°I SSUE
Ali Farka Touré in Icons
33
FEATURES
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29
We’ve selected a dozen artists – past and present – we feel are deserving of icon status.
40
Andy Kershaw & the Bhundu Boys
An exclusive excerpt from Kershaw’s just released autobiography, No Off Switch.
44
Trio Joubran
The three oud-wielding brothers discuss the three Ps – Palestine, Presley and politics.
46
Indian Routes
The World Routes Academy heads to South India for the second mentor-protégé scheme featuring Aruna Sairam and Hari Sivanesan.
50
Jewish Gangsters Greatest Hits
The man behind the Balkan beats craze goes retro and delves into the Kosher Nostra scene, with a release of classic Yiddish and Jewish hits.
38 ‘Manu Chao is the world’s greatest antiiconic icon’
Trio Joubran
46
World Routes
44
40 Shantel & Oz Almog www.songlines.co.uk www.songlines.co.uk
50
Andy Kershaw Songlines 3
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UPFRONT
Mary Hampton’s Grooves
7 Welcome 9 Top of the World CD 10 My World: Shlomo 12 News 16 Obituaries/World Music Chart 18 The Cecil Sharp Project 19 Letters & Reader Profile 21 G rooves: Wallee McDonnell,
78 °
54
Mary Hampton & Rua Macmillan
22 Globe-Rocker: Azam Ali 25 Making Waves: Rachel
Cecil Sharp had a tough time as a vegetarian... the locals thought that chicken was a vegetable
18
Sermanni, Nomfusi & The Lucky Charms 25 Where in the World? 27 Songlines Music Travel 29 BONUS CD Dutch Delta Sounds 30 Music from the Netherlands
21
Festival Profile
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REGULARS
52 Beginner’s Guide to Piazzolla 54 F estival Profile: Nuits de Nacre 57 Postcard from Jerusalem 59 Subscribe & Back Issues 91 Gig Guide & TV/Radio Listings 96 You Should Have Been There... 98 Backpage from... Nouméa, NC
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“The thrill of introducing people to great musicians was a rare treat”
reat audience!” and “What a great hall!” were two recurring comments I kept getting back from those performing at Songlines Encounters Festival last month. Kings Place is a class venue with helpful but laid-back staff and the thrill of introducing people to great musicians like Carminho, the Stelios Petrakis Trio, Sväng and Söndörgő was a rare treat. The response was fantastic. Aside from their glorious music, Sväng are a surreal sight, marching on with their neat, black harmonica boxes. Jouko Kyhälä blows into what looks like an over-sized Blackberry and Pasi Leino wields a bass harmonica that looks more like an electric toaster. Söndörgő packed a fantastic collection of instruments into a huge travelling case and brazenly told the airline it weighed 30kg when, in fact, it weighed 88. In the pre-concert chat with Áron Eredics (pictured below), he demonstrated the minute samica tambura that he bought in a street market near Budapest. It looks ridiculously small, like a child’s toy, but he uses it to play a tambura tune collected by Bartók over a century ago. The amazing Austrian percussionist, Taalis, in the Circle of Sound show with Soumik Datta and Arun Ghosh, came on-stage reading a copy of Songlines and started doing virtuosic vocal percussion – enough to take on the most ferocious of opponents. Balkan wizards She’koyokh did a new show – with a jokey narrative and pictures – that also benefitted from three super-talented women fronting the band. And with the UK premiere of Carminho, it was great to highlight to a packed audience a beautiful new voice on the Portuguese fado scene. The Petrakis-López-Chemirani trio showed music breaking out from national boundaries to be enjoyed for its sonic and musical qualities. On Cretan lyra and laouto, Afghan rubab, Turkish saz, Spanish guitar (see Efrem López pictured below) and fabulous Persian percussion a whole new sound world is born – a very Songlines sound. And there were fantastic foyer performers as well, bringing the outside space alive. There are more pictures on p96 and going up on the Songlines Blog, plus Söndörgő are on BBC Radio 3’s World on 3 programme on July 22 – if you read this in time! We’re delighted to have a great range of sounds from the Netherlands on our second CD this issue – see p29 and p30 for more details. It comes at a time when (as in the UK) the Dutch government is severely cutting arts spending and world music will certainly suffer. RASA, the great world music venue in Utrecht, one of very few dedicated world music venues in Europe, faces an uncertain future. As does the Music Centre Netherlands, the organisation who helped support our CD. The Netherlands has an active world music scene – and a lot of Songlines readers. It deserves its place – and our support – on the world music map.
on the SONGLINES stereo sophie The Cecil Sharp Project – loving the song ‘Veggie in the Holler’
courtesy of
alex Dub Colossus paul Jah Wobble’s – Addis Through the Japanese Dub following a sublime set Looking Glass at Glasto’s West Holts
jo Classic Miriam Makeba, following the Hugh Masekela tribute concert to Mama Afrika
SONGLINES DIGITAL SONGLINES DIGITAL Look out for this symbol throughout the issue to see which free tracks are available. For a free trial see www.songlines.co.uk/digital Songlines 7
UPFRONT
78
On your free CD – the editor’s selection of the top ten albums reviewed in this issue
1
JuJu ‘Nightwalk’
From the album In Trance on Real World Records The guitar and ritti duo become a band and look set to blow away the competition. See p84
2
Cecil Sharp Project ‘Meadows of Dan’
From the album Cecil Sharp Project on Shrewsbury Folk Festival Records A ‘who’s who’ in folk and a first-class tribute to Sharp’s legacy. See p85
9
3
Tamikrest ‘Nak Amadjar Nidounia’
From the album Toumastin on Glitterhouse Records Hypnotic desert grooves from the young Touareg band. See p63
4
From the album The Wilders on Free Dirt Records Old-time country, bluegrass honky-tonk from the Kansas City quartet. See p68
10 6
5
Azam Ali ‘Lai Lai’
From the album From Night to the Edge of Day on Six Degrees A beautiful collection of Middle Eastern lullabies from the Iranian-born singer. See p82
2 5 † 1 7
8
4
The Wilders ‘This Old Town’
3
Turn over to see Shlomo’s playlist »
6
Söndörgo˝ ‘Opa Cupa’
From the album Tamburising: Lost Music of the Balkans on World Village The virtuosic Hungarian family band showcase their tambura music from Central Europe. See p75
7
Majid Bekkas ‘Banya’
From the album Mabrouk on Bee Jazz Records The Moroccan maalem sets an impressively high benchmark for Gnawa-jazz fusion. See p83
8
Ricardo Ribeiro ‘Moreninha da Travessa’
From the album Porta do Coração on EMI Portugal Pure, unadulterated Portuguese fado without the histrionics. See p74
9
Genticorum ‘Tout le Long du Voyage’
From the album Nagez Rameurs on Roues et Archets Fiddles, flute and foottapping from the popular French-speaking trio from Quebec. See p67
New to Songlines? Subscribe now and get a
10
Khyam Allami ‘Tawazon 1: Balance’
From the album Resonance/ Dissonance on Nawa Recordings A mesmerising debut from the young London-based oud player. See p79
album for free!
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Songlines 9
UPFRONT
My World SHLOMO
Sophie Atkinson talks to the man behind the mic and discovers his ears are permanently open to new sounds, especially when frequenting festivals P H OTO G a b r i e l l e M o to l a
Also on your CD: five tracks chosen by Shlomo
11
A Filetta ‘1901’
From the album Bracanà on DEDA Shlomo discovered this polyphonic choir at WOMAD one year. He admits that the festival is responsible for many of his favourite musical discoveries.
12
Rokia Traoré ‘Zen’
From the album Tchamantché on Nonesuch The former jazz drummer first heard the Malian singer Rokia when they were both performing for Africa Express – Damon Albarn’s collaborative project.
13
Ozomatli ‘Street Signs’
From the album Street Signs on Real World Records “I love Latin sounds and have been a big fan of Ozomatli for years,” he says of the hip-hop-cumbia-rock big band from Los Angeles. This 2004 album was a Top of the World in #26.
14
Dengue Fever ‘Ethanopium’ (4:40)
From the album Dengue Fever on Tuk Tuk Records Dengue Fever were another WOMAD discovery for the world’s champion beatboxer. The band also played the West Holts stage at Glastonbury this year – where Shlomo was performing rolling skits between sets.
15
Rodrigo y Gabriela ‘Hanuman’ (4:32)
From the album 11:11 on Rubyworks Shlomo met Rod and Gab at Lovebox. “They came up to tell me how much they loved what I did – I didn’t know who they were, so I went home and checked them out and was blown away.” 10 Songlines
F
or a 28-year-old who specialises in a form of vocal percussion closely associated with hiphop, Simon ‘Shlomo’ Kahn – the world’s official number one beatboxer – has produced a rather impressive and eclectic playlist for Songlines. “Performing year after year at festivals like WOMAD, Glastonbury and Latitude helps me to discover musical styles that I might not have otherwise heard of,” he tells me when discussing his choices. Rod and Gab are a great example – I met them at Lovebox. They were performing straight after me and came up to tell me how much they loved what I did – I didn’t know who they were so I went home and checked them out and was blown away.” “And WOMAD is where I discovered A Filetta – the polyphonic all-male choir from Corsica. I knew nothing about them beforehand – I just read about them in the programme and thought they sounded really interesting. The sound that they produced using only their voices was astounding – all of them huddled together around the microphone without using monitors or anything – it made the hairs on my arms stand on end.” While preparing for my interview with Shlomo, I came across a picture of him performing – with Amadou & Mariam no less – at Africa Express in Liverpool in 2008. Shlomo first took part in Damon Albarn’s project – which sees Western artists collaborate with African musicians in an attempt to widen the appreciation of
African music and culture – at Glastonbury in 2007 and went on to participate in Africa Express Soundsystem, which sees artists work, and rap, together in a more club-like environment. I notice that one of his playlist picks – Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré – was a fellow Africa Express collaborator. Is this where he discovered her? “I think it’s where I first heard her perform, yes.” “I’ve always been a fan of African music – I find it really inspiring. It’s cheesy I know but like many people I was first acquainted with it on Gracelands – and since hearing it I’ve made a real effort to learn more about as wide a selection of musical styles from all over the world as possible – from artists like Rokia to Latin bands like Ozomatli,” (who also feature on his playlist). Shlomo’s commitment and dedication to furthering his musical knowledge is again apparent later in our conversation when discussing his early musical aspirations. “My dad gave me a Keith Jarrett CD when I was in my teens and when I listened to it I got this really, really eerie feeling – but I had no idea why. Later, my dad told me that we used to listen to the same CD when I was four or five years old and we were playing chess.” “Jarrett became my first real musical love and after that I decided to make a conscious effort to find out more about him and jazz in general. I starting going to gigs with my dad [a semi-professional jazz player] and occasionally I’d see some really lazy jazz drumming and think, ‘I could do better than that.’” Shlomo dedicated himself to becoming a jazz drummer before discovering beatboxing by accident. “I wasn’t allowed to play after 6pm because the neighbours complained. So I created a technique using my voice as a way of practising. I had no idea that what I was doing was essentially beatboxing and that other people did it too.” How, I ask him, would he describe beatboxing to those unfamiliar with the term? “It’s really difficult to articulate, but it’s essentially when you make music using nothing but your voice.” August/September 2011
UPFRONT
“One day I just got this voicemail saying, ‘Hi, my name’s Björk… ’ It was insane”
names in the industry, who really stands out? “I performed with Imogen Heap at WOMAD and Glastonbury last year – which was a huge honour for me as I’ve been a big fan of hers for ages. One minute, I was tweeting on the off chance that she would want to collaborate with me, and next thing I know, we’re pitching our tents next to each other.” And is there anyone left whom he aspired to perform with? “Sting, I think he’s a really underrated artist. And Stevie, obviously. That’s the dream.” l
“It’s not a million miles away from scat singing, as heard in old-time, traditional jazz. There’s also a technique called vocal percussion, which has been part of a capella for a long time, and is really similar to beatboxing. The Indian tabla bol tradition is centuries old too and that’s bears many similarities to what we do, even though it originates from a completely different part of the world. It dates back hundreds of years, whereas beatboxing was born in New York in the 1980s alongside hip-hop.” Which makes Shlomo roughly the same age as the art that he is now internationally www.songlines.co.uk
Clockwise from top: the world’s number one beatboxer, Shlomo; urban Latino hip-hop big band Ozomatli; acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela who Shlomo met at Lovebox festival in London
famous for – having collaborated with Damon Albarn, Martha Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker, the Mad Professor and, of course, Björk – to whom he credits his big break. “She’d been commissioned to write a song for the opening of the Olympics in Athens,” he tells me. “Originally, she wasn’t going to put this track on the album, but later changed her mind. So she had to rework it and make it purely vocal. I think she just Googled beatboxers in the UK and found me. One day I just got this voicemail saying, ‘Hi, my name’s Björk… ’ It was insane.” Having worked with some of the biggest
dates Mouthtronica runs for the duration of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival podcast Hear one of Shlomo’s own tracks on the podcast online www.shlo.co.uk
DON’T MISS NEXT ISSUE
Indian music legend
RAVI SHANKAR Songlines 11
BE G INNE R ’ S
G U I D E
“T
ango doesn’t exist,” declared Astor Piazzolla during one of his last interviews, given in 1989 in Chile. “It existed many years ago, until 1955, when Buenos Aires was a city that dressed tango, walked tango, breathed the perfume of tango in the air. The tango of today is a boring, nostalgic imitation of that era.” One sign of a genuine innovator is that there’s a clear before and after when it comes to assessing their influence. In this respect, Piazzolla was a musical messiah. Adding elements of the classical fugue, counterpoint, dissonance, jazz syncopation and baroque passacaglia and performing and presenting tango with the seriousness and commitment of a concert pianist, he revolutionised the urban musical vernacular of his native Argentina. The sound he created is so distinctive that it has its own adjective: ‘piazzoleano.’ Piazzolla was a magisterial composer, an
f
extraordinary bandoneón player – he always played standing up – and a bossy but brilliant bandleader. But he was also a consummate professional and totally openminded; in this respect he had more in common with Handel or Mozart than with his tango-playing contemporaries. From very early on, Piazzolla was destined to be a tanguero. Born in the coastal city of Mar del Plata in 1921, his family moved to New York when he was just four. Growing up on the Lower East Side, he heard big band, jazz and classical music on the radio but his dad, Italian-born but nostalgic for Argentina, bought his son a bandoneón – the button accordion of German origin that’s the quintessential tango instrument. When Piazzolla was 13, Carlos Gardél, already a legend, arrived in Manhattan to make a film. The young bandoneón prodigy was too young to join Gardél and his band but got a bit part as a paper-boy in the film El Dia que me Quieras. When he was 16, Piazzolla returned to
Argentina. Tango was in its golden age, and the young musician got to play with several leading orchestras, including the one fronted by Aníbal Troilo. By 1946, Piazzolla had his own band but he was a perfectionist, and took classes with Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera. Some early compositions such as ‘Inspiración,’ ‘Lo Que Vendrá’ and ‘Taconeando’ show an instinct for experimentation. In 1954-1955 Piazzolla won a grant to go to Paris and study with composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, who told him to stick to tango, his natural means of expression. He did exactly that, and soon his inner creative demon was working full tilt. During the 60s and 70s, Piazzolla composed several pieces of music that have become classics, among them ‘Adiós Nonino,’ his affecting tribute to his late father, written in 1959. With 1961’s ‘Tres Minutos con la Realidad,’ Piazzolla declared his intention to make tango modern, metropolitan, intellectual and Bartókian in its intensity. Nuevo tango was born. Soon after
BEGINNER’S GUIDE
Astor Piazzolla
The Argentinian maestro changed the history of tango and is still guiding its destiny. Chris Moss assesses the legacy of a passionate musical master portrait j o e l m e y e r ow i t z
52 Songlines
August/September 2011
his music is part of popular culture. Homages paid by stellar classical musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma and Daniel Barenboim, as well as tangophiles like Richard Galliano and countless young orchestras in Buenos Aires, Tokyo, London and Helsinki keep winning new audiences for Piazzolla’s music. Where other tango greats such as bandleader Julio de Caro, pianist Osvaldo Pugliese ‘El tigre del bandoneón’ and Troilo only nudged tango towards modernity, Piazzolla came the sophisticated first movements of redefined the essence of the his Porteña Seasons and the Angel sequence music and, in a sense, stole it from the – both would become integral to Piazzolla’s dancehall and from Buenos Aires. As a touring repertoire. global superstar of the genre, only Gardél During this formative period, not comes close, but even he is something of a everyone approved of Piazzolla’s radical special interest these days. arrangements or his technical showiness. In classical and jazz circles, Piazzolla was Conservative critics and musicians in always a genius on the fringes. In the world Buenos Aires’ tango establishment regarded of tango, he was the troesma (maestro in his style as just too experimental to be Buenos Aires backslang) and ‘el tigre del ‘proper’ tango. There were verbal attacks on bandoneón.’ These days all serious tango the radio and, rumour has it, physical threats musicians have to include him in their to the rising star. repertoire to get gigs. Then, if they hope to Even as he polished standards, Piazzolla be original, they have to find something else was always playing with form – jazz improv, to offer that doesn’t sound like wateredelectric guitar, classical arrangements – and formations, moving through many quintets, “Buenos Aires was a city at least two octets, a nonet and a sextet. He that dressed tango, walked spent time in New York and Italy, imbibing tango, breathed the jazz, jazz-fusion, blues, rock and pop. Always keen to collaborate with perfume of tango in the air” non-tango artists, Piazzolla recorded memorable albums with saxophonist Gerry Mulligan and vibraphone virtuoso Gary down Piazzolla. It’s not easy. Listen to Burton. His work with tango’s finest poet, veterans such as Rodolfo Mederos and Pablo Horacio Ferrer, produced some of the Ziegler, or young orchestras like La greatest songs in the genre, including the Camorra. Piazzolla’s spirit is there – whether surreal ‘Balada Para un Loco’ – which must named in the credits or in a certain astrinhave sounded as leftfield as Pink Floyd when gency in the timbre, or a giddy pluck of the it was released in 1969 – and the beautiful violin strings or in a sudden moment of ‘Yo Soy María’ motif-song from the brilliant fugal filigree. mini-opera María de Buenos Aires. He also If he’d been born in the US, Piazzolla wrote 40-odd film scores – outstanding would have been a contemporary – and rival among these are the soundtracks for Pino – of Leonard Bernstein. But, as he was born Solana’s Sur and Marco Bellocchio’s Enrico in the ‘culo del mundo’ – arsehole of the IV (which contains the popular ‘Oblivion’). world, as Argentinians lovingly call their Piazzolla won international fame with his country – his status remains that of a rebel last Quinteto Nuevo during the 80s, travelfrom the margins. His legacy might be better ling to Europe, the US and Japan. Two off for that. recordings from this decade, Zero Hour and Piazzolla’s epitaph on tango, as declared in La Camorra produced by Kip Hanrahan for Chile, was ironic. When asked about his the Nonesuch label, were among the best of own art, Piazzolla was equally self-assured, his career. stating: ‘Mi tango sí es de hoy’ (My Tango is He died in 1992 but his influence is of Today, For Sure). He was right, of course, widespread and enduring. From Grace and, for the moment, it’s also the tango of Jones’ adaptation of ‘Libertango’ for 1981’s tomorrow – because no one has even come ‘I’ve Seen That Face Before’ to numerous close to his achievements this past halfelectronic tango versions of ‘Vuelvo al Sur’ to century. Tango, if it is alive at all, is alive in a the latest Volvo advert (‘Libertango’ again), piazzoleano way. l www.songlines.co.uk
BEST ALBUMS
María de Buenos Aires (Sony, 1968) Piazzolla and Horacio Ferrer collaborated on a range of projects, but this operita (little opera) is their most complete and most satisfying lyrical venture.
Suite Troileana (Trova, 1975) Written shortly after the death of Aníbal Troilo, this pensive album, recorded with the Conjunto Electronico, is recognised by Piazzolla aficonados as a landmark in the evolution of nuevo tango. A stand-out track is the haunting ‘Soledad,’ composed for the Jeanne Moreau film Lumière. Zero Hour (Nonesuch, 1986) The best of Piazzolla’s three late albums recorded for the American label with producer Kip Hanrahan. This one features sublime versions of ‘Milonga del Angel’ and ‘Tanguedia III.’ It was a Classic Album in #16. La Camorra: The Solitude of Passionate Provocation (Nonesuch, 1989) The less famous second album of the Kip Hanrahan sessions. Subtler than Zero Hour, it contains a stirring version of ‘Soledad and the three-song ‘La Camorra’ sequence. Live at the BBC (Intuition, 1989) This fantastic live show featuring many of the classics was recorded at the Whiteladies Road studios in Bristol by Tony Staveacre. It was to be Piazzolla’s last gig with the New Tango Sextet. At the end of it, Piazzolla said: “Sometimes music can make what the diplomats never will – love between Britain and Argentina.”
If You Like Piazzolla, Then Try...
Richard Galliano
Blow Up (Dreyfus Jazz, 1996) The French accordion virtuoso is a passionate Piazzolla acolyte and this pared-down homage, in collaboration with fellow French sax and clarinet player Michel Portal, is a great introduction.
Richard Galliano’s latest 2010 release is music by Bach Songlines 53
FE STIVA L
P R O FILE
The picturesque town of Tulle in southern France plays host to a four-day, accordion fuelled fiesta each September
Y
ou may think Tulle is a meshy material beloved of ballroom dancers and ballerinas, and you’d be right. But it’s also a town in south-west France where they celebrate the accordion all year round, but especially in mid-September at the Nuits de Nacre (Pearly Nights) festival. “There’s no accident in Tulle hosting an accordion festival,” says Laurence Lamy, the festival’s long-time director. “This town is the accordion’s last bastion in France. Here we have the know-how and the heritage.” In this capital of the very rural Corrèze département, squeezed into a narrow river valley, they both make and conserve accordions, host France’s last full-scale manufacturer, Maugein, and two museum collections of accordions (Lamy’s main job is boss of the Pôle de l’Accordéon, France’s principal accordion archive). To highlight and revel in its rich squeezebox tradition, each year Tulle invites accordionists from around the world to play the four-day festival which fills the town with a unique range of moods – from joyous to melancholic, from yearning to rumbustious – that the accordion can conjure, spreading a good-time smalltown feeling of friendship and harmony. A regular at the Nuits de Nacre is the Manaswing quartet, with feisty Sonia Rekis on accordion, propelling a highly danceable mélange of musette and Gypsy jazz called swing manouche. “This is the most beautiful and biggest accordion festival in France, so I keep coming back,” Rekis enthuses, playing in the tree-shaded Place des Frères Maugein which honours the cherished local accordion makers. An instrument deeply associated with France, but which faded fast in the later decades of the 20th century, the accordion has for some years now been making a 54 Songlines
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FESTIVAL PROFILE
Les Nuits de Nacre T ulle , France Keith Mundy goes squeezebox crazy in south-west France at the annual accordion festival ph oto s K e i t h M u n dy
comeback in its natural habitat and across the world. Once the essential accompaniment at village dances and the bal musette dancehalls of working-class Paris, and in traditional environments elsewhere like Cajun hoedowns or Colombian fiestas, today the accordion is an ingredient in a wide range of musical genres. In Tulle at the Nuits de Nacre, the evidence is overwhelming. Named after the traditional mother-of-pearl decoration on accordions – this is an instrument which rivals the electric guitar in fancy shiny coatings – the festival welcomes performers from every musical niche possible, as long as one of the band instruments is an accordion. As well as a gamut of ethnic styles ranging from France’s own musette to klezmer, from Brazil’s forró to Louisiana’s zydeco, and so on, jazz, punk, pop and rock bands are there too, as is tango. Just as the music is very varied, there is a whole variety of venues and settings in which it’s performed, all very close together in the town centre, only five
or six minutes’ walk – or ten minutes’ stagger – between the furthest apart. Even better, most of them are free entry. The combination is winning. Only performances in the modest municipal theatre or the big marquee are ticketed. Otherwise, you just stroll – or squeeze – your way into a tent, bar or little square, all of them strung along the riverside or around the medieval cathedral. Only if you sit down in a café or bistro venue do you have to pay, by ordering something – pas de problème. In a big marquee between the cathedral and the river, the 2009 festival swung into action with the superb French accent of the Super Swing Musette de Paris featuring Jean-Claude Laudat. In the spotlights, as Laudat expanded and closed the instrument’s multiple folds and his fingers danced on the button keys, the pearly motifs ‘Maugein’ and ‘Tulle’ glistened and sparkled. Up the riverside at a crowded café, a duo is playing Cajun, the extended concertina like a blood-red snake, so long is the pleated August/September 2011
sound chamber. Across the river on another café terrace, a young French duo of female accordionist and male guitarist is wowing a full house with clever word-play and exuberant music-making in the chanson tradition. Its façade bathed in blue light, the little riverside theatre [pictured above] is a gem. It’s here that the big name acts or the more acoustically refined performers play, with chanson legend Juliette Greco and virtuoso jazz accordionist Richard Galliano performing in 2010. “The atmosphere is beautiful at Nuits de Nacre,” Galliano tells a TV interviewer. “I remember in 1988, there were just two concerts, one in the cathedral cloisters with Astor Piazzolla’s quintet, no less. It was just a tiny dinghy, then it became a pleasure boat, and now it’s, well, a steamship.”
In 2009 at the theatre, the Siberian Quartet – four music teachers from beyond the Urals with superb technique – skipped through Russian folk songs on accordion, balalaika and contrabass balalaika – a gigantic instrument. After each rendition, they all stood up and bowed. Such formality is not the normal Nuits de Nacre way, however. This is very much a festival of rollicking good times – ‘laissez les bons temps rouler’ as the Cajuns say – in the streets and bars rather than of hush-hush concerts. Take Les Dénicheurs (The Unearthers), three wags on a sidewalk busking 1930s numbers dug up from old 78s. Or crammed into a small bar, an intense java-rock duo called Hinkala – imagine The Clash trimmed to an electric accordion and guitar doing Piaf and Brel and you’ve got it. Though spoilt for choice, director Lamy picks out a couple of highlights for the 2011 edition. “This year’s key act is Chango Spasiuk from Argentina, a wizard of the chamamé regional style, and then there’s the exceptional harmonica player, Greg Zlap,” she says, choosing from amongst a host of
acts, giving about 90 performances in total. Three more are Place des Arts, whose latest album title, Chanson Ska Musette, tells you a lot; the dynamic quartet Imaz’Elia who blend Gypsy, Andalusian and Arab musical forms and Sergent Pépère, a brass-based sextet mixing tango, funk, samba and jazz, cheering lonely hearts and anybody else. Though a perennial success, adored by musicians, festival-goers and locals alike, Nuits de Nacre doesn’t rest on its laurels. “Every year we re-arrange things to suit the audience better,” says Lamy, an accordionist herself. “The town itself changes, and we change too. This year we’re completely reorganising the festival village around the cathedral and adding a floating stage on the river.” I could have gone away from Tulle with an instrument myself – not a Maugein accordion, but a Gypsy violin. Paulo Guta, the Romanian violinist with Divano Dromensa, a quintet who play an energycharged music that slaloms through the Slavic and Mediterranean worlds, was desperate to sell his fiddle. “I gotta go to Bucharest tonight to get a new passport. I need money. Only 300 euros for this, you can get 500 for it, easy,” he pleaded, as we put back some tasty local wine in the refreshment tent. Unluckily for him, I was just wild for his music, not his violin. If you’re no expert on the accordion world, you may go to Tulle knowing none of the performers beforehand. But be assured, you’ll end up knowing and loving a great many before you leave, perhaps personally. It’s that kind of festival – excellent vibes, easy friendships, no hassles and as fresh and crackling as your morning baguette. l DATES The 2011 Nuits de Nacre Festival runs from September 15-18 ONLINE www.nuitsdenacre.com
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A Feast of Music
Songlines Music Travel has a wide range of festival trips for 2011 on offer, including the Guča Festival in Serbia and the Jodphur RIFF Festival. See p27 or www.songlinesmusic travel.com
Bottom, from left to right: posters from previous editions of the festival; an accordionist with Les Amis de la Bourree de St Pierre; the Siberian Quartet featuring the giant balalaika and the Maugein accordion factory Songlines 55
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