Shaking out the Sheets: Dirty Linen Classics
The Nonesuch Explorer Series: Africa
by Steve Winick

The Nonesuch Explorer series is a fabled achievement in the history of world music, a seed pod from which a thick tangle of roots has grown. Anyone with an interest in the world's traditional music has grappled with at least one or two records in the series, be it Irish piping or Javanese gamelan. Commenced in 1967 by Elektra Records' subsidiary, Nonesuch, the Explorer series sent top ethnomusicologists, producers, and musicians everywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. They returned with a storehouse of musical gold, and produced series on Africa, Europe, Latin America, Indonesia, East Asia, Central Asia, the Himalayas, and India before the project folded in 1984. Nonesuch is now reissuing all 92 Explorer albums, beginning with 13 CDs of African recordings. Here, then, are brief impressions of each...

High Life and Other Popular Music features Saka Acquaye's eclectic ensemble, who presented both folk and popular styles of Ghanaian music in the 1950s. You'll hear the influence of jazz and calypso, as well as the native drumming rhythms of Ghana, in these mostly uptempo, enjoyable songs. I believe this album was recorded in a Philadelphia studio, but the notes don't mention this detail, creating the impression that these are field recordings — a small sin of omission!

On Escalay (The Water Wheel), Hazma El Din's voice, drumming, and oud interpret classical and folk melodies from Nubia, on the Sudan-Egypt border. The disc is dominated by a complex and haunting 20-minute tone poem for oud, or Arabic lute. He also interpret a popular Um Kulthum song in classical style and sings a folk song accompanied by the tar, or Nubian frame drum. It's an effective display of El Din's mastery of different styles, idioms, and instruments.

Three CDs are dedicated to Shona mbira music from Zimbabwe. The African Mbira: Music of the Shona People highlights the skillful trio of Dumisani Abraham Maraire on voice and mbira (the instrument sometimes known as a "thumb piano") with two of his students on voice and hosho (rattle). Maraire was teaching in Seattle at the time, so it was likely recorded there; the liner notes are silent on this point once again. Not so with The Soul of Mbira and Shona Mbira Music, both of which proudly proclaim "recorded in Zimbabwe by Paul Berliner." These recordings are a sampler of fine field recordings of mbira ensembles, featuring not only mbira and hosho, but some of the wildest ululating vocals you'll hear in the African series. This is mesmerizing, hypnotic music and, I think, surprisingly accessible to ordinary listeners. For the more studious, the CDs also work as a marvelous complement to Berliner's 1978 book, The Soul of Mbira.

There are 7 more recordings discussed in this column from Dirty Linen #103 (Dec. '02/Jan. '03). Read the full text in the magazine, available via subscription or on newsstands and in bookstores.