Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino is Salento, Italy's foremost traditional music group. They will perform as part of this Sunday's Global Fest at Webster Hall, NYC along with Debo Band, Yemen Blues, and many other incredible artists. CGS made their U.S. debut last year, including the following performance on WFMU's Transpacific Sound Paradise engineered by Davey Jewell and Juan Aboites. At the time, host Rob Weisberg wrote:
Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino specializes in the driving rhythms of the pizzica dance and other ancient rhythms on traditional instruments. The pizzica is the local variant of the legendary mystical spider-trance-dance, the tarantella.
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Founded in 1975 at the urging of writer Rina Durante, CGS was the first traditional revival band in Salento. Durante was a major advocate for reviving, preserving and promoting the region's traditions, culture and language. She was the catalyst for a cultural revival, with the band at the center.
Yet in all its years (and with 16 albums to its name), Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino never made it to North America. Until now. Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino is having its own revival, with leadership handed down from father Daniele Durante to son Mauro, and a new wave of younger musicians playing and singing traditional tunes and originals rooted in tradition.
It's a very rare treat to have this superb group live in studio to play and sing - in the dialects of Salentino and the rarer Grecanico - and introduce us to the deep musical, cultural and linguistic roots of the region.
-Rob Weisberg / WFMU, Oct 2011 |
Among the other Globel Fest performers are the afro-columbian group M.A.K.U. Sound System, the jaw harp master Wang Li, the Bedouin-inspired Yemen Blues, Malian rap group SMOD, and the Debo Band (FMA) -- an Ethiopiques-style ensemble who recently signed to Sub Pop and were recently featured on the FMA by LizB. For more Global Fest sounds, check out NPR Music's Global Fest Stream, curated by our own Rob Weisberg!
