Vilde Katshke

I'm trying once again to make up for the blog neglect from the past few weeks, so I thought I'd do another post today and another post later on in the week. I found Vilde Katshke after searching through all the videos that a klezmer fan had uploaded to YouTube. I really like the way in which the music starts off slowly and then becomes fast paced. The way in which the pace works and the seemingly Dutch feel of their music makes their klezmer music seem different from that of other klezmer bands.

Vilde Katshke are a trio from the Netherlands. Gottfried van Eck started the band in 1998 in order to be fuse his passion for klezmer music with his passion for ancient Jewish stories. Because of this passion for ancient Jewish stories, they will combine their music with storytelling in concerts.

Jesse Cook

I'm sorry that I've once again taken an unexpected break from updating this blog but revision for the end of year exams is proving to be a nightmare now that I now have no lectures or seminars, and therefore have no timetable with which to organise myself. I thought Jesse Cook was a good artist to feature because his music is very good at helping me to settle down to revision even though he often pours his emotions into his guitar music, in such a way that he makes his guitar music very captivating.

Jesse Cook comes from Toronto in Canada but he spent many years of his childhood travelling between France and Spain. His music is a fusion of world music, Latin music and funky jazz music. His inspiration stems from his parents' recordings of Manitas de Plata (a gypsy guitarist from the Carmague region of Southern France), the sound of which he tried to imitate as a toddler. His fascination for gypsy music increased when he went to visit his father in Arles, where one could often hear the flamenco-rhumba music being played in the "gipsy barrio". No doubt this fascination was one of the factors that encouraged him to study classical and jazz guitar at music school. His fame increased after he performed at the Catalina Jazz Festival in 1995.

John Whelan

Apologies once again for being slightly delayed in making a post. This weekend I was busy moving house, packing for university before coming back to university, so all of this left little time for any time for a blog post. I chose John Whelan for this week's blog post because he combines lots of different elements of celtic music from bagpipes to fiddles, so I thought there'd be something about his music that all celtic music lovers could enjoy.

John Whelan was born in the UK but his family is Irish. He was brought up in Dunstable, near to London, where a lot of Irish people have settled in the UK. His family were very traditional, and so this led to him being a fan of traditional Irish music. He was so enthusiastic about Irish music, that he'd carry a reel-to-reel tape recorder to collect sound of Irish music being played live. He also has a band called the John Whelan Band, which he founded in 1997. In 1998, Irish Echo Magazine named him traditionalist of the year. His compositions have been influenced by many things such as stories, documentaries, other musicians, etc. He is well known on an international level, and so he has played at many festivals in America.

I'll leave you with a quote from the man himself about his music: “If you open your ears and your mind you can appreciate my music for what it is, not what kind of music it is.”

Suarez

So this week brings us back to the Western world but I thought it was time to go a bit further North to Belgium. I decided to feature Suarez because I like the way in which they describe all the different elements of relationships. I also like the Spanish rhythms of their music.

Suarez is formed of 3 folk musicians from Madagascar (Max Randriamanjava, Pata Randriamanjava and their cousin, Dada Ravalison) and Marc Pinilla (the guitarist), who is a Belgian from a Spanish family. The 3 folk musicians met Marc Pinilla when they went to perform at a world music contest in France, which their band (then called N'java) won. Their debut album was released in 2010 and since then they have released one more album.

Amadou & Mariam

I thought this week's post should be on Amadou et Mariam as their album, Folila, will be released tomorrow. I was introduced to them by my sister and ever since then I've taken a great liking to them because I like the way, in which they express their emotions so well in both their lyrics and the music itself.

Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia come from Bamako, Mali. They're both blind and so this has led to them being known as "the blind couple from Mali". They met at the Institute for the Young Blind in Mali and performed in the Institute's Eclipse Orchestra. They married later on in the 1980s. Prior to his marriage with Mariam, Amadou was in Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako (a West African band) but after marrying Mariam, he began to play with her whilst simultaneously carrying on with his solo career and running the Institute's music program. Since the later years of the 1990s, the couple have combined traditional Malian music with rock guitars, Syrian violins, Cuban trumpets, Egyptian ney (an end blown flute that is often used in Middle Eastern music), Indian tablas and Dogon percussion, so their music is known as "Afro-blues".

Beaux Dimanches:

This is a song about corrupt, selfish politicians:

This is a song about not being able to find someone:

Ghous Bux Brohi

I thought it was time to feature some more music from South Asia, so I decided I should feature some Indian music given that I haven't done a lot of posts about this sort of music.

I featured Ghous Bux Brohi in this week's post because I've always liked Indian bamboo flute music. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find out anything about this artist, so I'd be grateful if anyone could tell me more.

Transkapela

My apologies once again for not keeping to my new years resolution regarding blog posts, I was just slightly tired after term ended, so I forgot about making a blog post. Hopefully, I'll be more efficient at doing these posts now that I'm beginning to recover from this fatigue. I have no more lectures or seminars so I should find it easier to do these posts.

I chose Transkapela because they are another band that has an original style of klezmer. Transkapela have been inspired by the 19th & 20th century music of the Carpathians, which combines the music of different ethnic groups such as Poles, Jews, Ukranians, Slovaks, Armenians, Gypsies, Germans and Hungarians.

I've also learnt that the word "klezmer" is a combination of two Hebrew words, "kley" (a tool, instrument or dish) and "zemer" (singer).