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Peggy Latkovich explores the latest in the reissues of the Nonesuch Explorer Series
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Rootsworld, Peggy Latkovich explores the latest in the reissues of the Nonesuch Explorer Series >>
This installment of Nonesuch's wide-ranging Explorer Series willinevitably draw comparisons to Smithsonian Folkways 1990's series on the same area. In many ways, it will measure up. Granted, the music in the Folkways series was more recently recorded than the Nonesuch, moreaccurately reflecting what's going on in Indonesia today. It also has thebenefit of consistency, all twenty discs being the project of PhilipYampolsky and his team. The liner notes are far more in-depth andscholarly in the Folkways series, and, with almost twice as many discs inthe series, a wider variety of music is presented. The Nonesuch seriestends to be a little gamelan-heavy.
That said, there is much to value in the Nonesuch series. The re-masteringof these generally fine recordings brings some rare music into sharperfocus. The music was recorded between 1968 and 1986 and the emphasis oneach disc ranges between presenting the widest variety possible and lookingin-depth at a particular style. The disc titled "Island Music," recorded in1981 by David Fanshawe, for example, contains no fewer than twenty-eighttracks from the Cook Island, Fiji, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, the GilbertIslands, Western Samoa, and Tahiti. Whew! The result is a "if it's Tuesday,it must be Tonga" overview. Fanshawe's liner notes are sketchy at best,written in his trademark "gee-whiz" style. He's more interested in relatinghis hardships in getting the recordings than in any kind of analysis. (Getover it, David. You don't hear real ethnomusicologists complaining aboutschlepping equipment.) There is some lovely vocal music on this disc, however, both choral and solo.
A disc of Tahitian music bears the misleading title The Gauguin Years:Songs and Dances. Being as it was recorded in 1968 and many of the tracksbear the stamp of Western modernization (e.g., electrified instruments andWestern missionary influenced harmonic arrangements and accompaniments)most of it is probably not the music that Gauguin heard in Tahiti in thelate19th century. Jane Sarnoff's romantic liner notes give a brief overviewof Tahitian music and history, but no track-by-track descriptions, whichwould have been useful.
Four of the eleven discs represent the music of Bali. Golden Rain, recordedin 1966, has two fine examples of gamelan gong kebjar, a music and dancestyle that dates from the early twentieth century. Played by a twenty-fivepiece orchestra of metallophones, gongs, and flutes, it is an exuberantglittering sound. The bulk of this disc, however, is a twenty-two minuteperformance of kecak, the intricate male vocal chanting that is used toreenact the Ramayana epic. Music for the Shadow Play is just what the titlesuggests, music to accompany the all-night performance of wayang, thefamous Balinese shadow puppet plays. A forty-four minute sampling of themusic, recorded in 1969, is presented here, played by a quartet from TegesKanyinan. Robert E. Brown provides informative liner notes and atrack-by-track description of what the puppets are doing as each selectionis playing. The only bone to pick is with the dated, Eurocentric conceptthat Balinese instruments "are made slightly out of tune with one another."As the resulting beats are a desired effect, they are exactly in tune byBalinese standards. Gamelan Semar Pegulingan: Gamelan of the Love God, alsorecorded and annotated by Brown and released in 1972, is the firstcommercial recording of this delicate music. The six tracks here are fineexamples of this shimmering, transparent style that has come to epitomizeBalinese music. Again, the liner notes are excellent. Recorded in 1987,Gamelan & Kecak has a nice variety of village gamelan, parade music, andkecak. One of the most entertaining tracks is "Lau Kodok (Frog Song)," inwhich musicians blow into palm bark reeds (enggung) to imitate the croakingof frogs.
Moving on to Java, the remaining five discs demonstrate the stark contrastbetween Balinese and Javanese gamelan. Where the Balinese is full ofhigh-spirited clamor, the Javanese has a softer, more meditative sound. TheJasmine Isle: Gamelan Music, recorded in 1969 has ten short examples ofgamelan and solo gender and gambang music. The minimal liner notes don'ttell us much about the music, but the pictures and descriptions of theinstruments are informative. The three volumes of court gamelan music,recorded between 1971 and 1979 give a generous sampling of this austere,majestic style. The clear re-mastering brings out a good balance betweenthe voices and instruments.
Sundanese Jaipong and Other Popular Music, originally released in 1987 asTonggeret is an album of West Javanese popular music by vocalist IdjahHadidjah. Hadidjah sings in a soaring, improvisatory style with crispornamentation. She is backed by traditional instruments and sings in threegenres of Sundanese music - Jaipongan, Kliningan, and Celempungan, each ofwhich has its own instrumentation. The distinctions between the three andthe structure of the music are outlined in the notes.
The producers of this series are to be commended for bringing this musicback into the fore. It is a collection that is too important to languishunre-mastered. It may lack the depth and variety of the Smithsonian series,but it restores some valuable timepieces in Indonesian and South Pacificmusic. - Peggy Latkovich 06/05/03
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