RE: Fela (was Re: Hi)


NRahav@ixl.com
Tue, 1 Dec 1998 10:51:25 -0500



This is a great time to be exploring electronic beatz. People are doing now
what we discussed on this list a few years ago - A few years ago we
wondered, how come everybody is sampling funk & rare groove when there's so
much other dope shit from all over the world. the sample spectrum has
expanded as the musical artform born of an inner city creative explosion was
adopted by more people outside of the originating sphere.

What we are seeing now is the expansion of musical boundaries and
conglomeration of cultures in music. It's just a small aspect of the much
larger phenomenon - the reuniting of Babel - thanks to communication and
transportation technological advances.

It's funny though... as we push forward at lightning speed, breakin
boundaries, permuting permutations, we seem to sometimes forget the basics
that form the roots of tradition.

The artists that are on top of that shit, the ones who find the balance
between the new and the traditional, are the ones that shine through, such
as Fela, or the ones mentioned below, or many others - santana, bambaata, de
la, tribe, hendrix, coltrane, tjader, jobim, barreto, hussain, clausell,
singh, the list goes on...

All these cats dance(d) on tightropes that are our musical& cultural
borders..

.·´¯`·.¸¸.N·a·t.¸

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gokhan Karakus [mailto:gokhan@superonline.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 1998 6:30 AM
> To: 'EccoOsiris@aol.com'
> Cc: 'acid-jazz@ucsd.edu'
> Subject: RE: Fela (was Re: Hi)
>
>
>
>
> Really important point here. The breaking down of beats from
> traditional and ethnic music, abstracting it down to simple lines and
> phrases, then repeating it to emphasize every nuance is definitely
> modernist. Where the curve comes in is when you throw this stuff into
> the digital sphere. Then you have something thats a post-modernist
> melange-sampling, time distortions etc. Without getting
> bogged down in
> labels you can point to some current examples in house, the new Jephte
> Guillaume or Ashley Beedle's Black Jazz Chronicles, or drum and bass,
> the new Grooverider or taken to the extreme, Ed Rush and Optical's
> Wormhole where the funky/jazzy/ethnic elements are almost
> dissipated to
> nothingness in a way that only this style can achieve.
>
> GK
>
> >
> >
> >Just a thought about Fela.
> >
> >In a strange way his work is exceedingly modernist, and
> almost cybernetic.
> >He employs relatively simple sonic potentials and sets them
> in repetitive
> >motion
> >through complex systems. From this stirring of purity in
> form and function,
> >patterns and connections arise which give birth to emergent
> properties. I've
> >often noticed a commonality between his work and some of the
> more intelligent
> >drum and bass compositions.
>
>
>
> >
> >
>



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