NONESUCH EXPLORER SERIES (Elektra 14 CDs)

When the Elektra record label began to have successes on folk singers in the late 60s, they branched out, licensing music from Europe. Former child prodigy on classical piano, Teresa Sterne, came aboard as coordinator of a new label to explore folk music of the world. A big breakthrough at the time was the reduction in size of recording equipment so musicologists could go out into the field with portable tape recorders that only weighed 70 pounds as compared to the 200 pound record-cutting machines that were previously required. When David Lewiston returned from Bali with the incredible “Music from the Morning of the World” tapes, the new label was born. Many of us who grew up in the late sixties and were curious about different kinds of music, fell in love with the Nonesuch Explorer records and their hokey covers. I went on to seriously collect OCORA and Musique du Monde, two French labels that also explored world music, and the Barenreiter-Musicaphon series issued in Germany, that gave you the cream of the crop. But Nonesuch was my inauguration into world music.

          Now Nonesuch is beginning the reissue of all 92 recordings on budget-priced CD, starting with the thirteen volumes of African music. In January 2003 the ten classic Indonesian albums from Bali and Java will be reissued. There will also be a sampler of the African albums to whet your appetite (coming September 24), and slick new packaging with sharp black and white photography.

Originally released between 1969 and 1983 some of the 13 African albums have become classics. “Escalay the Water Wheel,” oud recordings of Nubian Hamza El Din, has been previously reissued on CD. Dumi Maraire’s “The African Mbira” is another of the eternally great recordings from the series. “Drum, Chant and Instrumental Music” was recorded in Niger, Mali and Upper Volta in 1976 and was my introduction to this wonderful, trance-inducing music. David Fanshawe’s “Witchcraft and Ritual Music,” recorded in Kenya and Tanzania, caught the echoes of a culture now all-but extinct. Neighbouring Burundi too was decimated, to the sound of those royal drums that were sampled in some less-than-memorable eighties pop. Still, it’s one of my favourites. The original liner notes have been retained and include remarks like this, for a classic cut, “Take me back to Mabayi,” on the “Burundi” album: “An amiable old man from Gahabura sings, accompanying himself on the inanga. He dreams of returning to the places of his happy youth. ‘Take me back to Mabayi, where there are plenty of women.’ Pieces like this are usually sung in the moonlight, and many musicians have been annoyed when asked to perform by day in order to allow their songs to be taped.” The 8-stringed zither on which the old geezer accompanies himself has a really funky tone to it and he adds mouth percussion between stanzas. I’ve played this in a set with James Brown and it works!

          One oddity in the series is the “Animals of Africa,” recordings of animal sounds which will mean a lot more to you if you’ve been to Africa. I used to use it as ambient background noise between sets when I was back-announcing. The new liner notes tell us that since this recording it has been established that Vervets have a vocabulary and actual words for “eagle” and “leopard,” so man is not alone in communicating linguistically!