Ken Hunt july-dec.99

The Portuguese composer Emmanuel Nunes and the Azerbaijani classical vocalist Alim Qasimov collected the International Music Council-UNESCO âMusic PrizeÔ in Aachen on 19 November 1999. The award ceremony took place in the crowning room of AachenÔs town hall. (Historically Aachen was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and even before that had derived its name from the pre-blond band, Frankish word ahÔha meaning âwaterÔ.) The Azerbaijani vocalist sang with his trio of accompanists and his vocalist daughter Ferghana on the Friday but the whole event overwhelmed him somewhat. The next day he recorded a piece for the pilot transmission for a new world music series for German television in AachenÔs cathedral. If there is any justice the series will be a huge success. You may be asking who this fellow is. Alim Qasimov is the most mesmerising musical discovery to cross my path for ten years. He sings the regionÔs art musicÑa music which crosses local regional boundaries with aplombÑknown as mugham. In Aachen he demonstrated that still more effectively in âthe spaceÔ at the Forum fŸr internationale Kunst with a simply exceptional recital. His second album for the Frankfurt am Main-based Network label, LoveÔs Deep Ocean (Network 34.411) departs from his previous repertoire of predominantly classical mugham pieces (although, for example, there is a sprinkle of ashiq or bardic songs on VDE-GalloÔs Azerbaijani anthology to which he contributed). On it he sings ghazal, ashiq and folksongs and, as is happening regularly in his recitals, there are instrumental interludes. The interplay between Malik Mansurov on tar (a long-necked lute) and Rauf Islamov on kemancheh (spike fiddle) has long since left simple âaccompanimentÔ behind. On LoveÔs Deep Ocean this core trio, that is, with Qasimov playing daff (a frame drum), is augmented by balaban (the duduk of Armenia), flute, clarinet and drums. Apparently, this has caused some consternation in Azerbaijan where the tar-kemancheh-daff accompaniment behind the khanande (vocalist) is considered nigh sacrosanct. If you make one world music discovery in 2000 make it Alim Qasimov.

The news that the Nimbus label is bailing out of the world music business following letting Robin Broadbank goÑhe acted as the main producer for NimbusÔs world music outputÑhas become common knowledge. That the label failed to manage the news, allowing it instead to trickle out through the labelÔs artists and through rumour, proved nothing less than a public relations disaster. It was especially disappointing given the acclaim accorded NimbusÔs four-CD Raga Guide set. Broadbank, according to the label, will still oversee the handful of outstanding projects with which he was involved. The first of theseÑthe last of his tenure, as it wereÑis âMinÔ-yo, an anthology of Japanese folk music recorded in Britain in 1998. Takahashi Yujiro leads his band of professional folk musicians on this recording, which musically combines vocal and instrumental music. The instrumental content comprises shamisen (a 3-stringed, banjo-like lute), shinobue (horizontally blown flute), shakuhachi (vertical bamboo flute) and various percussion instruments.

Sony Music is set to release the next Youssou NÔDour album to be called Joko in the early year. For some inexplicable reason accountable only by rank commercialism the Senegalese maestro has chosen to team up with the likes of Peter Gabriel, Wyclef Jean (Fugees) and Sting on this album. Joko apparently has nothing to do with the word âjokeÔ: instead it apparently means ãthe link which leads to something positive and unknownÒ. Call me a cunning old linguist but that sounds like an awful lot of imprecision or flannel packed into one tiny word. Fortunately, Youssou NÔDour continues to make non-multinational albums for the Senegalese home market. On another Senegalese note, the septuagenarian drummer Doudou Ndayie Rose has provided the rhythms for a sequence of computer animation at the âbody zoneÔ part of the Millennium Dome in London. Fittingly for a man who claims to have fathered 38 children, his drumming accompanies animated human sperm fertilising an egg.

As titles go, Les BarkerÔs Tubular Dogs far eclipses anything that Joko might summon to mind. BarkerÔs turn-of-the-century cohorts include Bill Caddick, Martin Carthy, Lesley Davies, June Tabor, Cyril Tawney, Norma Waterson and Alison Younger. Describing BarkerÔs music is never easy. His work stalks a very thin line between good and bad taste and its humour is very English. Nevertheless his parodies are often better than the originalsÑand definitely far funnier especially for dog-lovers. Any resemblance to Mike OldfieldÔs Bells is purely intentional.

Lata Mangeshkar, apart from having had a perfume named after her (the unconfirmed name is the uninspired âLata Eau De ParfumÔ), has contrived to keep a trickle of soundtrack work coming through in case anyone in the Indian subcontinent should forget her name. Among the new film soundtracks to which she has contributed are Censor and Pukaar (in which she also plays a cameo role).

The EMI Hemisphere-signed, Malagasy group Njara started work on their second studio album for the label in November. If everything goes according to plan the albumÔs probable release date will be in the late spring of 2000.

Long overdue, overdue by around a decade that means, the debut album by John TamsÑwith him hiding behind the name of the John Tams BandÑis set for release in early 2000 as the first release for the worldÔs oldest independent record company for the new century. The albumÔs working title is Unity. John Tams formerly fronted the Albion Band and the Home Service. The record company, for those of such tendencies is the London-based Topic label.

In an interesting departure the British-based singer Najma Akhtar went on UK tour during November and December singing in Genesis, a play described as weaving stories ãcollected from East African Asians living in BritainÒ. Najma, last seen before a general, non-Indian public singing with Plant & Page, has yet to produce an album to match the innovation of her early Triple Earth albums, but she continues to work in areas where other angels fear to tread.

The South Indian classical violinist L. Subramaniam and the playback singer Kavita Krishnamurthy wed on 11 November 1999 in Bangalore in India. Another relationship still at the courtship stage is that of the English composer of far too many musicals Andrew Lloyd-Webber and the tabla player Talvin Singh. If rumours are true they have begun work on a musical with the working title of Bombay Dreams and will have Shekhar Kapur as director.

The 22 November 1999 issue of India Today ran a priceless insight into the artistry of Kishori Amonkar, the Hindustani classical vocalist. She had declined the Kalidas Samman awardÑcomplete with one lakh (100,000) rupees, a tidy sum in IndiaÑfrom the government of Madhya Pradesh. A rather simpering remark that she gets her biggest reward from her listeners was capped by the quote: ãI fail to see the logic of the award coming my way after so many indifferent names have got it before me.Ò

Sheila Chandra has recorded two limited edition extended play albumsÑEEPs in the parlance of the labelÑwith the Ganges Orchestra. Produced by Steve Coe, the two EEPs are released on Chandra and CoeÔs Indipop label. For further information contact Indipop, PO Box 369, Glastonbury, Somerset, BA6 8YN, England. Tell them where you heard about this.

Real World has announced its initial release programme for 2000. The first album due in February will consist of a collaboration between the Tibetan Buddhist monk Lama Gyurme and the French keyboardist Jean-Philippe Rykiel to be called Rain of Blessings. That month a various artists retrospective of vocal music drawn from the Real World archives with the catchily title of Voices of the Real World is also due. And for March there is a project conceived as âMusic written for and inspired by the film I Could Read The Sky from Afro-Celt Sound SystemÔs Iarla î Lion‡irdÔs with contributions from Dennis Cahill, Martin Hayes, Noel Hill and SinŽad OÔConnor among others.

The Kronos Quartet is probably the string quartet most responsible for turning people on to the possibilities and worlds of western classical music. The way they have bridged the divide and introduced people to a new world of classical music is little less than miraculous. Therefore it is with great pleasure and with absolute bias that we can tip that the upcoming Kronos Quartet is destined to be one of the most marvellous albums of 2000. This is, of course, the âroyal weÔ, for, although their album provisionally titled Gallop of a Thousand Horses fuses traditions in a way that a music dissident can only applaud, only their âsleeve note writerÔ can champion with surety. May looks like the likely release date. Further information will followÉ