The Reader’s Guide to WORLDMUSIC FESTIVAL CHICAGO 2005

The Reader’s Guide to

WORLD MUSICFESTIVAL

CHICAGO 2005

Sidi Goma

28 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 16, 2005 | SECTION THREE

friday1611 AM, CLAUDIA CASSIDYTHEATER

Lura

RIf you’ve only heard one piece ofmusic from the Cape VerdeIslands, a former Portuguese

colony off the west coast of Africa, chancesare it was morna sung by Cesaria Evora,the undisputed master of that beautiful,sorrowful song form. Similar to Portuguesefado, it’s the dominant style on SaoVicente, Evora’s island, but hardly the onlyone from Cape Verde: much of the musicon Lura’s third release, Di korpu ku alma(Escondida), is a more upbeat, African-derived style called batuku, developed onthe island of Santiago, where her fatherwas raised. (Lura herself was born in theCape Verdean immigrant community inLisbon.) The album is slick and brightrather than rustic, with thoroughly con-temporary arrangements, but the uniquerhythms—from the batuku, a galloping clopthat was once beaten out by women on

folded stacks of clothing, to the funana,traditionally driven by the seductive rhyth-mic scraping of knives—still provide abroad window on the traditional music ofCape Verde. And Lura’s voice would beenough to hold my attention all by itself:on the brisk “Vazulina,” about a young girldigging through rubble for coins so she canafford to get her hair straightened, she jug-gles tricky phrases with the precision andgrace of a veteran jazz singer, and on thealbum’s token morna, “Tem um hora patude,” creates a deep melancholy thatalmost rivals Evora’s.

Trio Joubran

RSamir Joubran, a Palestinian oudmaster born and raised inNazareth, Israel, says his group was

inspired by the popular guitar trio of AlDiMeola, Paco de Lucia, and JohnMcLaughlin, which blended jazz, rock, andflamenco with daring improvisatory flair.Trio Joubran plays within the Arabic classicaltradition but breaks some of its rules at thesame time—most notably the conventionthat only one musician improvise at a time.Arabic improvisation, called taqsim, usuallyworks a bit like the soloing in a hard-boptune: the ensemble states the theme togeth-er, then accompanies a series of players asthey take turns stepping up. But Joubranand his younger brothers Adnan andWissam—the latter of whom has followedfamily tradition to become a luthier, andbuilt the instruments they play—all cut looseat once on their new Randana (Randana).Both their originals and their renditions ofclassic songs combine the sorrowful beauty,stately grace, and splendid microtonal detailof traditional Arabic music with unexpectedturns, crisp dynamic shifts, and charged,spontaneous interplay. Instead of turning topopular music to stretch out, the way somany other Arabic musicians have, thisgroup is sticking with the tradition andexpanding it from the inside.

12:15 PM, RANDOLPH CAFE

Celso Fonseca

RFor two decades singer and gui-tarist Celso Fonseca has been aubiquitous behind-the-scenes

presence in Brazil: he’s produced albumsby Virginia Rodrigues, Gilberto Gil, andDaude, among others, and the likes ofCaetano Veloso, Gal Costa, and CarlinhosBrown have covered his tunes. Though he’salso been making his own records for mostof that time, his performing career onlybegan to take off a few years ago. Fonsecais a devotee of bossa nova in its purestform, but he’s hardly a revivalist: inspiredby guitarist Baden Powell, who opened upthe genre’s already liberal sense of harmo-ny even further, he pushes the music gen-tly into novel territory. On “Perdi,” fromthe recent Rive Gauche Rio(Ziriguiboom/Six Degrees), he sneaks in slyaccents plucked from a whimsical mix ofsampled sounds—some indistinguishablefrom conventional percussion, some morelike whispering birds—and on a cover of theDamien Rice mopefest “Delicate” he livensthings up with lighter-than-air vocals and

Ramiro Musotto’s pulsing hand percussion.Still, the essence of Fonseca’s music is theelegant interplay between feather-strokesinging and deeply rhythmic guitar play-ing—the same combination that made JoaoGilberto sound so revolutionary in the late50s. This is Fonseca’s solo debut inChicago, and he’ll play unaccompanied.

12:30 PM, CLAUDIA CASSIDYTHEATER

Celso Piña

RThis accordionist from the slumsof Monterrey, Mexico, became astar in the late 80s playing

cumbia—a regional style imported fromColombia that, much like norteño, banda,and ranchera, remains popular with theworking class—but lately he’s become anunlikely icon to some of his country’s mostforward-looking rock bands. A few yearsago he started working with ControlMachete DJ Toy Hernandez, who’d devel-oped an obsession with the sort of old-school cumbia he played, and in 2001Hernandez produced the single that madehim an overnight sensation: “Cumbia sobreel Rio,” like many tracks Piña has cut since,turns the loping feel of cumbia into a big,galloping beat and adds dubby vocal inter-jections, rapped lyrics, and throbbing, see-sawing bass. The album it was drawn from,Barrio Bravo (Warner Music Latina), fea-tures contributions from an all-star rosterof adventurous Mexican bands—ControlMachete, El Gran Silencio, Cafe Tacuba,King Chango’s Blanquito Man—as well as acumbia-inflected Spanish-language coverof the Gilberto Gil favorite “So quero umxodo.” Piña’s latest release, El canto de unrebelde para un rebelde (EMIInternational), dispenses with the gueststars, but he’s still nonchalantly incorporat-ing more of the offshoots and fusions ofcumbia, including cumbia batacuda andvallenato reggae. The album’s loaded with

Cuban revolutionary imagery—Piña wears aChe Guevara-style beret on the cover andrefers to himself as “El Rebelde delAcordeon”—but given that he still lives theway he did before his success, in the samemodest house in the roughest part of town,I’m not inclined to criticize him for his con-flation of musical iconoclasm and politicalrevolt.

Lila Downs The daughter of a Mixtec Indian motherfrom Mexico and an Anglo father fromMinnesota, singer Lila Downs named herlatest album Una sangre (Narada) in partto remind us that all Americans are ofmixed blood. She explores traditionalmusic from both sides of the Rio Grande,paying special attention to the folklore ofher native Oaxaca, but unfortunately Unasangre is burdened with overstuffedarrangements and awkward stylistic colli-sions—unwelcome distractions from hervoice, with its stunning range and throatysoulfulness.

6 PM, BORDERS ON NORTH

Juan-CarlosFormell

RJuan-Carlos Formell clearly wantsto earn his reputation, not inheritit: the press materials for his new

solo album, Cemeteries & Desire (Narada),say only that his father is the “leader of apopular dance band in Cuba.” (That’d bethe influential Los Van Van, which laid thefoundation for contemporary timba music.)Formell was raised by his paternal grand-mother and taught himself to play guitar,but aside from the Spanish-language lyricshis songs have no real connection to Cubandance music. Instead he’s squarely in thesinger-songwriter tradition, writing mod-ern boleros and updated trovas, the equiv-alent of country music in his homeland; hisdelicate vocals and nimble guitar playingalso suggest bossa nova, with its complexaccent patterns and unusual harmonies.

6 PM, BORDERS ON MICHIGAN

Amadou &Mariam

RAmadou Bagayoko and MariamDoumbia, a blind couple from Maliwho’ve been married for nearly 30

years and making music together for mostof them, have long fused the region’s tradi-tional music with American blues and soul.Bagayoko was blinded by cataracts at age15, but not before a long stint playing gui-tar in Les Ambassadeurs du Motel deBamako, one of the country’s greatestmodern bands and also home to Salif Keitaand Kante Manfila during its long history.That experience seems to have primed himto find pathways to many other styles, andon his three previous albums with Doumbiathey’ve pulled off daring fusions—like funk-ing up the circular Malian blues popular-ized by Ali Farka Toure with an arsenal ofinstruments from around the world, includ-ing horns, tabla, violin, the sweet-voicedPortuguese cavaquinho, and the Arabiczither called the kanun—but their currentrecord, Dimanche a Bamako (Nonesuch),tops them all. It’s not only their mostcoherent and confident effort (and theirbiggest commercial success in their adopt-ed homeland of France) but one of the bestrecords I’ve heard all year. The killer pro-duction by Franco-Iberian pop star ManuChao reflects the duo’s deep African rootswhile incorporating a wide variety of inter-national sounds, and for the first time themusic’s character doesn’t end up smoth-ered by overloud bass and squared-off,foregrounded drums. At times Chao’s fin-gerprints are obvious—looping sirens,deliberately dinky drum programs, sam-ples from language-instruction tapes—buteven on the several songs he helped write,he doesn’t obscure the couple’s personali-ties. Instead he frames the duo’s beautiful-ly complementary voices—Bagayoko gruff,bluesy, and nasal, Doumbia gentle, flutter-ing, and sweet—with buoyant textures andvaried melodic conceits. My one complaintwould be that Bagayoko’s guitar playing islimited to a series of brief licks, rather thanthe extended solos he excels at—but I’mconfident he’ll stretch out here.

By Peter Margasak

T he big news about this year’s World MusicFestival is that there really isn’t any news.Michael Orlove of the Department of

Cultural Affairs, who’s organized all seven festivals,says that this year’s process was the smoothest yet—visas came through, and for the most part artistskept their commitments. (There was just one last-minute cancellation, by Venezuela’s Simon Diaz.)The only serious trouble came early in the year,when Orlove was trying to settle on a lineup: thelow value of the dollar against many foreign curren-cies meant that a number of overseas artists couldn’toffset the financial liabilities of making the tripwithout booking several more stateside gigs.Serbia’s Boric Kovac, India’s Jaipur Kawa BrassBand, and Spain’s Son de la Frontera were amongthose who declined invitations from the city.

The final schedule is still the strongest in years,though, and includes several acts that seem certainto cross over to a more mainstream audience soon—Brazil’s Seu Jorge, Mali’s Amadou & Mariam,France’s Nouvelle Vague—as well as many more whoare steadfastly upholding ancient traditions, likeChina’s Qing Mei Jing Yue, India’s Sidi Goma, andPalestine’s Trio Joubran. Many of the acts based inthe States seem to have been chosen not because it’srelatively easy to get them to Chicago but becausethey’re genuinely groundbreaking: New York’sBalkan Beat Box is at the forefront of the inter-national Balkan underground scene, and Cubanexpat Juan-Carlos Formell is developing an originalsinger-songwriter take on boleros and trovas.

The unofficial focus is on Brazil. The fest hasbooked plenty of Brazilian performers in the past sixyears, but in quantity and quality the current offer-ings probably match all of them put together: SeuJorge, Badi Assad, Celso Fonseca, Wilson das Neves,and Domenico + 2 will all give hotly anticipated per-formances, and Domenico + 2 will also participate ina one-off collaboration with locals On Fillmore. Themost important event, though, is surely theMillennium Park gig by Orquestra Imperial, a big-band revue of some of the country’s best talent.

As usual the festival takes place at many differentvenues around the city, and events are free and all-ages unless otherwise noted. Advance tickets toshows with an admission fee are normally availablefrom the venues; for more information call the city’sWorld Music Festival hotline at 312-742-1938 orvisit cityofchicago.org/WorldMusic. The early week-day performances at the Chicago Cultural Center’sClaudia Cassidy Theater (Friday, Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday) and Preston Bradley Hall (Thursday)will be broadcast live on local radio: Loyola’sWLUW (88.7 FM) will air the 11 AM concerts, andthe 12:30 PM shows will be heard as part ofContinental Drift on Northwestern University’sWNUR (89.3 FM).

Rrecommended

Lura

The Reader’s Guide to

WORLD MUSICFESTIVAL

CHICAGO 2005

For updates see www.chicagoreader.com.

CHICAGO READER | WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL GUIDE | SEPTEMBER 16, 2005 | SECTION THREE 29

6:30 PM, PRITZKER PAVILION

RCelso Piña y SuRonda Bogota See above. For this show Piña is accompa-nied by his regular band.

Mariachi Perla deMexicoAfter Lila Downs (see above) performs aset of original material with her own band,she’ll sing traditional Mexican songsbacked by the 12-member Chicago groupMariachi Perla de Mexico—a smart bookingdecision by the festival’s organizers, sincethe familiar sounds of a straight-up mari-achi band won’t get in the way of Downs’swonderful voice the way her own fussyarrangements sometimes do.

Lila Downs See above.

BandaManzanera

ROne of the best bills from lastyear’s World Music Festival pairedtwo very different brass bands:

Banda Manzanera, founded in Mexico andnow based in Chicago, and the BobanMarkovic Orkestar. Manzanera’s larger-than-life arrangements, virtuousic playing, andinfectious exuberance not only blew awaythe unsuspecting crowd—many of whomwere Serbian and had clearly come to seethe headliner—but also caught Markovic’sear. Several members of Manzanera stayedonstage during the Orkestar’s set, wavingtowels and dancing in the wings, and afterone number Markovic ran over and gavethem all high fives. The CD-R I’ve heard isdisappointingly tinny, like most bandarecordings, but the band’s live sound istitanic—and at this all-Mexican show, whichcombines several of the country’s most pop-ular genres, the audience isn’t likely to needmuch winning over.

8 PM, OLD TOWN SCHOOL OFFOLK MUSIC $12

RTrio Joubran See above.

Riffat Sultana

RRiffat Sultana is the daughter oflegendary Pakistani singerSalamat Ali Khan, and she and her

brothers Sukhawat, Ahafqat, and Sharafatall grew up singing Pakistani and Indianclassical music. But her father, mindful oftraditional Islamic proscriptions againstfemale performers, didn’t let her take thestage for years. It wasn’t till the early 90s,when she and Sukhawat convinced theirfather to let them stay in the Bay Areaafter a stateside tour, that she began toperform—and even then she did so clan-destinely at first. But by 1995 she and herbrother had formed the Ali Khan Band withguitarist Richard Michos, one of theirfather’s students, and in 1996 they made aname for themselves collaborating with DJand producer Cheb I Sabbah for the discShri Durga. Since renamed Shabaz, thegroup has continued to release albums, buttheir dated, electronics-heavy dance-floorproduction style does a disservice both tothe traditional elements in the music andto the powerful vocals—a fact underlinedby the trio Sultana founded last year withFerhan Najeeb Qureshi on tabla andMichos, now her husband, on 12-stringacoustic guitar. This group’s gentle, pop-accented settings leave her singing plentyof space, both on original material and theoccasional qawwali tune or light classicalstandard.

8 PM, WBEZ 91.5 FM

Waldemar Bastos

RSee September 17. This is a liveradio broadcast rather than a pub-lic performance; Bastos makes his

first concert appearance Saturday.

9 PM, HOTHOUSE $12, 21+

RLura See above.

RCelso Fonseca See above.

10 PM, EMPTY BOTTLE $10, 21+

Nomo This Detroit-based Afrobeat combo, led bymulti-instrumentalist Elliot Bergman andusually at least 15 members strong, doesn’tmake any attempt to hide its debt to FelaKuti. On the group’s self-titled YpsilantiRecords debut, produced by WarrenDefever of His Name Is Alive, chantlikelines from the tightly clustered horns com-bine with propulsive, funky drumming tocreate deep grooves that use the force ofrepetition to push through to ecstasy;swaggering keyboard and guitar solos rip-ple through the din, but the emphasisremains less on individual showmanshipthan on the steamrolling ensemble sound.Like the Daktaris and Antibalas, two post-Fela bands from New York, Nomo bringsbits of jazz and soul into the mix, but theeffect is much less appealing here: “Movingin Circles” is mediocre as a soul tune, andBergman’s lyrics—mostly hippie-dippypeace bromides—are embarrassing enoughthat when the group brings down the ham-mer later in the song, it’s hard not to sus-pect that the idea is to wipe them fromyour brain. Luckily the bulk of the band’smaterial is strictly instrumental.

Hypnotic BrassEnsemble

RThe members of the HypnoticBrass Ensemble aren’t your aver-age buskers. All eight are sons of

the great Kelan Phil Cohran, who playedtrumpet with Sun Ra, cofounded the AACM,and led the Artistic Heritage Ensemble,whose mid-60s work has been an enor-mous influence on much of the African-fla-vored music to come out of Chicago since,from Earth, Wind & Fire to Kahil El’Zabar’sRitual Trio. He’s also taught his sons musicfor much of their lives, beginning as soonas they were old enough to hold theirinstruments. Though the brothers are stillselling their CDs on sidewalks, I’m surethere’s a record deal in their future—they’re far and away the city’s best streetmusicians, playing tunes that combine therowdy syncopated feel of funky NewOrleans brass-band music with the preci-sion, intricacy, and harmonic richness ofmodern jazz.

10 PM, SONOTHEQUE $12, 21+

DJ Ron TrentAbout a year ago Chicago-born DJ RonTrent and Sonotheque’s Sonia Hassanteamed up for a monthly series called“Africa Hi-Fi,” intending to expose theAfrican roots of modern pop and dancemusic. I’ve heard Trent’s mix from March,and though it’s of dubious value as ananthropological document, it does demon-

strate a lot of cross-cultural borrowing:house-based tracks incorporate Mandesinging, roots reggae, Latin rhythms, andflashes of Afrobeat. Trent is one of themost in-demand house DJs in the world,and his own recent discs follow a patternsimilar to that of his club sets—Olajope (SixDegrees), a collaboration with GrooveCollective reedist Jay Rodriguez, is asmooth and soulful addition to theNuyorican house canon, with cameos byCuban pianist Chucho Valdes and New Yorkpercussionist Eddie Bobe.

Future WorldFunkFuture World Funk, aka British DJs Michael“Cliffy” Clifford and Russ Jones, ignorestandard operating procedure in the highlycompetitive and hyperspecialized world ofclub music, where finding a niche anddefending it against all comers is often thename of the game. The duo’s most recentmix, the two-disc set On the Run (Ether),skips all over the globe: there’s Afrobeat,Jamaican dancehall, Brazilian forro,crossover merengue, and Indian brass-band music, to pick just a few. They’re notparticularly fastidious about authenticity—just about everything has been remixed tofavor a four-on-the-floor club beat—but it’salways good to hear DJs using internationalsounds for something other than superfi-cial ornamentation.

saturday17NOON, GARFIELD PARKCONSERVATORY

Kusun EnsembleMost African music-and-dance troupes thatmake it to America are so carefullyprepped for Western audiences that I oftenwonder if I couldn’t get a better feel for theoriginal traditions by reading a librarybook. I’ve only seen a short DVD fromGhana’s Kusun Ensemble, but there’s arefreshing looseness in the group’s exuber-ant, acrobatic moves—krumping’s got noth-ing on this stuff. It’s not that they aren’tcarefully rehearsed—the focus just seemsto be on the crispness and energy of thedances, not on wrapping them in a bigshowbiz production. The ensemble’smusic—traditional percussion, melodicsinging, and funky, infectiously fluid gui-tar—is a fine backdrop for the choreogra-phy, and I could even enjoy listening to iton its own.

NOON, ROGERS PARK WORLDMUSIC FESTIVAL

SamarabaloufFounded in 2000 by guitarist FrancoisPetit, this instrumental outfit from Amiens,France, has filled its tank with the high-octane Gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt,though some of the tunes also incorporatesubtle flashes of Middle Eastern harmonyor hooky melodies that’d be right at homein rock or blues. The music’s accessible andentertaining, if not adventurous or origi-nal: Petit solos over malleable grooves

WORLD MUSIC FEST

VenuesAlbert Pick Hall University of Chicago, 5828 S. University, 773-702-8297

Borders 1539 E. 53rd, 773-752-8663

Borders 4718 N. Broadway, 773-334-7338

Borders 2817 N. Clark, 773-935-3909

Borders 830 N. Michigan, 312-573-0564

Borders 755 W. North, 312-266-8060

Borders 150 N. State, 312-606-0750

Clarke House Museum 1827 S. Indiana, 312-744-6630

Claudia Cassidy Theater Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E.Washington, 312-744-6630

Daley Civic Center 50 W. Washington, 312-346-3278

Dance Studio, Chicago Cultural Center 78 E. Washington, 312-744-6630

Eli’s Cheesecake Festival 6701 W. Forest Preserve, 773-736-3417

Empty Bottle 1035 N. Western, 773-276-3600 or 866-468-3401

Garfield Park Conservatory 300 N. Central Park, 312-746-5100

GAR Memorial Hall Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington,312-744-6630

Hideout 1354 W. Wabansia, 773-227-4433

Hokin Annex, Columbia College 623 S. Wabash, 312-344-7188

HotHouse 31 E. Balbo, 312-362-9707

Humboldt Park Boathouse 1301 N. Sacramento, 312-742-7549

Logan Square Auditorium 2539 N. Kedzie, 773-252-6179

Martyrs’ 3855 N. Lincoln, 773-404-9494 or 800-594-8499

Museum of Contemporary Art 220 E. Chicago, 312-280-2660

Navy Pier 600 E. Grand, 312-595-5184

Old Town School of Folk Music 4544 N. Lincoln, 773-728-6000 or866-468-3401

Park West 322 W. Armitage, 773-929-5959 or 312-559-1212

Preston Bradley Hall Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington,312-744-6630

Pritzker Pavilion Millennium Park, 100 N. Michigan, 312-742-1168

Randolph Cafe Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, 312-744-6630

Rogers Park World Music Festival Howard & Ashland, 773-527-2946

Schubas 3159 N. Southport, 773-525-2508

Sonotheque 1444 W. Chicago, 312-226-7600

South Shore Cultural Center 7059 S. South Shore Dr., 312-747-2536

Wild Hare 3530 N. Clark, 773-327-4273

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble

30 CHICAGO READER | WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL GUIDE | SEPTEMBER 16, 2005 | SECTION THREE

CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 16, 2005 | SECTION THREE 31

from upright bassist Luc Ambry and sec-ond guitarist Pierre Margerin, but his con-cise, fiercely rhythmic improvising neverstrays outside the frameworks establishedby the compositions. The group recentlybecame a quartet, adding Arnaud VanLancker on accordion.

1 PM, BORDERS ON MICHIGAN

Waldemar Bastos

RIn 1998, when Waldemar Bastosreleased his previous album,Pretaluz (Luaka Bop), his home-

land of Angola was wracked by a civil warmore than two decades old. But in theintervening years hostilities ended, andBastos, who’s lived in Lisbon, Portugal,since 1982, began making visits in 2003,giving a triumphant performance that yearin the capital city of Luanda. On Pretaluz hesang almost exclusively of the war and theways it had ravaged Angola’s beauty, but amuted optimism permeates the newRenascence (Times Square), which cele-brates the perseverance of Angolans anddescribes his powerful emotions uponreturning home after years of exile. His gor-geous, slightly feminine voice turns out tobe just as well suited to astonished joy as itwas to crushing sadness: on “PitangaMadurinha,” one of the disc’s most upbeattunes, he sounds unsure about whether tobelieve his own eyes, singing, “Along thebyways of my land I went dreaming / I wan-dered, and saw the houses, my friends, myfriends in peace, in peace.” As on his earlierrecordings, liquid electric guitars reflect theinfluence of Congolese rumba, but the bub-bly, syncopated rhythms are pure Bantu. ATurkish string section also enhances a fewtracks, providing an unexpected touch ofChicago-style soul—“Esperanca” sounds anawful lot like the Isaac Hayes version of“Walk On By.” At the first World MusicFestival back in 1999, Bastos was stunning,his performances a mix of breathtakingbeauty and inconsolable sadness; I’m eagerto hear how the developments in his home-land have changed him.

3 PM, BORDERS ON BROADWAY

RLuraSee September 16.

3:30 PM, ELI’S CHEESECAKEFESTIVAL

NomoSee September 16.

4 PM, GARFIELD PARKCONSERVATORY

A Moving SoundThe repertoire of this Taiwanese group isthick with Chinese folk tunes, and thoughtheir recordings are a bit glossy and poppy,that doesn’t spoil the graceful melodies ofsinger Mia Hsieh or the elegant erhu linesof Cheng-Chun Wu. But guest players likeBrazilian percussionist Eduardo Camposand Belgian guitarist Pieter Thys neverquite blend into the music or add much toit, and American coleader Scott Prairie—heand Hsieh are husband and wife and found-ed the band together—frequently torpedoesthe songs outright with his out-of-placeFrench horn lines, treacly English folk-popwarble, and self-conscious wordless vocals.

4 PM, NAVY PIER

VishtenThis French-Acadian quartet from PrinceEdward Island, formed in 2000, has devel-oped an accomplished ensemble interplayand a polished repertoire of Irish,Scottish, and French folk songs. Nimble,airy rhythms crafted by guitarist andbassist Remi Arsenault and guest pianistMegan Bergeron provide solid support forunison lines, deft counterpoint, andextended solos by Emmanuelle LeBlanc(bodhran, flute), Pastelle LeBlanc (accor-dion), and Pascal Miousee (violin, man-dolin), and Emmanuelle adds sweet, pop-tinged vocals that don’t destroy themusic’s rustic flavor. Onstage the mem-bers incorporate spontaneous outburstsof dance into their performances, aimingto capture the feel of what they call a“kitchen party”—and each sits on a wood-en box that doubles as a percussioninstrument and a dancing platform.

4 PM, ROGERS PARK WORLDMUSIC FESTIVAL

RRiffat SultanaSee September 16.

5 PM, ELI’S CHEESECAKEFESTIVAL

GolemOn its latest disc, Homesick Songs(Aeronaut), this fun-loving New York sex-tet plays theatrical klezmer colored withtraces of rock and cabaret. Founder andlead singer Annette Ezekiel sings a bit likeDagmar Krause doing a Lotte Lenyaimpersonation, and she’s at least as tal-ented as a musicologist: to build upGolem’s repertoire she not only raids oldYiddish songbooks from American andeastern European shtetls but also visitsimmigrant and elderly New York Jews andreconstructs songs from their memories.The band also includes second vocalistAaron Diskin—who might be a little tootheatrical—bassist Taylor Bergen-Chrisman, trumpeter David Griffin, violin-ist Alicia Jo Rabins of the Mammals, andsuperb jazz trombonist Curtis Hasselbringof Slavic Soul Party.

6 PM, SOUTH SHORE CULTURALCENTER

Kusun EnsembleSee above. This event opens with an hour-long dance workshop.


Regina OrozcoI don’t speak Spanish, and I’m sure that’swhy I don’t understand the appeal of thiscelebrated Mexican actress and operasinger. Orozco’s album La mega bizcochois campy, theatrical pop, tongue-in-cheekand over-the-top—only her wild vocalhistrionics hold together the recklessmishmash of cabaret, funk, torch songs,and traditional regional styles likenorteño and son jarocho. The interstitialskits sound pretty gonzo, but I can’t saywhether they’re funny—and on a purelymusical level there’s little for me to rec-ommend here.

RJuan-CarlosFormell See September 16.

8 PM, OLD TOWN SCHOOL OFFOLK MUSIC $12

RWaldemarBastosSee above.

RLuraSee September 16.

9 PM, HIDEOUT $10

Nomo withNicole Mitchell &Fred AndersonSee September 16. For this performance,part of the Hideout’s annual Block Party,Nomo will be joined by flutist NicoleMitchell and tenor saxophonist FredAnderson, both AACM heavies and first-rate improvisers.

9 PM, PARK WEST $15, 18+

RAmadou &MariamSee September 16.

Boubacar Traore

RIn the early 60s singer and gui-tarist Boubacar “Kar Kar” Traorebecame a minor legend in his

homeland with the huge hit “Mali Twist.”All it really owes to the Chubby Checkersmash, though, is half its title: it’s notabout a dance but rather makes a plea tohis fellow Malians to rebuild their countryafter years of colonialism and warfare. Thesong was ubiquitous, but Traore didn’t seemuch money from it and eventually settledinto life as a tailor and farmer. In 1987 jour-nalists “discovered” him and cajoled himinto cutting some new tracks—whichstunned fellow Malians who’d assumed hewas dead—but not long after that his wifepassed on and he took construction jobsabroad to support his family. The musicbusiness wasn’t through with him, though:after a British producer tracked him downin France a couple years later he startedplaying again and hasn’t stopped since.He’s in his mid-60s now, but on KongoMagni (World Village), his first new studioalbum in five years, his power is undimin-ished. His music shares some traits withthat of his countryman Ali Farka Toure,with its bluesy, insistently circling acousticguitar, but Traore plays with a lightertouch, masterfully twining spontaneouslicks into his sturdy, looping figures.There’s also a tenderness to his voice that’smissing in the singing of Malian bluesmenlike Lobi Traore and Habib Koite—and it’llbe front and center at his Chicago perform-ances, where he’s accompanied only by hisown guitar and by Kandiamoudou Kouyateon calabash, a giant gourd that providesgreat low-end thumps.

10 PM, SCHUBAS $12, 21+

Nouvelle Vague

ROn paper this concept band,brainchild of Parisian producersMarc Collin and Olivier Libaux,

sounds like a silly idea from a pair of self-satisfied smart-asses. The French phrase“Nouvelle Vague” is usually translated“new wave” in English and “bossa nova” inPortuguese, so Collin and Libaux, inspiredby this noncoincidence, hired a slew ofyoung French chanteuses to deliver breezy,Brazilian-style readings of punk and new-wave songs. Nouvelle Vague’s self-titleddebut on Luaka Bop doesn’t always play byits own rules—Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’tGet Enough” gets a Vic Godard-style loungetreatment, and the Clash’s “Guns ofBrixton” sounds like a down-and-outWeimar cabaret ditty. But almost all thereinventions add something to the original,and the consistently heartfelt and inspired

vocal performances seem aimed squarelyat everyone who’s skeptical of the disc’stoo-clever conceit. Camille, one of the bet-ter singers, plays the Dead Kennedys’ “TooDrunk to Fuck” for laughs in a way JelloBiafra never could, her voice dripping withboozy insouciance, and the bossa novabeat on the Sisters of Mercy’s “Marian” dis-pels a bit of the song’s gothic gloom, evenif it can’t make it sound much less dull.Some of the best covers are of fairly well-known songs like XTC’s “Making Plans forNigel,” but more often than not it’s relativeobscurities—Tuxedomoon’s “In a Manner ofSpeaking,” Josef K’s “Sorry for Laughing”—that turn out to be gorgeous pop tuneswhen stripped of their dated musical trap-pings and dressed in new clothes. Twosingers are accompanying the group forthis tour: Melanie Pain (who’s on therecord) and Phoebe Tolmer (who isn’t).

A Moving SoundSee above.

sunday181 PM, BORDERS ON 53RD

RBoubacarTraoreSee September 17.

1 PM, NAVY PIER

Nachito Herrera& the BembeBandPianist Ignacio “Nachito” Herrera is anexemplary product of Cuba’s sophisticatedmusic-education system: he was playingRachmaninoff with the Havana SymphonyOrchestra at age 12 and performing withBuena Vista Social Club pianist RubenGonzalez four years later. He went on tolead the touring version of the legendaryTropicana Orchestra and serve as pianistand musical director for trumpeter JesusAlemany’s Cubanismo. But in 2001 Herreradefected and settled in Minneapolis, wherehe assembled this sextet with other Cubanexpats. On the brand-new Bembe en micasa (FS Music) he distances himself fromthe more traditional projects he’d pursuedback home, instead mixing aggressive

Latin jazz with touches of timba, one ofCuba’s most popular dance forms. Themusicianship is top-notch across theensemble, but between the relentlessballs-out playing and the cranked-up fusionelements in the sound, there’s barely anybreathing room in the tunes—in particularkit drummer Raul Pineda always soundslike he’s trying to break down a door, nomatter what the setting actually calls for.When Herrera takes a different approach,though, the result is hardly an improve-ment: he enlists the MinneapolisPhilharmonic for a cover of the OrestesLopez number “Llegaron los millonarios,”which borrows heavily from Tchaikovsky’sNutcracker Suite, and the arrangement isone of the cheesiest I’ve ever heard.

2 PM, CLARKE HOUSE MUSEUM

GolemSee September 17.

3 PM, NAVY PIER

Kusun EnsembleSee September 17.

3 PM, BORDERS ON CLARK

Balkan Beat Box

RPlugged into the same grid asGypsy punks Gogol Bordello, thiswild New York group jacks up east-

ern European folk with bass-heavy elec-tronics, tearing into klezmer, Balkanmelodies, and Turkish traditional musicwith a combination of feral recklessnessand careful craftsmanship. Formed in 2003by former Gogol Bordello reedist Ori Kaplanand Tamir Muskat, the Firewater drummerwho produced last year’s Gogol Bordello vs.Tamir Muskat, Balkan Beat Box alsoincludes trumpeter-trombonist Dana Leongand bassist-guitarist Itamar Ziegler, whoplays slinking unison lines with the horns ordrops deep grooves to beef up Muskat’s livedrumming and killer programming. Thoughremix compilations like last year’s ElectricGypsyland (Six Degrees) have similarlyrepurposed raucous eastern Europeanmusic for the dance floor, the material onBalkan Beat Box’s recent self-titled debut(coreleased by the New York Jewish-reggaelabel JDub, Israel’s NaNa Disc, andGermany’s Essay Recordings) has a leg upon that stuff: the big beats are part of thearrangements from the beginning, notgrafted on later, and they reinforce the

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Waldemar Bastos

Boubacar Traore


sometimes lopsided time signatures organi-cally, never coming off like standard-issuehip-hop or club rhythms. On the record avariety of sassy, slightly drunk-soundingfemale singers rap, slur, and shout theirway through the songs, and the group istraveling with several vocalists, includingJeremiah Lockwood, Tomer Yosef, andVictoria Hanna (see below)—though she’lljoin in only at Monday night’s Empty Bottlegig. I doubt Balkan Beat Box will be able tomatch Gogol Bordello’s go-for-brokeonstage energy, but they’ve got more thanenough nuance and range to make up for it.

3 PM, HUMBOLDT PARKBOATHOUSE

Plena Libre

RPuerto Rican bassist and band-leader Gary Nunez formed PlenaLibre more than a decade ago to

preserve and revive plena, a form native tothe island that arose more than a centuryago from a collision between the music ofimmigrants from nearby Barbados andPuerto Rico’s own African-derived idioms,which were similar to those developing inCuba. Plena was originally a narrativestyle, and its lyrics, which often reflectedcurrent political or cultural happenings,could turn the music into an importantavenue of communication; its sound wasdefined by elaborate polyrhythms playedon tambourinelike hand drums called pan-deiros and augmented by a scraped gourdcalled a guiro. For most of the 20th centuryit was the mainspring of Puerto Ricanmusic, and even though pan-Caribbeansalsa and merengue had displaced it by the70s, plena had evolved alongside thosegenres and like them relied on clave pat-terns and galloping grooves. Plena Libre’smost recent release, ¡Estamos gozando!(Times Square), pays homage to some of

plena’s great past practitioners—AngelTorruellas, Los Pleneros del Quinto Olivo,Mon Rivera, Rafael Cepeda—but the vin-tage material is arranged sleekly, withradio-friendly vocal harmonies and an eartoward contemporary dancers. On theforthcoming Evolucion the group returns tooriginal songs and expands its sound,adding baritone saxophone, guitar, vibes,cuatro, and accordion—to my ears it’s animprovement over its predecessor, andeven the singing of Rafael “Pole” Ortizfares better.

Chucky SantosChucky Santos was formerly second gui-tarist for Alex Vargas, one of the biggeststars in bachata, the country music of theDominican Republic and a burgeoninginternational phenomenon for the pastdecade. When you hear Santos’s nimbleguitar playing, it’s clear how he landed

such a great gig, but his tepid singingmakes his decision to go solo a lot harderto explain.

3 PM, CLAUDIA CASSIDY THEATER

A Moving SoundSee September 17.

7 PM, MUSEUM OFCONTEMPORARY ART $12

Victoria Hanna

RIsraeli vocalist Victoria Hannabrings such a density of ideas toher work that a paper in India

gave up trying to decide what sort of musicit is and just called it “experimental the-atre.” Using multiple overdubs of herarrestingly intense and supple voice, shecombines entrancing melodic curlicues,

layered drones, and other wordless soundswith lyrics drawn from the Bible, theTalmud, the Kabbalah, and elsewhere.She’s also been studying the art of dhru-pad—the most austere form of Indian clas-sical music—and tinkering with hip-hop andrap, as well as collaborating with membersof New York’s bustling Gypsy undergroundlike Gogol Bordello front man Eugene Hutzand Balkan Beat Box (see above—Hannajoins the group for its Monday-night festi-val performance). I wouldn’t care to predictwhat she’ll decide to do at her performanceshere—where she’s supported by violistKinor Jacobi, video arist Kathy von Koerber,and two members of Balkan Beat Box,drummer and programmer Tamir Muskatand bassist-guitarist Itamar Ziegler—but Iplan on being there to find out.

Regina OrozcoSee September 17.

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8:30 PM, WILD HARE $12, 21+

RBalkan Beat Boxwith Yuri LaneSee above. Tonight the group is joined byChicago’s Yuri Lane, star of the one-manhip-hop play From Tel Aviv to Ramallah: ABeatbox Journey.

GolemSee September 17.


RNouvelle VagueSee September 17.

SamarabaloufSee September 17.

9:30 PM, LOGAN SQUAREAUDITORIUM

Seu Jorge

RMost Americans, if they’ve heardof Seu Jorge at all, know him asthe guy with the acoustic guitar

singing David Bowie tunes in Portugueseall through Wes Anderson’s The LifeAquatic With Steve Zissou. That wasn’t hisonly film role or even his biggest—he alsoplayed Knockout Ned in City of God, adrama set in the favelas of Rio, whereJorge spent his childhood—but he got hisfirst real break playing music. In the late90s he scored a minor hit as a member ofa circusy troupe of musicians and actorscalled Farofa Carioca, and in 2002 hereleased his first solo album, Carolina (Mr.Bongo), an amped-up collection of funkysambas a la Jorge Ben. The new Cru(Wrasse) replaces his debut’s dense, frenet-ic arrangements with dramatic austerityand calm, and announces Jorge’s arrival asone of Brazil’s greatest young talents: herarely raises his voice above a sexy croon,but still manages to sound beautifullyintense and expressive. The majority of thetunes are leisurely sambas, with instru-mental backdrops that consist of littlemore than acoustic guitar, hand percus-sion, and sweet-toned four-stringedcavaquinho (and sometimes even less).Jorge’s voice is far from perfect, and heregularly slips out of tune, but he makes avirtue of his shortcomings, imbuing everywhispered, grunted, or warbled phrasewith an unforced mix of vulnerability andconfidence. On a cover of the sinister SergeGainsbourg song “Chatterton,” he drops hisvoice so low that his faux-Howlin’ Wolfgrowl disintegrates into a coughing jag,and his eccentric pronunciation on amolasses-slow version of Elvis Presley’s“Don’t” only adds to his charm. Thoroughlycontemporary despite its rudimentary,back-to-basics approach and skeletal struc-tures, Cru is one of the best albums I’veheard this year.

RBoubacarTraoreSee September 17.

DJ JeromeDerradjiThis French DJ recently launched theChicago-based soul and house label StillMusic, whose first full-length release, Inthe Dark, documents the Detroit soulunderground. Here he’ll spin a mixture ofAfrican and Brazilian music.

monday1911 AM, CLAUDIA CASSIDYTHEATER

Nachito HerreraSee September 18.


Nina Becker,RubinhoJacobinaTwo members of the Brazilian big bandOrquestra Imperial (see below) step out foran intimate set. I’ve only heard one tune bysinger and fashion designer Nina Becker,but it was a doozy—a sexy, spectral lounge-pop ballad. She’ll be backed by keyboardistRubinho Jacobina, son of guitarist andsongwriter Nelson Jacobina and cowriter ofsome of the songs on the 2002 collabora-tion between Caetano Veloso and JorgeMautner, Eu nao peco desculpa (Universal,Brasil).

12:30 PM, BORDERS ONMICHIGAN

RSeu JorgeSee September 18.

1:30 PM, BORDERS ON MICHIGAN

Baka BeyondBritish guitarist and producer MartinCradick and his wife, singer Su Hart, found-ed Baka Beyond in 1992, after meeting andbefriending many Baka pygmies on a visitto the Cameroonian rain forest. On sevensubsequent albums, including the newRhythm Tree (March Hare Music), they’vecombined Baka traditions with bits of Celticand Breton music, enlisting performersfrom Senegal, Sierra Leone, Ghana, andother African nations to thicken the sound.The most arresting element of the newrecording is the band’s rendering of Bakavocal polyphony—indigenous Baka music is

often a dialogue with nature, incorporatingthe sounds of forest birds and animals intothe ritualized performances, and that sameintuitive spontaneity is evident in BakaBeyond’s dazzling interweaving of wordlesslines. Unfortunately, the rest of the group’smusic is consistently disappointing, despiteCradick and Hart’s obvious sincerity:they’ve helped the Baka with constructionand development projects and even livedwith them for extended periods, but ondisc they just water down the Baka’s tradi-tional sounds with bland European ideas.

3 PM, DANCE STUDIO, CHICAGOCULTURAL CENTER $25

A Moving SoundSee September 17. This performance willaccompany a tai chi workshop hosted byHedwig Dances, the Cultural Center’s resi-dent troupe.

6:30 PM, PRITZKER PAVILION

OrquestraImperial

RFormed in 2002 by some of theyoung guns in the Rio de Janeiromusic scene, this big band aims to

advance new ideas in Brazilian music—which of course means embroideringbeloved idioms like samba and bossa novaas much as it does creating fresh styles.Orquestra Imperial has one ringer onboard—legendary bossa nova drummerWilson das Neves—but most of the playersaren’t stars in their own right, cominginstead from the pool of immensely cre-ative session musicians or producers inBrazil. Berna Ceppas, who plays keyboardsand samplers in the group, and Kassin,who plays bass, are also one of the coun-try’s most in-demand production teams,using their encyclopedic knowledge ofmusical styles and a healthy dose of elec-tronics to tweak time-tested forms; thesingers include Moreno Veloso, NinaBecker, and Rodrigo Amarante (of the rockband Los Hermanos). This is a rare chanceto get a revue-style glimpse of emergingBrazilian talent without shelling out fortickets to Rio. I’ve only seen a short videosnippet, but in it the group was a sort ofglorious self-organizing free-for-all, joyfulbut disciplined—and opener Seu Jorge islikely to join in too, since he was in theOrquestra early on. Several members areplaying their own shows earlier today orsometime tomorrow: Domenico + 2 (seeSeptember 20), Wilson das Neves (seeSeptember 20), and Nina Becker withRubinho Jacobina (see September 19).

RSeu JorgeSee September 18.

DJ Joe BrylJoe Bryl, co-owner of Sonotheque, is oneof Chicago’s most experienced DJs: duringthe early days of Club 950 he was one ofthe first people in the city spinning newwave, and later at the Funky Buddha he wasan early adopter of acid jazz. He doesn’tdo too many sets dedicated to Brazilianmusic, but he’s certainly got the goods inhis collection.

8 PM, MARTYRS’ $8

Baka BeyondSee above.

Kevin Dempsey& Joe BroughtonSinger and guitarist Kevin Dempsey andviolinist Joe Broughton are both veteransof the British folk scene—Dempsey was inDave Swarbrick’s Whippersnapper,Broughton in the Albion Band—but as aduo they range afield from that territory.On their most recent album, Freehand(SAE), they augment the usual Celtictunes with bits of post-Django jazz andsome dazzling, uncategorizable instru-mental work—Broughton’s solo vehicle“Reflections in Aloia” creates a gorgeoustapestry from multiple overdubbedtracks of rapid-fire mandolin and pizzica-to violin. I could do without the milque-toast acoustic pop tunes, but these guyscan sure play.


RPlena LibreSee September 18.

Nachito Herrera& the BembeBandSee September 18.

9:30 PM, EMPTY BOTTLE 21+

RBalkan Beat BoxSee September 18.

RVictoria HannaSee September 18.

tuesday2011 AM, CLAUDIA CASSIDYTHEATER

Ensemble N_JP During an extended stay in Japan back in2001, former Chicagoan Gene Colemanhatched the idea for a group that wouldyoke age-old Asian musical traditions toideas and techniques from contemporaryclassical composition, both Western andFar Eastern. The lineup he’s assembledembodies that dichotomy perfectly: itincludes Ko Ishikawa, a member of theacclaimed gagaku ensemble Reigakushawho plays an ancient bamboo mouth organcalled the sho, and Toshimaru Nakamura,an electroacoustic improviser who’sworked with international heavies likeKeith Rowe and John Butcher and special-izes in manipulating feedback from a no-input mixing board. On one side, Yoko Nishiplays koto and Kazuko Takada the lutelikeshamisen; on the other, Rei Hotoda playspiano and Kazuhisa Uchihashi the electricguitar. With the assistance of local cellistMarina Peterson, the group will premiere aColeman composition called “Kyoto in_Ex,”accompanied by Tom Denlinger’s videoprojections, and perform several relativelytraditional pieces.

NOON, DALEY CIVIC CENTER

Nachito Herrera& the BembeBandSee September 18.


Rajan & SajanMishra withKumar Bose

ROne of the greatest modern vocalduos in Indian classical music,brothers Rajan and Sajan Mishra

have been performing together fordecades, developing not only stunninglyprecise pitch control but also a sublimemusical intuition that lets them put that

WORLD MUSIC FEST

Seu Jorge

Orquestra Imperial


control to dramatic use. For their extendedimprovisations the brothers often embroi-der raga melodies, sometimes solo andsometimes in tandem, but for me the realthrill comes when they leap clear of themelodic framework and go into free fall.On their new double CD, Sadhana (Sense),they extract a seemingly limitless amountof material from a single chord, skippingfrom note to note or repeating a single onewith machine-gun rapidity, sometimeslanding on the same microtone and thenshifting in the blink of an eye to harmonizeon two different pitches—it’s like watchingexpert surfers dancing back and forth on arolling wave. The brothers are joined hereon tabla by Kumar Bose, a living legend ofthe instrument, who made his name in the70s accompanying Ravi Shankar. Rajan’ssons Ritesh and Rajnish, who’ve con-tributed vocals to a forthcoming album byAnoushka Shankar, will also make a guestappearance.

Los Gauchos deRoldanFounded in 1986 by accordionist WalterRoldan, this compact ensemble—Roldan,two dancers, and two acoustic guitaristswho also sing—works to preserve the tradi-tional music and dance of rural Uruguay.Forms like polca, vals, and shotis (that is,polka, waltz, and schottische) reveal anenduring European influence, but moreinteresting are the styles that borrow fromindigenous or African music: habanera,tango, milonga, and chamarrita. The groupalso plays material from Argentina andsouthern Brazil; Roldan makes a point ofexplaining the various idioms and their ori-gins between songs.

12:30 PM, BORDERS ON STATE

Domenico + 2

RI can’t think of another Braziliangroup that’s as inventive as thistrio, much less so nonchalant

about it—in fact I only know a few bandsfrom anywhere in the world blessed withthis kind of unfettered creativity. Many popartists lose sight of the whimsy in theirmusic when they take chances, as thoughexperimenting with new sounds were asrisky as a moon landing, but these guysseem to have more fun the further they getfrom the security blanket of a recognizablegenre. So far singer and guitarist MorenoVeloso, son of Caetano, has issued analbum with the group as Moreno + 2, andsinger and percussionist DomenicoLancellotti has followed up with a discbilled to Domenico + 2. Ever since the trio

played HotHouse last October in support ofDomenico’s record, Sincerely Hot (LuakaBop), I’ve been waiting eagerly for bassistAlexandre Kassin to take his turn. ThoughSincerely Hot is now almost three yearsold, it still sounds brilliant to me, marryingstuttering electronic beats, favela hip-hop,and Ernie Isley-style psychedelia to theusual gentle vocals and sweet guitar ofbossa nova—and the music’s even betterlive, where you can watch Lancellotti ener-getically pushing buttons on his dinky-look-ing MPC sampler to play the drum parts inreal time.

6 PM, CLAUDIA CASSIDYTHEATER

Ensemble N_JP See above.

6 PM, HOKIN ANNEX, COLUMBIACOLLEGE

Midival Punditz

RI can’t even count how manytechno tracks I’ve heard thatinvoke Indian classical music

with nothing but an unintelligible vocalsample or out-of-context sitar loop,reducing the entire tradition to a pedes-trian signifier of the exotic. The picturebrightened somewhat with the rise of theAsian Underground in England in the mid-90s, but ultimately artists like TalvinSingh, Black Star Liner, and State ofBengal didn’t advance the hybrid of Indianmusic and techno very far, despite theirmore direct connection to south Asianculture. Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj, akathe New Delhi duo Midival Punditz, areunequivocally making electronic clubmusic, and there are just as certainlyIndian classical sounds all over their newalbum, Midival Times (Six Degrees)—thedifference is that those sounds aren’tsamples but rather contributions madeespecially for the disc by top-notch per-formers, among them sitar hotshotAnouska Shankar, sarangi master SultanKhan, and young playback singer KailashKher. Raina and Raj aren’t classicallytrained themselves, but it’s clear themusic is in their blood: the Indian ele-ments aren’t pasted on ironically butmeticulously integrated into each track.

6:30 PM, ALBERT PICK HALL

RTrio JoubranSee September 16.

7 PM, HOKIN ANNEX, COLUMBIACOLLEGE

Sidi Goma

RAs merchants, sailors, and vic-tims of the slave trade, anunknown number of Swahilis

from the east coast of Africa ended up inthe Indian state of Gujarat more thaneight centuries ago, where they formed aunique and isolated community. Known asSidis, they’re now a tribal Sufi group, andpostslavery they’ve eked out an existenceas itinerant musicians and dancers. It’s asource of pride for Sidis that Hazrat Bilal,an African, was chosen as the firstmuezzin by Mohammed, and the music ofSidi Goma has a strong African feel, eventhough Sidis consider themselves Indianand no longer understand most of thelyrics to their own traditional songs.(Yunus Babu Sidi, one of the group’s lead-ers, told the British magazine fRoots, “Weare Indians, pure and proper, [but] Swahiliis the language of our forefathers and weshould not forget it.”) Sidi Goma recentlyreleased its debut recording, Black Sufisof Gujarat (Kapa), where the group’s fourmusicians—there are also eight dancers—accompany their own call-and-responsevocals with propulsive patterns played onthe malunga, a single-stringed musicalbow similar to the Brazilian berimbau,and a variety of hand drums. The ensem-ble’s performances simulate a typical Sufiritual, where celebrants strive toapproach God by working themselves intoan ecstatic trance: there’s a gorgeous callto prayer, sacred songs performed whileseated, and of course plenty of athleticdancing—which often climaxes with one ofthe men shattering a coconut on his headin a feat of divinely inspired strength.

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Domenico + 2


7:30 PM, PRESTON BRADLEYHALL

RRajan & SajanMishra withKumar BoseSee above.

7:30, MUSEUM OFCONTEMPORARY ART $12

Domenico + 2with On Fillmore

RSee above for more on Domenico+ 2. On Fillmore is the duo of per-cussionist Glenn Kotche, best

known for his drumming in Wilco, andbassist Darin Gray of Grand Ulena.Together they play meditative, stripped-down texture-and-groove music: their lat-est album, Sleeps With Fishes(Quakebasket), is a gorgeous sort of mini-malism, with Gray’s sturdy upright bassendlessly cycling its arcing lines, Kotcheplaying vibes and coaxing clear overtonesfrom his cymbals with a bow, and fieldrecordings blended in throughout—autotraffic, a jet far overhead, running water,kids talking. Members of Domenico + 2 willintermittently join On Fillmore to impro-vise, and the duo will return the favor dur-ing the Brazilians’ set.

8 PM, MARTYRS’ $10, 21+

Mamar Kassey

RMamar Kassey is arguably thegreatest band in Niger—a nationthat’s only now catching up with

neighbors like Mali and Nigeria after itsartists and musicians were neglected bythe government of dictator Seyni Kountchefor much of the 70s and 80s. Things start-ed to turn around in 1987, when Kountchedied: that same year Alhassane Dante, for-mer director of the national ballet, organ-ized a state-run music festival, and in 1990he founded the Centre for Musical Trainingand Promotion. Yacouba Moumouni, thefounder of Mamar Kassey, owes his careerto Dante and his family: in 1976, when hisshepherd father died, the ten-year-oldMoumouni struck out on his own after afight with his brother, walked more than100 miles to Niger’s capital, and after twoyears of homelessness was taken in byDante’s sister Absatou, who began teachinghim music in exchange for housework. Helater joined Absatou’s band and the nation-al ballet, attended Dante’s school, andtoured West Africa and Europe. In Francehe met world-music producer Nick Gold,who invited him to play a reed flute calledthe seyse on Oumou Sangare’s albumWorotan, and when he returned to Niger in1995 he was determined to put together amodern band. Moumouni drew on fellowalumni of Dante’s school to form MamarKassey, enlisting a guitarist, a bassist,three open-minded traditional musicians,and three dancers who double as backingvocalists. The band’s two albums, Denke-Denke (Daqui, 1999) and Alatoumi (WorldVillage, 2001), achieve a spirited synthesisof West African approaches: Moumouni’snasal, parched-sounding vocals, in Fulaniand Songhai, combine the influence of sev-eral Saharan styles with his own deep soul-fulness; hypnotizing figures from simplelutes like the molo and komsa, bumping

rhythms played on the calabash, and thesorrowful sound of a single-string fiddlecalled a godje all come from Mali’s beauti-ful Wassoulou music; and the animatedburping and hiccuping of the kalangu, ortalking drum, bring to mind Nigerian juju.Guitarist Abdoulaye Alhassane and bassistHarouna Abdou add depth without disrupt-ing the traditional feel, blending tastefullyinto the dense, churning polyrhythms.

Los Gauchos deRoldanSee above.


Wilson das Neves

RDrummer Wilson das Neves was inthe thick of Rio’s bossa nova crazefrom the early 60s onward; though

pioneers like Joao Gilberto didn’t use drumsto broadcast the music’s signature rhythms,plenty of other musicians did, and dasNeves stood out for his rare ability to makethe beat feel like an organic outgrowth ofthe tune. For four decades he’s weatheredall the trends in Brazilian music, workingwith important artists from a range of gen-res—samba and bossa nova singers likeElizeth Cardoso and Elza Soares, MPB starslike Elis Regina and Chico Buarque, evenromantic rockers like Roberto Carlos. In the90s he began singing as well, developinginto a consistent songwriter, and returnedto more traditional samba and bossa novasounds. Das Neves is one of only a few liv-ing links to the heyday of bossa nova, andno chance to see him should be taken light-ly; he also plays Monday, September 19,with Orquestra Imperial.

Nina BeckerSee September 19.

RubinhoJacobinaSee September 19. Jacobina will play a setwith his own band as well as accompanyBecker.

9:30 PM, EMPTY BOTTLE $10, 21+

Martires delCompas

RThis group from Seville, Spain,calls its music “flamenco-billy,”but I’m not going to hold that

against them. The poppy, hooky originalson their recent No Papers (World Village)stay surprisingly faithful to traditional fla-menco even while hybridizing it with main-stream rock. Guitarist Julio Revilla uncorkssolos that wouldn’t sound too out of placeon an 80s hair-metal record whenever heplugs in, but second guitarist Manuel Sotocounterbalances him with a relativelystraight-ahead flamenco style, and conven-tional elements dominate the band’ssound: the staccato hand claps, the cajonbeats of Alberto Alvarez, the gritty singingof Chico Ocaña. Not to disparage Chicago’sannual flamenco festival, which brings in aslew of great traditionalists each winter,but it’s exciting to finally get the chance tohear some of the rock- and pop-inflectedstuff that’s so hugely successful in Spain.

El PayoThis local band plays rumba rock, theamped-up blend of rock and hard-chargingflamenco that put the Gipsy Kings on themap, but they don’t have anything like thechops they’d need to match that group’spower.

wednesday2111 AM, CLAUDIA CASSIDYTHEATER

AlkinoosIoannidisThis Greek Cypriot has achieved stardom athome by mixing rock with traditionalCypriot music and Greek idioms like rem-betika and entechno, but on this tour he’spresenting a new project, “MediterraneanCrossroads: Songs From Old Cyprus toModern Greece.” He’s playing guitar andlute in an ensemble that includes violinistMiltiades Papastamou, percussionist andcellist Yiorgos Kaloudis, bassist YiannasPapatriantafyllou, and pianist SotirisLemonidis; the tunes I’ve heard are sor-rowful and beautiful, with sensitivearrangements that recall chamber music.

NOON, DALEY CIVIC CENTER

RSidi GomaSee September 20.


RMartires delCompasSee September 20.


Qing Mei JingYue

RThis Chinese quartet—each of thewords in its name corresponds toone of the four members—plays a

mixture of traditional classical pieces andoriginals. Yang Jing (pipa), Liu Yuening(yangqin), Yu Hongmei (erhu), and FanWeiqing (guzheng) are all involved withtop-tier preservationist groups like theNational Orchestra of Chinese Music andthe Traditional Music Orchestra of theCentral Music Conservatory, but they alsoplay Western orchestral music and popularChinese instrumental material. Their CDEvening Poem is downright gorgeous, ifnot especially adventurous, filled with thesounds of strings being sweetly plucked,deftly struck, firmly bowed, and aggres-sively strummed.

Ana Moura

RJoining Misia, Cristina Branco, andMariza, Lisbon’s Ana Moura is thelatest in a new breed of fado singer

that’s brought the traditional Portuguesestyle to a broader audience. On her debut,Guarda-me a vida na mao (World Village),she pays homage to fado’s past with a coverof “Flor de lua” by the great AmaliaRodrigues, but Moura and producer JorgeFernando—a former guitarist with Rodrigueswho’s also worked with Branco and Mariza—have loaded the album with more contem-porary material. Moura, who at 20 gave upperforming in a rock band to concentrate onfado, declares her allegiance to the form inFernando’s “Sou do fado, sou fadista”: “Iknow my soul has surrendered / Taken myvoice in hand / Twisted it in my chest / Andshown it to the world.” Her singing has themelodramatic quality fado requires, leav-ened with an appealing airiness that sepa-rates her from the pack. On her newest disc,Aconteceu (Universal), which hasn’t yetbeen released in the U.S., she sounds moreassured than ever—though Branco andMariza have drifted away from traditionalsounds on their most recent albums, Mourahas dug in her heels, and her music has analmost defiant purity.

6 PM, BORDERS ON BROADWAY

Badi Assad

RThough the songs on BadiAssad’s new album, Verde (EdgeMusic), share the sashaying

rhythms and feathery touch of bossanova, the Brazilian guitarist doesn’t stickto the purist’s definition of the form. Herinstrumental style includes brief, aggres-sive runs, dense and sometimes discor-dant harmonies, and rhythm licks that cutagainst the grain of the tune, but sheinsinuates all these elements into themusic without disrupting its liquid feel.Even her wide-ranging vocals—whichinclude straight-up singing as well as non-verbal sounds and body percussion—casu-ally incorporate elements foreign to mostbossa nova. Assad also looks outsideBrazil for material, and manages to makeYann Tiersen’s theme from Amelie, U2’s“One,” and her own impressive composi-tions sound of a piece with classics byLuiz Gonzaga and Vinicius de Moraes.Bjork’s “Bachelorette” doesn’t quitebecome a bossa, but Assad’s gentle, insistent guitar, Toninho Ferragutti’saccordion, and Dimos Guadaroulis’s cello create a lovely chamber-music sound thatperfectly suits the rising and falling ten-sion in the song.

6 PM, BORDERS ON NORTH

JakeShimabukuroHawaii’s Jake Shimabukuro has done hispart to rescue the ukulele from the likesof Tiny Tim. In his hands it’s hardly aplinky, dinky novelty instrument: on hisnew instrumental disc, Dragon(Hitchhike), he plays with a disarminglysweet tone and mandolinlike fluiditythat’d make many a bluegrass pickergreen with envy. Unfortunately, in thepast few years he’s become a favorite onthe jam-band circuit thanks to openingslots for Blues Traveler and Bela Fleck(and a cameo on Fleck’s Little Worlds),and their chops-first aesthetic has seepedinto his own work. He’s still dazzling tech-nically, but his solos feel emotionally hol-low, the tunes are forgettable, and theoverblown arrangements are sodden withinsincere-sounding strings.

7 PM, PRESTON BRADLEY HALL

RQing Mei JingYueSee above.

8 PM, PARK WEST $15, 18+

AlkinoosIoannidisSee above.

RAna Moura See above.

8:30 PM, OLD TOWN SCHOOL OFFOLK MUSIC $15

Susana Baca Triowith Marc Ribot

RFor more than a decade the greatPeruvian singer Susana Baca hasrun the Instituto Negrocontinuo

with her Bolivian husband, Ricardo Pereira,aiming to preserve the songs and oral tra-ditions of Peru’s marginalized African pop-ulation. In August she arrived at TulaneUniversity in New Orleans on a five-monthRockefeller fellowship to study the devel-opment of African-American music in thecity, intending to compare it to the Afro-Peruvian tradition, and now she’s amongthe hundreds of thousands of people dis-placed by Hurricane Katrina. Baca chose tocontinue her research at the University ofChicago, which has turned out to be astroke of luck for the World Music Festival—she’s agreed to step in and fill the hole inthe schedule created by the last-minutecancellation of Venezuela’s Simon Diaz. (Alltickets for that show will be honored.) Twomembers of her working band, acousticguitarist Sergio Valdeos and cajon playerJuan Medrano Cotito, are flying in fromPeru, and the trio will be joined by NewYork guitarist Marc Ribot, who’s con-tributed to Baca’s two latest albums. Onthe most recent disc, 2002’s Espiritu vivo(Luaka Bop), Ribot and keyboardist JohnMedeski help create a fascinating push andpull between Afro-Peruvian roots musicand postmodern jazz. Baca’s band hasalways been extremely empathetic, shad-owing her graceful melodies tenderly andprecisely, but the New Yorkers loosenthings up a bit, bringing superheated met-ropolitan funk to the dance celebration “Seme van los pies” and dissonant Afro-Cubanintensity to a cover of Brazilian songwriterCaetano Veloso’s “13 de mayo.” The rangeof material is interesting too: Baca includesa few traditional Afro-Peruvian tunes, anew piece by young Peruvian composerJavier Lazo, and covers of Bjork’s “AnchorSong,” the pop standard “Autumn Leaves”(which she sings in its original French), and“Afro Blue,” the Mongo Santamaria songmade famous by John Coltrane.


RMartires delCompasSee above.

Son TrinidadThis local instrumental quartet, featuringbassist Matt Ulery and trumpeter ThadFranklin, brings a jazzy feel and judiciousextended soloing to its Afro-Caribbean tunes.

10 PM, SONOTHEQUE $10, 21+

Bombay Beatboxwith MidivalPunditzSee September 20. Not to be confusedwith Balkan Beat Box (see September 18),

WORLD MUSIC FEST

Wilson das Neves

Qing Mei Jing Yue


Bombay Beatbox is a local world-musiccrew with a weakness for spacey, half-baked electronic remixes of traditionalsouth Asian music—it sounds like they’retrying to split the difference betweendisco and the sound track to a yoga-instruction video. They’ll perform withthe excellent Midival Punditz (seeSeptember 20).

thursday2211 AM, PRESTON BRADLEY HALL

RBadi AssadSee September 21.

APPEXEnsemble

RCross-cultural musical projectsare frequently long on ambitionand short on results: A Moving

Sound (see September 17), for instance,makes it all too clear how a combinationof personnel that sounds audacious onpaper can fizzle in practice. The LA-basedAPPEX Ensemble (the acronym stands forAsia Pacific Performance Exchange), onthe other hand, is a blockbuster sextet ofalumni from UCLA’s Center forIntercultural Performance, all of whomhave the talent and knowledge to maketheir fusion—dominated by traditionalIndonesian, Japanese, Indian, andBurmese percussion—work beautifully. AllI’ve heard is a 1999 recording thatincludes only two-thirds of the currentlineup, but the tracks are undergirded bya strong compositional logic, relying onmelody, counterpoint, and complex inte-rior structures instead of flashy gimmicksor drum-circle nonsense. The group nowfeatures Indian percussionist AbhijitBanerjee, taiko drummer Kenny Endo,Balinese gamelan musician I Dewa PutuBerata, Burmese percussionist andpianist Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Balinese dancerand singer Emiko Susilo, and Chinesemulti-instrumentalist Qi Chao Liu, whoplays dizi, xiao, hulusi, and erhu—twovarieties of flute, a set of free-reed pipes,and a two-string violin. They’re allsuperb, but I’m most interested in seeingNaing, who plays the pat waing, a set of21 tuned drums arranged in a circle, andthe pattala, a 23-key bamboo xylophone—he’s collaborated on a terrific projectwith New York’s Bang on a Can All-Starsand released a stunning album of his ownon Shanachie.


FriggThis seven-piece Scandinavian stringensemble includes Alina, Esko, and AnttiJarvela, children of the family at the coreof the great Finnish wall-of-fiddles groupJPP, and two hardanger fiddlers fromNorway, Einar-Olov and Gjermund Larsen,who belong to a similarly revered musicalclan. The group’s basic sound recalls JPP,but despite its members’ bloodlines, Frigghas carved out its own niche, dabbling intraditional Swedish music, adapting a fewIrish folk tunes—a small step consideringhow often Scandinavian folk is mistakenfor Irish—and branching out into Americanbluegrass. They don’t play straight-upmountain music but rather combine itsbreakneck tempos and wild polyphony withthe dense, rich harmonies of their own tra-dition, created in part by the sympatheticdrone strings of the hardanger fiddle andnyckelharpa (which Esko Jarvela plays).Frigg’s forthcoming second album, Oasis(NorthSide), is sometimes a bit too pol-ished for my tastes—next stop, LakeWobegon!—but when they stack up allthose fiddles, the roar they make togetheris hard to resist.


JakeShimabukuroSee September 21.

Nawal

RThis singer hails from theComoros Islands, located in theIndian Ocean off the east coast

of Africa, and her gorgeous musicreflects their complex musical culture,which feels the pull of two continents.I’ve heard five songs from a forthcomingalbum by her acoustic trio—she plays gui-tar and gambusim (a banjolike Swahiliinstrument) and she’s supported byupright bass, mbira, and sparse handpercussion. Her songwriting is especiallystrong, and the arrangements cleavenicely to her full-bodied, husky vocals,which blend coffee-shop intimacy withthe piercing nasality of Islamic music.


RNawalSee above.


Las Guitarras deEspañaFormed in 1999, this local group wasonce devoted exclusively to flamenco, but its third album, Un respiro por elmundo (Sweet Pickle Music), is crammedso full of different genres that it has thepersonality of a supermarket—past theflamenco aisle you get jazz fusion, thenadult pop, Indian music, Cuban son, andon and on. It feels like the band’s just try-ing to rack up points, not actually explor-ing these traditions—nothing’s all thatdistinct from anything else. Much of thematerial on the disc was commissionedby choreographer Wendy Clinard, whowanted music for a piece called“Unraveling Rhythms” that aims to over-lap flamenco and classical Indian dance;for this performance Las Guitarras de

España will provide the sound track forClinard and dancer Siri Sonty.


RBadi AssadSee September 21.

8 PM, RANDOLPH CAFE

FriggSee above.


RAPPEXEnsembleSee above.


RSidi GomaSee September 21.


Jake ShimabukuroSee September 21.

9:45 PM, GAR MEMORIAL HALL

RMidival PunditzSee September 20.


RAna MouraSee September 21.

WORLD MUSIC FEST


CHICAGO READER

101 Ways to Win!

Deadline September 22. To enter visit chicagoreader.com

100 slightly less grand prizes: Sound of the Worldcompilation CD by acclaimed world music DJ Charlie Gillett.

Grand prize: free round-trip for two to any onedestination in Europe served by United Airlines.*

*Pair of roundtrip United Economy ® travel certificates. Some restrictions apply.

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38 CHICAGO READER | SEPTEMBER 16, 2005 | SECTION THREE

The Reader’s Guide to WORLDMUSIC FESTIVAL CHICAGO 2005

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