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From Humble Roots, a Staple Genre Grows
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Chicago Tribune, From Humble Roots, a Staple Genre Grows >>
Most music revolutions begin with a bang. From Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps" to John Coltrane's "Giant Steps" to the Beatles' "Sgt Pepper's Loneyl Hearts Club Band," there's usually a blitz of hoopla and headlines surrounding recordings and performances that fundamentally alter perceptions of the music.
But in 1967, when Elektra Records subsidary Nonesuch released the debut LP in its new "Explorer Series" titled "Music from the Morning of the World: Balinese Gamelan," it generated comparative murmure of recognition. However, that recording and the subsequent 91 Explorer Series albums (which documented music from Asia, Africa, Latin America, India and elsewhere) issued between gates for the music-marketing phenomenon now know as "world music."
Today, what is broadly known as "world music" has become a staple genre in record stores of all sizes, in film soundtracks, at nightclubs and in the record collections of many music fans. So its' fitting that Nonesuch recently recommitted to is Explorer Series by launching - between now and early 2005 - a reissue of all 92 recordings on CD, with the possiblity of new titles being added to the series.
It's also fitting that two of the pioneers who recorded and produced many of the early Explorer Series records, Robert E. Brown and David Lewiston, are still here to witness the fruits of their labor.
Although recordings of "international" and ethnic music were in circutlation through out much of the 20th century, those records were often hard to find, or varying quality sometimes carelessly packaged. The Nonesuch Explorer Series marked the first time a U.S. label had dedicated itself to issuing LPs of the world's great non-Western musical traditions in well-recorded full performances accompanied by authoritative notes and handsome packaging.
"The Nonesuch Explorer Series stands as a pivotal moment in this country's overall knowledge of and interest in music 'from over there,' says Michael Orlove, a program directer for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. "That series was one of the original innovator is the world music movement in the United States."
What set the Explorer Series recordings apart when they began appearing in the late 1960s was the care and consideration Nonesuch put into presenting music that often had been treated as a form of exotica.
"The Explorer Series recordings were signal events," says Davod Roche, an executive director at the Old Town School of Folk Music. "For a private American company to put substantial energy into world music was a real sign of cultural sophistication.
"What was especially striking about the records at that time was the quality of the recordings, the quality of documentation and the depth of knowledge behind the documentation. Many of those recordings are still considered classics of the genre."
That commitment to quality was attributable to the high standards of the series' visionary coordinator Teresa Sterne, who died in 2000, and to the work of intrepid sonic adventurers who happily dragged cumbersome recording equipment to far corners of the world.
Two key figures in the Explorer Series' seminal, early recordings of Indonesian music were Lewiston and Brown. Although both men shared a passion for and knowledge of Javanese and Balinese gamelan music (gamelans are 20 to 25 person orchestras of tuned and non-tuned percussion instruments renowned for thier soothing, slivery, ringing sound), the two men had fundamentally different attitudes about their work.
London born Lewiston is a free spirit who hates the term "ethnomusicologist" because it smacks of pretension and prefers to refer to himself as a "muscial tourist." Now 73 and living on Maui, Lewiston still believes that the propper motivation for seeking out and recording new sounds should simply be to "hear incredible music, hang out and have a good time."
Brown, on the hand, holds a doctorate in ethnomusicology and has been associated for much of his career with academic institutions, where he has advocated mixing scholarship with travel, study and performance. Brown co-founded Wesleyan University's renowned World Music Program in 1962, and it was while at Middletown, Conn., school that he is credited with coining the term "world music."
"We were developing a graduate program for the study of non-Western music, and we needed a name for it," recalls Brown. "I thought of calling it a world music program, which was kind of a brazen thing to name a fledgling program a a small New England college. But it caught on.
Brown, 75 is president of the Center for World Music in San Diego and is widely viewed as a major figure in the study of Indonesian and South Indian music.
Throughout the late '60s and '70s, Brown and Lewiston traveled to Java and Bali numerous times to document he island's musical traditions, and Lewiston documented a wide variety of Balinese gamelan and other instrumental/voice traditions, including the now famous "kecak" or monkey chant.
"In 1996, there were few good albums for world music, particularly music from Indonesia," recalls Lewiston. "And what recordings were there represented music in a cursory way, as a kind of interesting cursory rather than a truly beautiful musical experience.
The first albums that resulted from Brown's and Lewston's field recordings took an entirely different approach. Carefully recorded and attractively packaged, records such as "Music from the morning of the world" (1976), "The Jasmine Isle: Gamelan Music" (1969) and "Music for the Shadow Play" (1970) planted the seeds of what would become a widespread intrest in gamelan music in the United States. (The reissues of these recordings are now appearing in record stores.)
"Jananese gamelan music in one of the most popular genres of world music performed at U.S. universities," says Carolyn Johnson, the corporate president of the Chicago-based Friends of the Gamelan Inc., a non-profit performance/education group loosely affiliated with the University of Chicago. "Bob Brown was prominent in the first wave of individuals who popularized this music at U.S. colleges."
One of the ironies of Brown's work in promoting world music is that while it encouraged Western music fans to explore other musical traditions, it coincidentally contributed to global tourism and the unavoidable spread of Western cultural influences in once idyllac regions. While some have decried the impact of Western culture on ancient traditions elsewhere, neither Brown nor Lewiston are particularly dismayed by its impact on Java or Bali.
"When I returned to Bali after an extended absence in 1986, I found that while the island was packed with tourists, the music and the dance were as wonderful as ever," says Lewiston. "Interestingly, since some tourists go there specifically to see and hear these classic tradtions, their presence provides an incentive to keep them alive, and their money kkeps them in good repair."
Robert Brown agrees, "I've just returned from that region, and what's happening there is very interesting," he says. "While some gamelan groups and shadow play dalangs (puppeteers) are experimenting with new compostions and contemporary themes, such as postraumatic stress disorder, othe still adhere to the traditional styles.
"The people of Balii are very adaptable and creative. The take what they want from Western culture while sitll hanging on to their traditional values.
According to Brown, the most immediate threat to Balinese culture isn't Western influences; it's the disappearance of toursit in the wake of the Bali terrosit nightclub bombing on Oct. 12 2002 that killed 190 people. Brown also believes that Western media portrayals of anti-American attitudes in Indonesia have overstated the problem and added to the dearth of tourists.
"Indonesian culture has been and continues to be a wonderful culture to live in, and the anti Western sentiment in Java is comign from a relatively small but vocal group of people," says Brown. "But the idea of a war with Iraq is not going over very well there, so it remains to be seen whether that attitude will spread if war takes place."
There's no question that the increasingly widepsread appreciation of the world's musical and cultural traditions as contributed to a greater understanding between cultures. In that regard, the phenomenal growth of world music since the late '60s suggests that there are long term reasons for hope despite all the current political acrimony.
"For a lot of young people, 'world music' refers simply to Afro-Pop of Bulgarian vocal music," says Brown. "but when I began using the term, I saw it as a way of looking at all music from global perspective. Hopefully, more people will eventually start thinking about the whole range of human music - from Balinese gamelan to classical symphonies - as the shared haritage of the whole human race."
If that comes to pass, it would mark a major shift in popular perspectives on music, and it would stand as a significant legacy for which the Nonesuch Explorer Series could justifiably claim more than a little credit. - Rick Reger 03/16/03
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