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Newsday, Feature >>
2007? That was so last year!
For anyone looking forward to the year just beginning to unfold, one wayto look into the musical crystal ball is go to shows next week taking place in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP). The APAP members book shows for venues across America and after a day of meetings and workshops, they act like audience members themselves and see performances of everything from theater to jazz. In world music, the big show is Globalfest, which this year is composed of 12 up-and-comersperforming at Webster Hall in lower Manhattan on Sunday, Jan. 13th (For info: 866-448-7849). Performing 45-minute sets on three stages simultaneously, the artists range from raucous to more intimate, though the emphasis is more on innovative fusion rather than pure traditional.
As usual, many of these performers have had limited or no exposure to
U.S. audiences. The goal is to give the bookers a peek at what these
performers can do in front of an audience. Many will generate enough
interest that they can cobble together U.S. tours in venues outside the
biggest cities.
On the rowdy end of the Globalfest spectrum is the New York City-based group Pistolera, which combines rock’s exuberance with the rustic sound of Mexican regional music. The group has a rock band’s drum kit and electric guitar, but the sound is boldly colored by a norteño-style accordion.
Pistolera furthers breaks stereotypes in that three of its four members
are women, despite its use of gun-slinging imagery. The music is feisty
enough, but their first single took aim at the anti-immigration forces in
the U.S. and even their love songs are a bit rough and tumble.
The Hungarian group Little Cow also performs a rocked up show, but its songs are tinged with the sounds of Gypsy and other music from Eastern Europe. The group’s sound is thoroughly modern, though, powered by pop, ska or reggae rhythms.
The quieter acts, usually performed in smaller rooms, include
Argentina’s Chango Spasiuk, who has broken new ground for the rural, accordion-based music called chamamé. Not unlike what Astor Piazzolla did for tango, Spasiuk and his telepathic band elevate what was a simple dance music into something exquisite that can evoke jazz or classical while preserving its country charms.
Globalfest will also include the six-year-old Crooked Still, a
“newgrass” band, bringing new sounds to bluegrass. Along with the typical banjo, fiddle and some beautifully heart-breaking vocals from AoifeO’Donovan, the band includes a cellist, bassist and innovative, lovely arrangements.
There are several other mini-festivals to attract the visiting
presenters. The Park Slope club Barbés is showcasing several performers (718-288-1761). On Jan. 14th, Las Rubias Del Norte will perform its singular take on various Latin styles with classically trained singers. As it does every Tuesday night, the club will feature Slavic Soul Party, a large band that rocks the tiny club with Balkan and New Orleans brass sounds.
A new world-music club, Drom in the East Village (212-777-1157), has several performers on the 11th, including Slavic Soul Party and San Francisco’s Rupa and the April Fishes. Rupa is singer-songwriter Rupa Marya – an Indian-American raised in the Bay Area, India and France who is now a doctor of internal medicine in San Francisco. The band’s polyglot music on Extraordinary Rendition is most heavily influenced by the French gypsy swing that has been revisited in recent years.
The Mondo Mundo Agency is presenting four of its New York-based world artists on January 12th at the Hiro Ballroom on West 16th Street (212-242-4300). Jose Conde Y Ola Fresca play an affable mix of Latin and funk, and Burkina Electric is an electronica band hailing from Burkina Faso,swirling together African polyrhythms in a swinging soundscape of synthesized sounds.
Here’s hoping that these artists – and you – have had a 2007 that couldnot have been topped, but you do so anyway in 2008.
By: Marty Lipp 01/06/08 >> go there
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