KVT enjoys another Tri Minh interlude Occasionally I get invitations that make my imagination run riot with anticipation, even when the drear thought of venturing out on a freezing night with drizzling mua xuan enclosing street lights in surrealistic orbs makes me want to stay in with a good book, a deep ruby Spanish wine, a thick fluffy blanket and soft, sensuous music in the background. One such was from musician/composer Tri Minh…about whom I usually, unabashedly prefix the term: one of my favourite musicians…to attend a musical event at his home….and whose sensuous ambient music I may have chosen to perfume the background had I stayed home and curled up in the ambient glow of an electric heater.

Tri Minh has been an important fixture around the Hanoi music scene for a couple of decades. In 1994 he was into the Jazz scene and in 1996 morphed into Fusion and by 2002, when I got to hear his name, was a major pioneer of Vietnamese electronic music and he was in the process of gaining a healthy international reputation. A few of my opinion bits about Tri Minh and his talented friends are here: http://hanoigrapevine.com/2013/06/kvt-tri-minh-magic-at-manzi/ http://hanoigrapevine.com/2013/01/kvt-a-super-event/ http://hanoigrapevine.com/2012/12/kvt-hanoi-early-morning/ http://hanoigrapevine.com/2012/04/kvt-sound-stuff-under-the-big-top/ http://hanoigrapevine.com/2010/04/kvt-soundscaping-hanoi/ Tri Minh had invited us to listen to his collaboration with the sounds of Ca Tru…a chamber music that in its present guise has been around since the 15th century, and has been listed by UNESCO as one of the 12 intangible global cultural heritage traditions in danger of disappearing. With the likelihood of extinction in mind, Tri Minh has made it a personal mission to introduce the art form to a wider public so that new generations of musicians may be enthused to keep the music alive, both in its traditional format and as a genre that will set modern ears alight. Not that traditional Ca Tru doesn’t set modern ears alight! In the intimate setting at Tri Minh’s apartment it certainly did. Peoples’ Artist Nguyen Xuan Hoach plucked the silk strings of his Dan Day, the long necked lute. He kept time to the beat of the phach, a bamboo percussion instrument beaten with two sticks by Pho Ha My as she sat stately and erect singing her poetic ballads. By her side the official spectator, Dam Quang Minh, struck on a drum to show his approval of her performance. If he liked the song he hit the side of his trong chau several times, and if disappointed, hit the top twice….as seen here in rehearsal:

Had the audience been solely male, we could have imagined ourselves transported back in time to a 17th century inn in Kham Thien Street, near Dong Xuan Market, or Hang Gai, where socially elite males were entertained and where they gave tally cards to the singers to show their appreciation. The cards were exchanged for money. If my research is accurate, in Sino Vietnamese the word ca meant song and tru meant card. Hence the name given to the art form……though its roots went back to the royal courts where musicians played a variety at Ly Dynasty religious court ceremonies (1010-1225). From thence it went on to be royal chamber music and expanded to the homes of the nobility and to the inns previously described. I found it hard to get hold of an unexpurgated history of Ca Tru music and its predecessors but I’m pretty sure that some torrid historical romantic fiction could be written about the sexual intrigues and affairs that occurred between the top of the range singers and the influential courtiers and mandarins of various dynasties, and, too, the liaisons between lesser talented performers and the males that frequented the noble perimeters in inns of lesser repute. Top Ca Tru singers were considered to be outside the caste system and so could manoeuvre within the labyrinths that demarcated social levels and I dare say some played equivalent roles to famous European courtesans who used their talents and their wiles to gain wealth and position…..for like those courtesans, I guess they were easily tossed aside when their looks or various talents faded. With the coming of the French the reputation of the art form took a headlong nose dive when, apparently, the middle class locals who collaborated with the French took to the inns with a vengeance in their quest for social status. Ca Tru’s reputation for being an entertainment for the noble and/or highly educated bit the proverbial dust and it got a bit of a tawdry geisha tea house name allied to prostitution amongst ordinary Vietnamese. After 1945 and the August Revolution rolled along Ca Tru was officially suppressed because it was seen as representing the abuse of women for the entertainment of ruling class men and, I surmise, for being far too bourgeoisie. Thus it declined towards oblivion. Luckily the songs and poems were kept alive in the minds of Ca Tru singers and passed down to their female descendants. Thus the art form as a musical genre was able to be re-created when, in the 80ies and 90ies, culture and music devotees like Dam Quang Minh were determined to see a revival of Ca Tru music. This was the case of famous and revered Ca Tru vocalist, Pho Thi Kim Duc, seen below, who in turn coached her granddaughter (our singer) for five years

A Ca Tru club founded in those years kept the spirit of the art alive and its sounds and poetry became available to ordinary people and gained in popularity thanks to radio and TV performances and it’s featuring in popular movies. This brings me back to Tri Minh’s lounge room. After the traditional session Tri Minh took to his electronic apparatus and his long-time collaborator, Huy, set up his percussion bits and pieces and we were given an electric sample of compositions that have arisen out of jam sessions that the four instrumentalists have had for a few months as they’ve experimented with arrangement before launching the results into the public arena….

At this stage Tri Minh introduced his neighbours from attached apartments so that they could also enjoy some end results of noise they’d heard filtering through walls and ceilings. The total audience reaction: BRAVO! As any fan will know, it’s not the first time Tri Minh and Huy have collaborated with players of traditional instruments. A long term colleague, who has travelled to Europe with the group to exhibit their sounds and wares, is Van Mai who plays the 19 string zither, the Dan Tranh.

The trio gave a sample of their latest compositions of ambient music which they’ve call Meditation. It’s the type of bluesy, jazzy, electronic music that allows your head some cool, relaxed, breathing space. It’s the type of music I wish that a few more café and restaurant proprietors would play to let me really relax with or to converse with friends over.. Stuff that allows the overburdened world a chance to sigh. Music with an intelligent edge.….an intellectual quotient. No one was sated and we demanded more and the Ca Tru ensemble encored a traditional set that made you realize that, yes, you can tap your fingers and even imagine bodies moving in rhythm to its changing beats. Percussionist Huy’s hands were itching to join in and you could imagine Tri Minh’s fingers idling towards his electronic keyboard to improvise another jam session. An invigorating night’s music ending with Tri Minh and Huy reminding us that just outside, down a few stories, the Hanoi streets were more than often more than a mess. A variation of their scintillating composition ‘Hanoi What a Mess’ made the walls vibrate…which is why you realize Tri minh has to be on good terms with his neighbors. Here’s another variation played at a Tri Minh solo recital at Manzi last year: For more Tri Minh plus friends magic, here’s a You Tube link that I’m a viewer of that showcases their talents from both a Vietnamese and International perspective. If you want to experience Tri Minh sounds live this year then I guess the best place to be connected to is this Grapevine site which is invariably a strong supporter and sponsor of his musical magic I should confess that I’m a great admirer of people who take accepted norms and forms of art and culture and transform them, while still gratefully acknowledging the roots they borrow, twist and metamorphosize from. Quick examples of people who exemplify that trend of pushing traditional boundaries while honouring histories, and who are not self serving pimps, spring to mind. Vietnamese traditional music and instruments are featured outstandingly in the contemporary work of composers such as Tri Minh and friends, in the international Cracking Bamboo music series sponsored by the Goethe Institute, and sometimes musicians in the annual Hanoi Sound Stuff Festival, and in the challenging compositions of Vu Nhat Tan. Visual artist Phi Phi Oanh has shown us that traditional lacquer can be pushed and pulled and layered to incredible limits. Canadian maestro Robert Le Page worked with Vietnamese water puppet artists to make modern opera that made your eyes widen and your senses soar. The silk paintings of Nguyen The Son……….the list goes on…….!