Dear Leslie,
when is the Moroccan festival? I'd love to find out more....
You opened a whole canna worms with the question of the role of the
producer in the final outcome of the music. At the heart of the issue is a
topic akin to the Art world's grapple with realism vs. impressionism
vs. abstract and everything that falls between. When does the artist show
the brush strokes? when does the artist hide them?
The producer definitely has the fundamental job of making a recording
sound good. But what else? Sometimes this means staying true to the
original instrument's sounds, and sometimes it means putting their own
stamp on it. I think that your reaction to this project of Laswell's, and
your grouping of it with BVSC, is somewhwat misplaced. The afrocuban music
that you speak of is true & pure and should remain untainted. But this
work (unlike Cooder's) is not trying in any way to preserve the original
sound. Rather it is an highly impressionistic work that is clearly the
brainchild of laswell's and not a case of him letting his ego get in the
way of other musicians trying to record. I agree with you, sometimes a
producer should sit back and let the musicians express themselves without
inserting his own "stamp". And in fact Laswell has done just that on a
recording I picked up not too long ago of Gnawa musicians from the 80's.
In the case of this recording, I think that if there is a particular
musical tradition that Laswell is remaining true to , it is dub, and not
afrocuban. And in dub the producer has a far greater role than even that
very same producer on the flipside, vocal version.
Just to bring it back to *all* of last week's threads, I think Ludovic
Navarre aka St Germain is an artist worth mentioning on the subject of the
role of the producer. His was the first show I ever saw where the producer
was in fact a musician performing on the stage in a traditional jazz
arrangement style.
peace,
Nat
On Mon, 18 Dec 2000, Leslie N. Shill wrote:
> Dear Nat,
>
> as far as the Boniche Dub goes, Boniche IS a Jewish musician from Morocco
> where there has been a Jewish community for a long time and one that has a
> culture of it's own. Morocco is a pretty musical place and it is well worth
> exploring for just that audio angle. the Gnawa music in particular is really
> amazing. there is a festival of sacred music that is held in the city of Fez
> each year that has accrued a following and produced at least one cd set.
> another musician that i particularly love is Hassan Hakmoun who has produced
> a wide variety of sounds with quite an array of people, check his music out
> for yourself.
>
> as far as the Laswell havana record is concerned, i was taken with it
> upfront but i became less and less enchanted with it as time went on
> because, and this applies also to comments on the Buena Vista Social music
> that Ry Cooder inserted himself into that appeared here in the last week or
> so, it would be nice for someone as productive as Laswell (or Ry Cooder for
> that matter!) to just produce the music without inserting his own particular
> brand of very deep basslines or rhythmic sensibilities or musical notions in
> albums that reall sit right on the floor of particular ethnic kinds of
> music. please don't get me wrong, i love Laswell's work in general (i said
> the same of Cooder) but i wonder sometimes if the work of a producer is to
> make the music sound as good as possible without inserting their own
> recognizable sounds, or whether they are on the project for their specific
> branded sonic identity. i would love to read some opinions on just that, the
> work of the producer in the final mix or product.
>
> leslie/The Power of Sound/ www.kazu.org
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Nathaniel Rahav <nat@rhythmlove.com>
> To: <acid-jazz@ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2000 9:58 PM
> Subject: That Bill Laswell Havana Record
>
>
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Just to follow up from my long banter last week, here is the info on that
> > Bill Laswell Record:
> >
> > Artist: Bill Laswell
> > Record: Havana Mood (Rhum & Bass Version)
> > Label: APC
> > Origin: France
> >
> > (To refresh your memory, this was a record I brought up w/r/t the whole
> > Afro-cuban electronica fusion movement... dubby productions of afrocuban
> > beats)
> >
> > More info:
> > www.apc.fr
> > music@apc.fr
> > 01-45-48-61-62 (in France)
> > Distributed by PIAS
> >
> > Actually, in checking out their website I just saw that they're also
> > responsible for another excellent Laswell release, Boniche Dub. This one
> > is a dubby excursion into North African and very jewish sounding
> > melodies...
> >
> >
> >
> > * Now playing:
> > Yusef Lateef - The Gentle Giant
> > Peter Walker - Rainy Day Raga (anybody know anything about this guy? this
> > record is phenominal! looks like he used to hang with Timothy Leary)
> > Off Limits 2 - compiled by Dixon
> > Jazztronik - Inner Flight
> > Zeb - Jesterized
> > Airto - Seeds on the Ground
> >
> >
> > peace everybody, enjoy your Monday!
> >
> > Nat
> >
> >
> >
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Dec 18 2000 - 15:39:36 CET