savoy came through in 1975 with Mike Seeger's Oldtime Music Festival, in which Seeger got together a bunch of interesting ethnic musicians and toured with them. That year the Cajun contingent was Marc Savoy, who was very much the youngest, and Sadie Courville and Dennis McGee. That was when I first heard a Cajun accordion played, and I basically fell in love with the thing."

During the few days Savoy spent in Seattle at the home of Phil and Vivian Williams, Watt got some valuable time with his new musical mentor, but his best chance to immerse himself in Cajun culture came later that year in a disastrously unexpected way. "I was building the overhead wire on the streetcar museum outside of Portland," he explains. "Just a hobby thing. The tower I was working on fell out from under me. I had about eighteen feet to learn how to fly, and I wasn't a very quick study. I wound up with a pelvic fracture, and I was out of work and on crutches for about six weeks. Toward the end of that period I was convalescing, Continental Airlines had some pretty good flight deals, and Marc said, "Why don't you come down and hang out around here for a week or two?" I got on the airplane and hung around with a bunch of Cajuns for about a week."

In March of the following year, Watt got another irresistible opportunity to go to Louisiana when a co-worker moving to Texas offered to pay his plane fare home if he would help with the driving. Since he had already discussed the idea of a Voyager album with Phil Williams and Savoy, the accordionist proposed a visit to Eunice with some recording equipment. "The basic stuff was a Revox and three or four microphones," Watt recalls. "For the actual recording, we set up a studio in the unfinished part of Marc's living room: he was living over the music store then. We recorded it to two-track stereo. The recording is just Dewey Balfa, D.L. Menard, and Marc, and we were doing it specifically as an accordion piece. The material is what Marc and Dewey primarily chose. That's basically how it got done."

The album, entitled MADE IN LOUISIANA, was released by Voyager soon after it was recorded in 1976. "It was moderately successful, as these things go," Phil Williams remembers, estimating sales at about a thousand copies. It was reissued about a decade later on cassette and remains available in that format. With its release this year on compact disc, Voyager faces a substantially different marketplace than the one that greeted the album twenty years ago. Interest in all things Cajun has grown exponentially, and then there's another small factor to consider: the dawning of the Information Age. "We actually have been marketing on the Internet through the web site," says Williams. "That's one of our better sources for orders right now. In fact, we've had inquiries from some of the national chains: Tower Records is interested. Of course, that's encouraging, to say the least!"

The reason for the enthusiasm is obvious. In an era when Cajun music has nearly been modernized out of existence by the use of electric instruments and pop-rock production strategies, this album is a breath of fresh air. Produced simply in the live "field recording" tradition of the early Sixties, it places Savoy's exuberant accordion at the center of the stereo mix, flanked by D.L. Menard's solid guitar accompaniment and Dewey Balfa's singularly expressive fiddling. "It's just soulful playing all the way around," Williams summarizes. "The Back-up can hardly be beat!" (Heritage Music Review) 

Marc Savoy with Dewey Balfa and D.L. Menard: Made in Louisiana - Cajun Accordion Music

Liner Notes - VRCD 325

Marc Savoy from Eunice, Louisiana has played the accordion since he was twelve years old. He builds his own "Acadian" brand accordions, which are sold throughout the U.S., Canada, and France, and are prized for their responsiveness, volume, and careful craftsmanship. Marc is joined on this recording by his good friends the late Dewey Balfa, renowned traditional fiddle player, and D. L. Menard, one of Louisiana's finest backup guitarists and songwriters.

Recorded at Eunice, Louisiana, March 1976 by John Watt, assisted by Michéle DeLaurenti. Mixdown and digital remastering by Phil Williams. Liner notes and photo by Ann Savoy. Cover design by Virginia Hand.

Tracks
1. Eunice One-Step (3:12) - Marc learned this song as a boy from an old black man named Joya Guidry who was a relative of the late Amédée Ardoin, the most famous early accordion player.

2. Tolan Waltz (1:54) - Tolan McCullough was a popular blacksmith, rice mill operator and saloon owner in Eunice. Chuck Guillory and Jimmy Newman composed this song in his honor.

3. Old Crowley Two-Step (2:40) - Recorded by Doc Guidry on fiddle and later by Walter Mouton as "Scott Playboy Special."

4. Chère Petite (2:42) - Marc thinks this haunting melody was written by Leo Soileau. It was first made popular by Cajun "country-western" fiddler Chuck Guillory.

5. Church Point Breakdown (2:45) - Named after a tiny town near Eunice, this was originally recorded by Amédée Ardoin.

6. La Branche du Mûrier (3:32) - The original words to this popular melody were written by the late Dennis McGee, who lived in Eunice. The story goes that a young girl cut a branch off of a mulberry tree so she could see her fiancé's brother ride by. It was this brother whom she really loved.

7. Perrodin Two-Step (3:37) - This was first recorded by Dennis McGee, Angelus LeJeune, and Ernest Frugé. It is named after two brothers who often requested it at dances.

8. La Valse À Macareau (2:52) - Written by a black midwife named Macareau who helped deliver Joel Savoy, Marc's father.

9. Cajun Flop-Eared Mule (2:04) - An old Cajun song resembling the American traditional song "Flop-Eared Mule". The title is unknown so Marc calls it "Cajun Flop-Eared Mule."

10. Viens Me Chercher (Come and Get Me) (2:50) - This is an old song recorded by Iry LeJeune, who brought the accordion back to popularity in the 1950's after it had been neglected in the 1940's. He is felt by many to truly sing the soul of the prairie with his lonely cries and powerful accordion playing. The story tells of a young man lamenting that his "catin" won't come back since her old father dragged her back home. Every night he kisses his pillow making believe it is she beside him.

11. La Valse de Pont D'Amour (Lovebridge Waltz) (2:05) - In this song a woman told a man she didn't want him any more and he took it so hard that he took to the big roads.

12. J'Suis Parti à Lafayette (1:39) - Marc learned this Zydeco song from Clifton Chenier. He plays it and the next tune on the three-row accordion commonly used in Zydeco music, rather than the Cajun accordion which he plays on the other tunes.

13. Les Haricots Sont Pas Salés (1:10) - The old song "Zydeco N'est Pas Salés" (the snap beans aren't salty) gave the name to this style of music.

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Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard - Who's that Knocking?

The venerable Ron Thomason has said in describing Hazel Dickens, "She never let questions of pitch or timing get in the way of the music." He's also said that "She brought back the chill, the feeling of excitement and power" that he'd first felt upon hearing original bluegrass music. Hazel walked into a men's music and made all the men sit down and listen. 

In many senses, this music is primitive. It is far less sophisticated than all the 'progressive' bluegrass and new acoustic music that you've come to expect from this blog. But this primitive, direct, and unadorned quality gives the music its unearthly power to cut straight to the bone. Entirely devoid of pretention, presumption, prediction, or predication. 


And that's the way it should be. These songs are real songs, about real feelings and real people in real hard situations. It would be an insult to pretty-up the music. Sometimes music has to hurt to work. And this music hurts, oh it hurts so good. It hurts like the hard earth, and it also carries a redemption like the sun shining for just a minute into the deep black depths of a choking coal mine.

Hazel Dickens - Biography by John Bush
Protest and folksinger Hazel Dickens grew up the eighth of 11 children in a large, poor mining family in West Virginia, and she has since used elements of country and bluegrass to spread truth about two causes close to her heart: the plight of non-unionized mineworkers and feminism, born not of the '60s movement but traditional values. Born June 1, 1935, in Mercer County, WV, Dickens learned about music from her father, an occasional banjo player and Baptist minister who drove trucks for a mining company to make a living. She was early influenced by country traditionalists such as Uncle Dave Macon, the Monroe Brothers, and the Carter Family. When she was 19, her family's dire poverty forced Dickens to move to Baltimore, where she worked in factories with her sister and two brothers. 

The four displaced siblings often attended old-timey festivals and gatherings, watching others and performing themselves. At one of these festivals, Hazel Dickens met Mike Seeger (younger brother of folk legend Pete Seeger), and the two formed a band with her brothers. Over the ensuing decade, Dickens became active in the folk/bluegrass movement around the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., area, playing bass and singing with several bands, including the Greenbriar Boys, who toured with Joan Baez in the '60s. 

Around this time she met Mike Seeger's wife, Alice Gerrard, a classically trained singer also interested in old-timey music. At the nearby Library of Congress, the two began researching early feminist songs and then incorporated them into their own repertoire. The duo performed throughout the country -- particularly the South -- and recorded two albums for Folkways, Who's That Knocking (And Other Bluegrass Country Music) (1965) and Won't You Come & Sing for Me (1973). 

The two separated in 1973 -- two later albums were compiled from previous recordings -- and Dickens began her solo career with a flourish. She recorded four songs for the soundtrack to the Academy Award-winning documentary about coalmining, Harlan County, USA. Three years later, she contributed to the soundtrack for With Babies and Banners and began a solo career five years later. Her three solo albums for Rounder, Hard Hitting Songs for the Hard Hit (1981), By the Sweat of My Brow (1983), and It's Hard to Tell the Singer From the Song (1987), include old-timey country alongside protest songs and songs in a more contemporary country style. Rounder's A Few Old Memories distills the best of the three albums onto one disc.

Alice Gerard - Biographyby Craig Harris
The daughter of trained classical musicians, Alice Gerrard didn't grow up with bluegrass or folk music. Her earliest musical memories are of singing along with family members and friends around the living room piano. Gerrard's albums with West Virginia-born folksinger Hazel Dickens, however, rank among the most influential recordings in folk music history. 

Gerrard's first exposure to folk music came while she was attending Antioch College in Ohio. Inspired by the folk songs played by dorm-mates, Gerrard abandoned the piano and became absorbed with the more rural sounds that she heard on such albums as The Anthology of American Folk Music. 

Moving to Washington, D.C., to complete her college co-op experience, Gerrard encountered a thriving bluegrass scene. Hanging out in her spare time at the Famous Restaurant in Washington, D.C., Gerrard met numerous bluegrass and old-timey musicians, including Mike Seeger of the New Lost City Ramblers, who introduced her to Dickens. With their mutual love of traditional American music, Gerrard and Dickens became close friends. Developing a unique harmony style that combined the alto-below-lead of the Carter Family and the tenor-above-lead of Bill Monroe, the two vocalists soon became frequent performers in the folk clubs and coffeehouses of the Capitol region. Their repertoire continued to expand as they studied sheet music at the Library of Congress and taped old-timey musicians at folk festivals. 

Gerrard and Dickens' debut album, Who's That Knocking, released in 1965, was recorded for 75 dollars at the First Unitarian Church in Washington and featured accompaniment by David Grisman (mandolin), Lamar Grier (banjo), and Chubby Wise and Billy Baker (fiddles). Although their second album, Won't You Come and Sing?, featuring the same musicians, was recorded the same year, it wasn't released until 1973. Gerrard and Dickens' first two albums were later combined and released as Pioneering Women of Bluegrass in 1996. The 26 tunes on the reissued album include six Carter Family songs, five Monroe tunes, three original songs by Dickens, and Gerrard's hard-hitting satire of sexist attitudes towards women, "Custom Made Woman Blues." 

Gerrard and Dickens' Get Acquainted Waltz was released in 1975 and featured accompaniment by Seeger, who was at the time Gerrard's husband, and his New Lost City Ramblers bandmate Tracy Schwartz. 

Gerrard subsequently recorded two albums with Seeger -- Mike and Alice Seeger in Concert in 1970 and Mike Seeger and Alice Gerrard in 1980 -- and one solo collection, Pieces of My Heart in 1994. Since 1987, Gerrard has published The Old Time Herald, a quarterly magazine devoted to the preservation of old-timey music.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard - Who's that Knocking?

Year: 1965
Label: Folkways

with David Grisman, Lamar Grier, Chubby Wise & Billy Baker!

Tracks:

1. Walkin in My Sleep
2. Can't you Hear me Calling
3. Darling Nellie Across the Sea
4. Difficult Run
5. Coal Miner's Blues
6. Gabriel's Call
7. Just Another Broken Heart
8. Take Me Back to Tulsa
9. Who's that Knocking?
10. Cowboy Jim
11. Long Black Veil
12. Lee Highway Blues
13. Lover's Return
14. Gonna Lay Down my Old Guitar
15. I Hear a Sweet Voice Calling

A Jukebox of Ghosts

Hello,

I've been enjoying your blog for a while so I thought I'd give you a holler. The collection of music you present is awesomely eclectic and esoteric, and your descriptions are fantastic: "It's like when you're a baby, laying in your crib, and the voice of the mighty one comes to you, and tells you you're going to live to see the death of all the world." Damn! Thank you for the endless hours of musical exploration (laced with the occasional Borges reference) you've made possible.

I started my own blog, The Vanished Hand (http://vanishedhand.blogspot.com/), back in May to explore my interest in the old, weird, and macabre, including music, poetry, photography, and anything else that strikes me. I'm just trying to let it take its own course. It is still quite young, but I thought you might be interested.

Dude. That's a fantastic new blog. I really like how you mix it up with the poetry, photography, etc, and then link these historical events to contemporary performances from a wide variety of styles. Any place that brings together sea monsters and Dock Boggs, Sigur Rós, Tim Eriksen, Mark Twain (in animated stereographic format), and boys with their heads thrown back in pangs of agonecstasy (a new word as of now) is worth my time. I haven't even read what you've written yet, and already I like it.

In fact, I've been wanting to expand a little bit from music and the occasional bit of poetry, and do some posts on art, cinema, etc. So I think I just might, spurred by your anthropoarchaic interperipheral excursions.

So perk your heads up readers: this one's a keeper.

The Vanished Hand

Andrew Manze - Tartini: The Devil's Sonata

There are very few solo violin recordings. Sometimes it seems as though guitars, banjos, basses, etc were all invented for the sole purpose of backing up the violin. This is of course not true, but it illustrates my point. Having such a high range, it's difficult to make the violin produce a full listening experience. And those pieces that do so tend to require an exacting amount of virtuosity to play. Which is basically the story with these ones.

But something more is at work here than mere bravura. This is devilmusic. 18th Century devilmusic, but devilmusic all the same. Scotty Stoneman was talking to the same cloven-hoofed fiddler as Tartini. And that Prince of Darkness showed both men the same thing. He showed them that if you play two notes at the same time on the fiddle, and you play them both HARD, demons are released, in the form of bastard notes that spring from the soundboard and hover in the air, unresting, part of no melody, teasing their way into the listener's soul. And this is how the devil converts souls to his purposes. He recruits fiddlers to play music that gets people FEELING and then maybe even DANCING and before you know it, they've cast aside their harps and are enjoying this Garden of Earthly Delights, drunk on the soup of inspiration.

And Andrew Manze is probably the only classical violinist in the world that understands this, which is why he plays it like this.

So remember, it may be old, but it's still just as evil.

Tartini: Biography
by Blair Johnston
Despite Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini's important place in musical history, he remains known to most musicians only as the composer of the "Devil's Trill" violin sonata. Born on the Istrian peninsula in 1692, Tartini was the son of a minor government official in the city of Pirano (now Piran, Slovenia). Although his parents had selected a monastic life for Tartini when he was very young, in 1708 he rejected his clerical training to pursue a course of instruction in music. Soon, however, he seems to have enrolled at the University of Padua as a student of law, and was more famed during his younger days as a dueler and swordsman than as a trained musician. Despite still officially being a candidate for the priesthood, Tartini married in 1710, and, having thereby incurred the wrath of the Paduan bishop, found it necessary to hide out in the monastery at Assisi for a time. He put his time to good use: apparently he made a rigorous study of music, and by 1714 he seems to have found employment with the opera orchestra at Ancona.

Reunited with his wife in 1715, Tartini spent the next several years trying to perfect his violin technique. The legend is that he heard the virtuoso Francesco Veracini perform and resolved to live in isolation until he could accomplish the same amazing feats of dexterity. By 1720, he was engaged as soloist and leader of the orchestra at St. Anthony's in Padua. Until an arm injury in 1740 seriously limited his career, Tartini fulfilled his duties at St. Anthony's even as he built a widespread reputation as the leading violinist of his day. He made an extended visit to Prague between 1723 and 1726. Officially retiring from St. Anthony's in 1765, Tartini remained active as a teacher until a mild stroke, which he suffered in 1768, incapacitated him even further. Tartini died in 1770, the year of Beethoven's birth.

Tartini was the founder of an important school of violin playing, subsequently disseminated by such noteworthy pupils as Pietro Nardini and Johann Gottlieb Naumann. Because he did not seek fame as a composer, very little of Tartini's music was published during his lifetime. Some 135 violin concerti and over 200 violin sonatas (some of which, however, are spurious) still survive in manuscript form. A smattering of sacred vocal works (such as the Stabat Mater composed during the final year of his life) and a few sinfonias, trio sonatas, and four-part sonatas round off Tartini's considerable output. In addition to his activities as a violinist and composer, Tartini became increasingly interested in theories of acoustics and harmony as the years went by, and his 1754 theoretical treatise Trattato di musica secondo la vera scienza dell'armonia attempts to account for contemporary harmonic thinking in terms of the overtone series and to promote Tartini's own discovery of "sub-tones" in that series. Despite its lofty intentions (or perhaps because of them) the Trattato is not a particularly accurate or informative text; it does, however, provide great insight into the mind of this remarkable musician.



Some More interesting info on Tartini:
Italian violinist, composer and musical theorist, was born at Tirano in Istria on the 12th of April 1692. In early life he studied, with equal want of success, for the church, the law courts, and the profession of arms. As a young man he was wild and irregular, and he crowned his improprieties by clandestinely marrying the niece of Cardinal Cornaro, Archbishop of Padua. The cardinal resented the marriage as a disgraceful mésalliance, and denounced it so violently that the unhappy bridegroom, thinking his life in danger, fled for safety to a monastery at Assisi, where his character underwent a complete change. He studied the theory of music under Padre Boemo, the organist of the monastery, and, without any assistance whatever, taught himself to play the violin in so masterly a style that his performances in the church became the wonder of the neighborhood. For more than two years his identity remained undiscovered, but one day the wind blew aside a curtain behind which he was playing, and one of his hearers recognized him and betrayed his retreat to the cardinal, who, hearing of his changed character, readmitted him to favor and restored him to his wife.

Tartini next removed to Venice, where the fine violin-playing of Veracini excited his admiration and prompted him to repeir, by the aid of good instruction, the shortcomings of his own self-taught method. He left his wife with relations and returned to Ancona, where he studied for a time. In 1721 he returned to Padua, where he was appointed solo violinist at the church of San Antonio. From 1723 to 1725 he acted as conductor of Count Kinsky's private band in Prague. In 1728 he founded a school for violin in Padua. The date of his presence in Rome does not seem to be clearly established, but he was in Bologna in 1739. Afterwards he returned to his old post in Padua, where he died on the 16th of February 1770.

Tartini's compositions are very numerous, and faithfully illustrate his passionate and masterly styie of execution, which surpassed in brilliancy and refined taste that of all his contemporaries. He frequently headed his pieces with an explanatory poetical motto, such as "Ombra cara", or "Volgete il riso in pianto o mie pupille." Concerning that known as Il Trillo del Diavolo, or The Devil's Sonata, he told a curious story to Lalande, in 1766. He dreamed that the devil had become his slave, and that he one day asked him if he could play the violin. The devil replied that he believed he could pick out a tune, and thereupon he played a sonata so exquisite that Tartini thought he had never heard any music to equal it. On awaking he tried to note down the composition, but succeeded very imperfectly, though the Devil's Sonata is one of his best productions.

Tartini is historically important as having contributed to the science of acoustics as well as to musical art by his discovery (independently of Sorge, 1740, to whom the primary credit is now given) of what are still called "Tartini's tones", or differential tones.

The phenomenon is this: when any two notes are produced steadily and with great intensity, a third note is heard, whose vibration number is the difference of those of the two primary notes. It follows from this that any two consecutive members of a harmonic series have the fundamental of that series for their difference tone -- thus, (E/C), the fourth and fifth harmonic, produce (C), the prime or generator, at the interval of two octaves under the lower of those two notes; (E/G), the third and fifth harmonic, produce (C), the second harmonic, at the interval of a 5th under the lower of those two notes. The discoverer was wont to tell his pupils that their double-stopping was not in tune unless they could hear the third note; and Henry Blagrove (1811-1872) gave the same admonition. The phenomenon has other than technical significance; an experiment by Sir F. A. G. Ouseley showed that two pipes, tuned by measurement to so acute a pitch as to render the notes of both inaudible by human ears, when blown together produce the difference of tone of the inaudible primaries, and this verifies the fact of the infinite upward range of sound which transcends the perceptive power of human organs. The obverse of this fact is that of any sound being deepened by an 8th if the length of the string or pipe which produces it be doubled. The law is without exception throughout the compass in which our ears can distinguish pitch, and so, of necessity, a string of twice the length of that whose vibrations induce the deepest perceivable sound must stir the air at such a rate as to cause a tone at an 8th below that lowest audible note. It is hence manifest that, however limited our sense of the range of musical sound, this range extends upward and downward to infinity. Tartini made his observations the basis of a theoretical system which he set forth in his Trattato di Musica, Secondo la Vera Scienzia dell'Armonia (Padua, 1754) and Dei Principij dell'Armonia Musicale (Padua, 1767). He also wrote a Trattato delle Appogiature, posthumously printed in French, and an unpublished work, Delle Ragioni e delle Proporzioni, the manuscript of which has been lost.

Andrew Manze - Biography
by Joseph Stevenson
Andrew Manze has emerged as one of the leading violinists in the early music movement. He specializes in music from between 1610 and 1830. His education began at Cambridge, where he studied Classics. He then moved on to music studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, studying with both Simon Standage and Marie Leonhardt. Manze then joined the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, remaining there until 1993. The following year he began collaborating with harpsichordist Richard Egarr. One of their major releases presented a 1712 collection of violin sonatas by the French composer Jean-Féry Rebel. Meanwhile, Manze formed the group Romanesca, with harpsichordist John Tell and lutenist Nigel North; the trio specialized in music of the seventeenth century. In 1996 Manze was appointed associate director and concertmaster of the London-based Baroque group The Academy of Ancient Music. In the 2003-2004 season, he became music director of The English Concert.

Manze is well-known in Britain for his broadcast work. He has become a popular "presenter" on BBC radio, and made his debut with the BBC Promenade Concert in 1998. That concert was televised nationally, with Manze playing concertos by Pergolesi, Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart, and introducing the public to the enthusiasm and directness of the new ways of performing Baroque and Classic music.

Recording for the French Harmonia Mundi label, Manze won Gramophone, Edison, and Cannes Classical awards for his recording with Romanesca of Biber's flashy and mystical violin sonatas. His playing of Vivaldi's newly discovered "Manchester" sonatas won the Premio Internazionale del Disco Vivaldi Antica Italiana. His album Phantasticus won the Cannes Classical Award and a Diapason D'Or. The later award was also given to his recording of Schmelzer's violin sonatas. Manze was named the 1998 Classical Artist of the Year.

Manze is in demand as an expert in Baroque music interpretation. He serves as a performance advisor and director for the European Community Baroque Orchestra, gives master classes, and has been visiting professor at the Royal College of Music in London. He is also a busy soloist on the international concert scene, appearing in one season with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Canadian early music group Tafelmusik, and the Berlin Philharmonic.

He is known for his freedom of ornamentation, bringing an improvisatory excitement to his concerts. Manze lives with his wife (also a violinist) in England's Cotswolds region.


More on Manze:
Andrew Manze is an internationally known English violinist whom The New York Times has called "the Grappelli of the baroque." Manze is not only a highly accomplished chamber player but associate director of the prestigious Academy of Ancient Music based in London. He shared his contagious enthusiasm with us in a break between rehearsals.

Andrew Manze mastered the violin gradually, almost as a dilettante. At the age of ten, after he had been playing the recorder for a few years, someone suggested that he should study a "real" instrument. His spontaneous choice was the oboe, but the orthodontist thought otherwise. He then opted for the practical solution of studying the violin - "the instrument in the house" (his father played it as a youngster). The school music program provided an admirable start. "By the time I was 11, I was already playing in an orchestra. I've played in orchestras ever since! At 14, I did my first international tour. When I was 18 years old, I was quite well travelled. It was a fantastic opportunity to learn orchestral technique on the spot."

His love of baroque music developed during his studies at Cambridge. Even though he was studying classics (Greek and Latin), he continued to play the violin. His friend Richard Egarr had just discovered the harpsichord. He organized a baroque ensemble and persuaded Manze to try his hand. "It was a struggle at first but I'm glad now I discovered that repertoire. Richard is still talking to me and I'm still talking to him!" he chuckles.

Other youthful encounters also transformed his life. The wife of the great harpsichordist, Gustav Leonhardt, took him under her wing. Mrs. Leonhardt, a musician herself, was "a wonderful guide," says Manze. In 1988 he met Ton Koopman, conductor of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. "It clicked right away. We appealed to one another," Manze remembers. Koopman hired Manze then and there. He made his debut with the orchestra in the second violin section, but moved quickly to concertmaster.

Manze left Amsterdam in 1993 to devote his time to conducting. He feels that freedom is a must for interpreting baroque music. "After all, when you are the first to play that repertoire, you can't ask anyone for input. The music was very much alive then and it still should be today. If a listener goes to hear a concert, we owe it to him to give a one-of-a-kind experience. If I were to play one piece the same way I did two months ago, it would be missing a key ingredient: flexibility. The performance obviously varies depending on how the musician is feeling. It should also depend on the venue you are playing in, its acoustics. It can be strongly affected by the character of the audience, how they react to the experience. For example, the German public take their baroque music very seriously, listening with great concentration. I look forward to playing in Canada, a nation I don't know very well. It's always interesting to feel, to experience an audience and find out what happens to the music as a result."

Paradoxically, the essence of baroque music is somewhat defeated by its mass popularity, Manze outlines the irony of the situation. "We're asked to play in rooms way too big for the instruments, originally designed to be played in churches or small domestic venues." He remembers the Domaine Forget concert hall in great detail, and considers it an ideal venue.

Asked why baroque music has become so popular in recent years, Manze suggested several reasons. "If the music is well chosen and presented in the right spirit, it is extremely good quality music. Bach can stand comparison to any of the major composers. The music is also extremely well structured, very melodic, entertaining and it has got drama to it." He draws a parallel with the attraction western civilization feels for novelty. "Music lovers are interested in new repertoire but they've been burnt by some contemporary music. They become wary of it. Maybe baroque music benefited from the fact that a lot of contemporary music is not accessible. It must be possible to write contemporary music which says all the things you want to say but doesn't provoke the 'yuck' feeling!"

Manze doesn't entirely reject contemporary repertoire: on the contrary, his wife is actually a specialist in this rarefied field, and the Academy of Ancient Music has interpreted John Tavener's Eternity's Sunrise (in 1998) and Total Eclipse (June 20, 2000). Tavener is one of the most popular English composers of the day, and Manze appreciated being able to ask him about specific details of interpretation. In the process, he learned that composers are generally not dogmatic. "It's cowardly to justify oneself with an 'I ought to do this.' It's like hiding on stage behind a corpse. I always imagine what the composer would say if he were there. He probably wouldn't be concentrating on my question; he probably would be amazed by the technological progress. His music would be the last thing he would want to talk about."

Manze's crowded schedule doesn't give him time for regular pupils. He enjoys master classes, however. "The questions asked by students are often the same questions I ask myself." Some of his former students have become fellow musicians at the Academy of Ancient Music, something he feels is a natural development. He speaks with great pride of "his" orchestra, which recently celebrated its 26th birthday. "The Academy of Ancient Music has achieved a great momentum. It is filled with great experience collectively. It took time to build the trust but now the musicians trust me completely. I don't quite know moment to moment what will be happening." Manze usually conducts from his position as concert master and seems becomingly modest about his personal prestige. He is looking forward to the orchestra's North American tour in November 2000.

Chamber music remains an important part of his life as a musician. He spent 10 years with harpsichordist John Toll and lutist Nigel North in the Romanesca Trio. A number of award-winning recordings came from this collaboration. Manze had to give it up in 1999, when Nigel North accepted a post at the renowned Indiana University School of Music. His friendship with harpsichordist Richard Egarr reflects a similar meeting of minds on the artistic and intuitive level. Egarr will accompany Manze in August in Bach sonatas for harpsichord obligato and violin. Manze and Egarr have been exploring the rich baroque repertoire for 16 years now. "We love to surprise one another. It keeps the experience fresh and interesting," says Manze.


Andrew Manze - Tartini: The Devil's Sonata

Year: 1998
Label: Harmonia Mundi

Amazon's Best of 1998
Violinist Andrew Manze did something truly breathtaking in 1998--he transformed the way we hear Giuseppe Tartini's The Devil's Sonata by playing it solo, without accompaniment. And we'll never hear it the same way again. It's a riveting performance, filled with as much improvisation as many jazz compositions, and yet it remains thoroughly faithful to Tartini's vision (Manze was inspired to play the work solo by the composer's own correspondence). Hands down, one of the best Baroque performances ever. --Jason Verlinde

Amazon essential recording
This is one of the craziest classical CDs you will ever hear, but the madness is inspired. Andrew Manze, following a suggestion in one of Tartini's letters, gets rid of the published accompaniment and plays these pieces on the solo violin. In the other three works he takes plenty of liberties, but in the famous Devil's Trill Sonata he embellishes, improvises, departs from the text and comes back again. The verbal description sounds like my idea of a nightmare, but the execution is so inspired that this is one of the most compelling Baroque performances ever. Whether it is "authentic" or not, I have no idea, and Manze probably doesn't either. But this is a recording you will remember. --Leslie Gerber

REVIEWS:
BBC Music (5/98, p.63) - Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5) - "...In the hands of Andrew Manze, ['The Devil's Sonata'] transcends its complexities to become a beautiful and compelling piece of music, closely followed by the Pastorale, with its fantastical Grave, and the other works here..."

A customer said:
If I wish to demonstrate to someone why the 'Baroque Violin' is special, this is the album I play to them. There is no 'modern' rendering that approaches it. The dynamic range, intimacy and passion inherent in this CD are incomparable. Though I am sure the adherents of Josh Bell, Sarah Chang and Vanessa Mae would hoot me down, I will assert that in musicianship and technical ability Manze is the finest violinist living. Period.

In over 20 years of pursuing the 'ideal' solo violin recording this would be my choice.


Tracks:
1. "La Sonata del Diavolo" in G minor: [Largo] - 6:40
2. "La Sonata del Diavolo" in G minor: Allegro - 6:09
3. "La Sonata del Diavolo" in G minor: Andante-Allegro-Adagio - 6:24
4. from "L'arte del arco": Theme and variation I - 1:00
5. from "L'arte del arco": Variations 2 and 4 - 1:08
6. from "L'arte del arco": Variations 9, 15 and 12 - 1:28
7. from "L'arte del arco": Variations 10 and 20 - 1:51
8. from "L'arte del arco": Variation 29 0:46
9. from "L'arte del arco": Variation 30 0:37
10. from "L'arte del arco": Variation 33 - 2:04
11. from "L'arte del arco": Variation 34 - 1:11
12. from "L'arte del arco": Variation 23 0:53
13. from "L'arte del arco": Variation 38 - 1:14
14. Sonata in A minor: Cantabile - 1:56
15. Sonata in A minor: Allegro - 1:56
16. Sonata in A minor: [Andante] - 4:53
17. Sonata in A minor: Giga - 2:35
18. Sonata in A minor: Aria [with variations] - 1:40
19. Sonata in A minor: Variation I - 1:18
20. Sonata in A minor: Variation II - 3:51
21. Sonata in A minor: Variation III - 1:32
22. Sonata in A minor: Variation IV - 2:42
23. Sonata in A minor: Variation V - 1:24
24. "Pastorale" for violin in scordatura: Grave - 5:02
25. "Pastorale" for violin in scordatura: Allegro - 3:30
26. "Pastorale" for violin in scordatura: Largo-Presto-Andante - 4:59

Peter Ostroushko - Slüz Düz Music

I have already talked about Peter Ostroushko (here), so I'll keep it brief this time. This is, simply put, a totally fantastic album. One of the best I have heard in a long time. If you had to label it, you could call it 'Acoustic World Fusion' or 'Newgrass' or 'Exploratory String Band' music. Peter calls it Slüz Düz music. He plays some 'ukerish' (a combination of Irish rhythms and Ukranian melodies) tunes, some polkas, a waltz, a breakdown, a rag, and a last stand. His 'Sluz Duz orchestra' is a cast of some of the greatest pickers ever assembled: Norman & Nancy Blake, Mick Moloney, Daithi Sproule, Bruce Allard, Butch Thompson, and the entire band of Hot Rize, to name just a few.

Every note on this album sings. Every single melody line shines with the relaxed precision and care for details that comes from a lifetime of playing music. The theme is old-world meets new-world, but it isn't spelled out for you. It's just a natural fusion that occurs in Peter, being a man born of two worlds. In other words, there's nothing exotic here. Nothing sounds out-of-place. It all sounds as though it was meant to be this way. And with our cities becoming increasingly multicultural, with the emergence of the internet as a meeting ground and melting pot of divergent ideas, who's to say it's not meant to be this way?

Listen to this album, and have all doubts stricken from you. This is original music that claims its own place at the crossroads of many traditions. It is as fresh-sounding today as it was 25 years ago when it was recorded.

Peter Ostroushko - Slüz Düz Music
Original American Dance Tunes with an Old World Flavor

Year: 1985
Label: Flying Fish

Tracks:
1. The Last Stand - Ostroushko - 3:45
2. Friedrich Polka - Ostroushko - 3:23
3. Marjorie's Waltz - Ostroushko - 4:55
4. Fiddle Tune Medley: My Love,I Miss Her So/Farewell to Calgary - Ostroushko - 4:19
5. Burnt Biscuit Breakdown - Ostroushko - 4:55
6. Sleepy Jesus Rag - Ostroushko - 3:44
7. Slüz-Düz Polka - Ostroushko - 3:45
8. Katerina's Waltz - Ostroushko - 4:28
9. Christian Creek - Ostroushko - 4:00
10. Co. Kerry to Kiev Medley: Mcintyres Hornpipe/The Mist on the Lake/Mci - Ostroushko - 7:01

Debashish Bhattacharya - Live in Calcutta

More music from the best slide guitarist in the world! The last track on this album is seriously one of the best fusions of east and west that I've ever heard, with fearful symmetry to match any Fahey composition. That's all I can say!

The Jesuit maxim ‘Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man’ could just have easily have been coined in India, where the tradition of immersing children in music from birth is a natural result of them growing up within musical dynasties. In fact, Debashish Bhattacharya learnt to sing in the Gwailor classical vocal style his parents were steeped in even before he could talk. Oddly, the instrument he was first drawn to as a three-year-old was a Hawaiian lap steel guitar left lying around the house. As he recalls, “it was love at first touch.”

As a boy, Debashish learned western guitar as well as sitar, but his most rigorous training was a ten-year stint during his twenties studying with Pandit Brij Bhushan Kabra, the great pioneer of Indian raga slide guitar. It was during this time that he realised his vocation would be ‘to serve as a bridge between raga’s past and future’.

Now 43, and officially a Pandit (master musician) since turning 40, he is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest slide guitarists, and has invented his own ‘Trinity of Guitars’. His Chaturangi has 22 strings, which enable it to suggest the timbres of violin, sitar, sarod and veena. The Ghandarvi is a 14-stinged guitar that can sound like a veena, sarangi, saz or flamenco guitar, and the tiny 4-stringed Anandi is basically a slide ukulele. He also has his own three-fingered style of playing which gives him an edge over others when it comes to speed and dexterity, and in 2003, he established a music school in his hometown of Kolkata.

Debashish Bhattacharya
World renowned Master of the Hindustani Slide Guitar

Debashish Bhattacharya is one of the world’s most amazing music personalities whose dynamism of artistry and creativity place him as a Genius. As a performer he is one of the worlds most powerful Slide Guitarists. He is creating a genre already in India and around the world.

As a composer he believes there is no east, and west in music, only Universal Human music which gives peace and joy to the believers.

As a creator he has become perhaps the only phenomenon in the History of World Music by creating TRINITY OF SLIDE GUITARS by name CHATURANGUI, GANDHARVI, and ANANDI.
As Debashish is perhaps the only Musician who has created such TRINITY in India too. As a recording artiste Debashish is a perfect Virtuoso matches in all the categories of Music starting from Indian Classical, Semi Classical, Folk to any Kind of World music.

Genetically Debashish carries music of his Devotee parent, who was singers by generations. His brother Subhasis is an extraordinary Tabla and other rhythm instruments. Sutapa his sister is a very popular singer who at her first abroad tour has been quiet popular in Japan And Canada.



As a disciple Debashish feels extremely fortunate to be associated with his Gurus, Pundit Ajoy Chakrabarty,the exponent vocalist and Pundit Brij Bhushan Kabra, the living legend and pioneer of Indian Classical Guitar.

As a performer Debashish began his debut at the age of four at All India Radio, Calcutta, late Ustad Karamatullah Khan of Farukhabad Gharana accompanied him on tabla was blessings from Ustadji

As he was twenty Debashish received President of India Award for wining National Music Competition of All India Radio. At his thirties Debashish has been awarded Top Grade, the ultimate honor by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of India, Prasar Bharati.

As a Classical Guitarist He is the best, as all the Gurus say today in India.

Debashish Bhattacharya visualised his customised guitar right back when he was sixteen years old. It took him the best part of two decades to solidify this fantasy into a range of axes with augmented strings, a collection that still look like guitars, but possessing trimmings that call to mind a sitar. He's added sympathetic resonating strings, raised high from the guitar body, and decorated his tuning knobs with bulbed carving. He plays with the axe laid flat, its strings caressed by a metal sliding bar. Could this be another version of the blues, to sit beside those manifestations from the Sahara and the Mississippi Delta?

Since signing to Riverboat Records, Debashish Bhattacharya's UK profile has been higher, particularly in the light of his duo disc Mahima, with serial collaborator Bob Brozman. The latter guitarist is obsessed with any string that slides, so his teaming with Debashish was almost inevitable. Now, Bhattacharya has just released his own album, Calcutta Chronicles, subtitled an Indian Slide Guitar Odyssey. It's refreshing to hear an artist verge on advising his audience not to buy the disc that's on sale at his gig. Well, not quite, but Debashish does issue a warning that it features capsule, or even compromised, versions of his crucial raga material, mentally edited for the purpose of audio home comfort.

In the onstage setting, Bhattacharya is more concerned with the expected lengthy unfolding of a traditional raga, though he's not going to take as much time to unwind as many of his peers. The average length of Debashish's journey is about thirty minutes per piece, instead of the oft-attained hour-long exploration. He drapes himself with the mantle of preservationist, viewing the old ways as being beleaguered in the face of modern technology (Bhattacharya has a curious obsession with citing GPS as the bane of the itinerant musician!). It's not that Debashish is particularly advanced in years, but he's set on preserving the ancient Indian classical system, and not just as a performer. His principle concern is that the audience needs to consciously battle, in order to find a quiet space for extended contemplation. He doesn't want you to play your disc whilst driving/eating/cleaning/procreating. He's right, of course. To solely listen requires a deliberate resolution...

Debashish is partnered by his tabla-playing brother, Subhasis, who observes silently as the opening alap is delicately formed by the sliding strings. He enters more prematurely than most, speaking with the deeply-rubbed tones of his bass skin. Debashish escalates quite quickly, plucking and picking, as he scatters single-note phrases against a backdrop of his own simultaneous jangle-cascade. It's highly intricate, and at its climax, incredibly speeding, with the pair displaying a uniquely bonded sense of improvising precision. Bhattacharya uses each of his three guitars in turn, the last being of ukulele size, and demonstrated on an even shorter piece. Close the eyes, and his sound is not so far removed from that of a sitar or veena, but Bhattacharya is nevertheless in possession of his own particular style, and has rapidly become one of the most impressive players on the Indian classical circuit.

RockOm's Tom Crenshaw had the privilege to interview Debashish in early 2008 and to witness a phenomenal concert in Savannah, Georgia, at the Savannah Music Festival, where Debashish debuted his "Song of Life" composition as performed by master guitarists Derek Trucks, Jerry Douglas, Bob Brozman, and Debashish himself. Tom remarks, "For close to ten minutes these giants of slide guitar held the audience in the palm of their hands trading licks back and forth, and singing dynamically through strings and fingers something entirely unheard-of up until that moment. I've never before witnessed or heard anything like these four masters speaking through their music in such a passionate and moving manner. There was a time when all four guitarists and the tabla percussionist were playing simultaneously and every single note, every beat made perfect sense! When the composition was over the audience erupted in a resounding, almost deafening applause. It was quite a moment- one I'll never forget!"

RockOm: I sometimes say that music is spiritual in nature- in that what flows through us musically seems to come from a higher realm. Do you agree?

Debashish Bhattacharya: No, not at all. Music is man's hard work with extreme passion. When it pleases us, it transports us to a level of the mind where we feel disconnected with all material things momentarily. If you call this spirituality, so be it. Spirituality lies in the philosophy shaping up any music and or true practice of humanity; it is not a package or brand to sell a product.

RockOm: Do you feel that your spirituality is communicated through your music and if so, how?

Debashish Bhattacharya: As I said, spirituality lies in the philosophy shaping up any music. Spirituality is also related to non-fake humanity. Of course, my music is deep-rooted in philosophy, which is why Indian classical or raga music has survived thousands of years. That so many people are learning, practicing, and listening to it all over the world is a percolation of its spirituality. My music is liked by millions around the world, so the aesthetics rooted in philosophy transcribes spiritual feelings in their minds; it is the music itself. In true presentation it shows what it is. This is a natural process of communication, but only possible in the hands of a dedicated and true artist.

RockOm: What do you think it is about music that breaks down barriers and divisions between people?

Debashish Bhattacharya: I call it emotional attachment. Subconscious self-identification with one and all. Only music evokes the realization that we are all human beings, "Brothers and Sisters," as the great Swami Vivekananda addressed audiences at the Chicago World's Religions meeting decades [ago.]

RockOm: Besides your own music, is there any one artist or album that you continually return to (more than others) for inspiration, depth, or spiritual revelation and why?

Debashish Bhattacharya: I always fall back upon Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, Pandit Ravi Shankar, and Ray Charles. Why? I think they shape my thinking, intellect, heart, hands, eyes, and all organs like vitamins.

RockOm: Is there a difference between hearing music and feeling music? How do you explain this?

Debashish Bhattacharya: I think that is a radical issue, which needs to be addressed rather seriously. Do you relate to your feelings phone ringtones, horns, jingles, lounge, titillating promos, and squeaks and squirms? All that comes without philosophy of life is "passing sound."

RockOm: Just as you've invented new musical instruments to express what you hear and feel inside, what do you think future master musicians will come up with?

Debashish Bhattacharya: I have invented sounds deep rooted in Indian tradition and use them to trans-create music that is eternal. I have been able to do something though I did not have any role model in front of me. I can't say for others.

RockOm: How are we limited here in the West with regard to writing and performing music of a spiritual nature?

Debashish Bhattacharya: Try to find an answer to why you think you are limited, if you believe so. I think only then you can get your answer of the question.

RockOm: How important is it for you to "get out of your own way," so to speak, when performing? Do you lose yourself while performing or must you remain fixated and aware of what you are doing at all times?

Debashish Bhattacharya: I do not believe in talking while performing. That's not done. I am deeply absorbed while performing, as I believe that I must deliver my best to my audience.

RockOm: Is playing music similar to praying or meditating?

Debashish Bhattacharya: Yes. If one concentrates while praying will he not do so while playing music?

RockOm: Does music have the power to heal and can you give any example of healing you have witnessed?

Debashish Bhattacharya: Healing varies from person to person. Yes, many of my fans listen to a certain piece of mine, at a certain time, to feel good. That's surely healing. But a general remedy is difficult to formulate in such abstract fine arts.

RockOm: Is everyone inherently musical to some degree?

Debashish Bhattacharya: Well, not really. I know of many who are least musical but make tons of money by selling music!

RockOm: What is the most important thing we should know about you and your music, Pandit?

Debashish Bhattacharya: The most important thing about me to know is my name Debashish Bhattacharya and my music - classical raga, music of India.

http://www.debashishbhattacharya.com/

Debashish Bhattacharya - Live in Calcutta

Year: 2010

Label: Rough Guide

This album is only issued as a bonus disc to the Rough Guide to India. You cannot purchase it by itself, and the rough guide isn't even half as good.

Tracks:
01. Raga Maru, Bihag Aalaap 13:41
02. Mahu Bihag, Jod-Jhala 9:29
03. Maru Bihag, Gat In Madhyala Rupak Tala 12:22
04. Maru Bihag, Gat And Jhala In Drut Tintala 13:20
05. Raga Khamaj, Aalaap 7:41
06. Anandam In Anandi (Raga: Mishra Shivaranjani) 7:07

if any of you have Debashish Bhattacharya - Calcutta to California, I'd love to hear it.

Bali: Gamelan & Kecak

The first time I heard gamelan music, I had no idea what it was. I thought it was electronica. It literally sounded like aliens. I was very confused, and very entranced. Then gradually I heard some more, and it was totally mindblowingly enchanting. I hope all of you get to hear one of these ensembles live some time, because the overtones really really knock you out. They build up a cloud of resonant sound that is hovering, shimmering all around you, which is the context of every note that gets played. And within this soundfield, stuff gets repeated, switched around, slowed down, sped up; it creates a context for surprises. And it lulls your conscious mind while stimulating your spirit. And that's why the music is so amazingly ethereal and out-of-body.

And this is exactly the same as what John Fahey does in open tunings.

And this is not an accident.

John Fahey happened to grow up in a neighborhood that had a gamelan ensemble in a backyard. When he'd get frustrated with school or family or life he'd bugger off to the gamelan and play for a while. Wild, eh? True story.

He also was sent an early Harry Partch disc when he was young. Harry Partch was very influenced by indonesian music and gamelans in particular.

And they weren't the only ones. Gamelan music changed the way that westerners thought about music at a very fundamental level. Suddenly, there was an alternative to the the linear scale-based, chord-based, key-based, melody-based approach to music that westerners had been taking since Baroque times. Here was a music that was harmonically driven, like Medieval music, Greek music, and a few others lost to time.

If you've never heard this sort of music before, or even if you have, you owe it to yourself to give this disc a listen. And when you come down from floating 50 feet above your body, you will have been deeply healed.

A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included.

The term refers more to the set of instruments than to the players of those instruments. A gamelan is a set of instruments as a distinct entity, built and tuned to stay together — instruments from different gamelan are generally not interchangeable.

The word gamelan comes from the Javanese word gamels, meaning "to strike or hammer", and the suffix an, which makes the root a collective noun.

Introduction

Gamelan is a term for various types of orchestra played in Indonesia. It is the main element of the Indonesian traditional music. Each gamelan is slightly different from the other; however, they all have the same organization, which based on different instrumental groups with specific orchestral functions. The instruments in a gamelan are composed of sets of tuned bronze gongs, gong-chimes, metallophones, drums, one or more flute, bowed and plucked string instruments, and sometimes singers. In some village gamelan, bronze is sometimes replaced by iron, wood, or bamboo. The most popular gamelan can be found in Java, and Bali.

The Beliefs

In Indonesian traditional thinking, the gamelan is sacred and is believed to have supernatural power. Both musician and non-musicians are humble and respectful to the gamelan. Incense and flowers are often offered to the gamelan. It is believed that each instrument in the gamelan is guided by spirits. Thus, the musician have to take off their shoes when they play the gamelan. It is also forbidden to step over any instrument in a gamelan, because it might offend the spirit by doing so. Some gamelan are believed to have so much powers that playing them may exert power over nature. Others may be touched only by persons who are ritually qualified. In Javanese gamelan, the most important instrument is the Gong Ageng. The Javanese musicians believe that Gong Ageng is the main spirit of the entire gamelan.

Functions of Gamelan

Gamelan is a way of linking individuals in social groups. Gamelan music is performed as a group effort, and so there is no place for an individual showoff. Traditionally, gamelan is only played at certain occasions such as ritual ceremonies, special community celebrations, shadow puppet shows, and for the royal family. Gamelan is also used to accompany dances in court, temple, and village rituals. Besides providing music for social functional ceremonies, gamelan also provides a livelihood for many professional musicians, and for specialized craftsmen who manufacture gamelan.

Today, although gamelan music is still used for ritual ceremonies and the royal family, it is also performed as concert music at social and cultural gatherings to welcome guests and audiences. Gamelan is also used to accompany many kinds of both traditional and modern dances, drama, theatrical and puppetry. In modern days, gamelan can be kept in places such as courts, temples, museums, schools, or even private homes.

Balinese Gamelan music is very similar to Javanese Gamelan music. The music is in cycle too, however, it is usually faster. One of the characteristic of Balinese gamelan music is that, it has a lot of sudden changes in tempo and dynamics. Like the Javanese gamelan, the instruments in Balinese gamelan includes metallophones and gongs. However, there are more metallophones than gongs in Balinese gamelan. The metal keys in Balinese metallophones are ticker than those of Javanese. These Balinese metallophones produce very bright sound. Another characteristic of Balinese Gamelan music is the used of cymbals. These cymbals create fast rattling sound that usually cannot be found in Javanese Gamelan music.

Kecak (pronounced , alternate spellings: Ketjak and Ketjack) a form of Balinese music drama, originated in the 1930s and is performed primarily by men. Also known as the Ramayana Monkey Chant, the piece, performed by a circle of 100 or more performers wearing checked cloth around their waists, percussively chanting "cak" and throwing up their arms, depicts a battle from the Ramayana where the monkey-like Vanara helped Prince Rama fight the evil King Ravana. However, Kecak has roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance.

Kecak was originally a trance ritual accompanied by male chorus. German painter and musician Walter Spies became deeply interested in the ritual while living in Bali in the 1930s and worked to recreate it into a drama, based on the Hindu Ramayana and including dance, intended to be presented to Western tourist audiences. This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system" in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and onsumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a whole, into a separate entity." Spies worked with Wayan Limbak and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels have helped to make the Kecak famous throughout the world.

Performer, choreographer, and scholar I Wayan Dibia cites a contrasting theory that the Balinese where already developing the form when Spies arrived on the island. For example, well-known dancer I Limbak had incorporated Baris movements into the cak leader role during the 1920s. "Spies liked this innovation," and it suggested that Limbak, "devise a spectacle based on the Ramayana," accompanied by cak chorus rather than gamelan, as would have been usual.

As an uncharacteristically knowledgeable amazon customer has said:

In his amazing book Ocean of Sound, David Toop opens with a chapter on the meeting of western composers (especially Debussy) with the sounds of the Indonesian Gamelan (which are essentially orchestras of various sizes). Situating the nexus of much modern music in this meeting by finding strains of these sounds in minimalists like Steve Reich, Terry Riley, and John Cage, but also stretching into the filmic realms of Ryuchi Sakamoto, the electronics of Loop Guru, and the Free Jazz of Don Cherry, just to name a few he cites, Toop indicates the range of influence of this amazing music. David Lewiston's 1987 recordings on this compilation jubiliantly reflect this diversity, even in the fascinating opening track of various ensembles passing by in a parade showcasing the sounds of cymbals, gongs, drums, flutes, metallophones, wooden cowbells, and countless other mostly percussive sounds. The rest of the tracks on the CD are equally varied. The third track, for example, Genggong Duet, takes place with the Balinese Jew's Harp, and could almost sound like the electronic squiggles of some electronic outfits like mouse on mars or matmos; the fourth track, a Frog Song which is produced through a piece of palm bark and sounds like a reed instrument, could pass for a free-jazz improvisation. Another exciting highlight would be the 8th track, a Kecak piece that tells the Indian Legend of Hanuman. Familiar to anyone whose seen the film Baraka, this is a piece where a large group sits in a circle, moving, swaying, and chanting, tjak tjak tajk, in furious rhythm. Like the Master Musicians of Jajouka, whom William Burroughs called a "2000 year old rock band," this music sounds both ancient and progressive at the same time. An excellent introduction based on variety alone, but with digital recording, these sounds are surprisingly clean. For anyone curious about Balinese music, this would be a great place to start.

VA - Bali: Gamelan & Kecak

Year: 1989
Label: Nonesuch

Recorded by David Lewiston in 1987, these are fine recordings of both famous and little-heard strains of Indonesian music. In a series of recordings that include both large gamelan orchestras and small ensembles, he has captured the wide scope of the music of Bali. In addition to the gamelan works we are offered some very unique sounds: a palm bark version of the Jew's harp; a reed instrument with a distinctly "Hendrix on the bagpipes" sound. Perhaps most enjoyable is a recording of a passing parade, with various instruments, rhythms, and melodies drifting by in the sort of cacophony associated with Charles Ive's marching band works. Lewiston's offering is invaluable. -- Louis Gibson

Album Description
Bali's most popular ensemble is still the large gamelan gong, consisting of 25 to 30 musicians. The principal melody instruments are metallophones, xylophone-like instruments with bronze keys. Sets of small, tuned gong kettles provide melodic ornaments, while the penetrating bass tones of great gongs punctuate larger phrases. Clashing cymbals add to the overall glitter. A flute or stringed instrument sweetens the melody. The entire structure is supported by two drummers, who create the crucial rhythmic underpinning. The kecak is uniquely Balinese. The rhythmic interlocking "tjak-tjak-tjak-tjak," chanted by a large group of male voices, originated as the accompaniment to an ancient trance dance. It is a performance of the Ramayana, where the monkey hordes come to the aid of King Rama in his battle with the evil King Rawana. The 80 members of the Sekaha Ganda Sari are heard in this kecak performance.

Review
by Bruno Deschênes
For many musicians, Bali is still the last paradise on Earth; their music shows an unsurpassed originality and creativeness. Still today, new pieces are being composed by Balinese composers for the different existing ensembles. This CD, produced and recorded by American ethnomusicologist David Lewiston, gives us an overview of the large variety in Balinese music, of the different types of gamelan ensembles. The first piece is the music of the opening parade of the Bali Arts Festival on June 1987 (a festival taking place in June and July of every year on the island). You hear recently created ensembles, styles, and pieces as well as older ones. Among the recent musical creations of Balinese are the kecak, a type of rhythmic vocal play with short and percussive words which are used for trance dance. This type of singing, which came to life in the 1930s, is found only in Bali and is sung exclusively by men. Quite possibly one of the best Balinese CDs available!

Tracks:
1 - Opening Parade, Bali Arts Festival - 12:18
2 - Gamelan Gong Sekaha Sadha Budaya - 10:41
3 - Genggong Duet - Artika, Meji - 2:33
4 - Genggong Batur Sari, Batuan - 4:11
5 - Gamelan Salunding, Tenganan - 7:52
6 - Sadha Budaya Gamelan Gong Suling - 6:06
7 - Gender Wayang: Sukawati - Balik, Loceng, Nartha, Sarga - 7:34
8 - Sekaha Ganda Sari, Bona - 8:07
9 - Gamelan Gong Kebyar Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia, Den Pasar - 12:48