#1 "Svatba (The Wedding)," traditional 1:27

Performed by The Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir
Le Mystére des Voix Bulgares Elektra/Nonesuch 9 79165-2 ©1987

Nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Recording in 1988, 1989, 1991, and 1994, the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Choir won in 1989. Their recordings dominated the top ten of Billboard’s World Music chart in its first year (1990) despite the fact that the albums had been released two and three years earlier. Published in the Elektra/Nonesuch Explorer Series each of the choir’s recordings purports to be a "field recording" of a native folk music tradition made live and on site. The aesthetic of the field recording comes from anthropology where researchers traveled to foreign lands to record and document culture, often depicted early on as strange, exotic, or primitive. While no social scientist would use these adjectives today, the title of the choirs three albums "Le Mystére des Voix Bulgares" (The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voice) capitalizes on the exotic quality of this music for commercial purposes. A careful reading of the liner notes reveals that this is not a pure "folk" music at all, but a professional state touring ensemble created to preserve and polish folk culture for the display of nationalism. The arrangements and compositions included on the choir’s recordings emphasize the "primitive" and "exotic" folk characteristics of this tradition including a narrow (4 or 5 note) melodic compass and "diaphonic" singing in which groups of singers intone parallel melodies at an interval considered dissonant by classical standards (2nds, 7ths, or 9ths). Note also that Bulgaria is hardly an "exotic" locale by modern standards and one questions if this music should be considered a world music at all. Many of their recordings became popular as the Berlin wall came down and the distance between Eastern and Western Europe shrank considerably.

#2 "Volaré," recorded 1989

Written by D. Modugno and F. Migliacci, adapted by Gipsy Kings
Performed by the Gipsy Kings, formed in Arles (France), 1976
The Best of the Gipsy Kings Nonesuch 9 79358-2 ©1995

According to Billboard’s charts, the Gipsy Kings are the all-time best-selling world music ensemble. They’re from Arles, France and have led the world music charts in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, and 1996. They are the only world music group so far to have a record go platinum. Their self-titled 1987 "debut" album on Elektra sold its 1,000,000 copy in June of 1995. I put "debut" in quotes because the group had recorded before under their Gypsy family name Los Reyes, but did not achieve any commercial success until they updated their name and their sound at the behest of their manager Claude Martinez. Although the group has continued to sing in gitane (a dialect mixing French, Spanish, and Catalan), they changed their traditional acoustic sound by blending flamenco with European pop as in this tune "Volaré." (Anyone feel like buying a car, especially a luxury sedan?)

#3 "The Mummers’ Dance," 1997 6:07

Written and performed by Loreena McKennitt
The Book of Secrets Warner Bros. 9 46719-2 ©1997

One of the most striking features of the Billboard World Music chart is the dominance of Celtic music: Clannad, The Chieftains, Loreena McKennitt, Altan, and Mary Black fill 31 percent of the top 16 spots on the charts from 1990&emdash;96. They help exemplify the North American and Western European dominance of world music sales: "If it isn’t Celtic or the Gipsy Kings, it’s very hard to get on the Billboard World Music chart," observes Suzanne Hannema, U.S. product manager for Real World, the English record label founded by Peter Gabriel. Born in Canada, Loreena McKennitt has capitalized on America’s fascination for a lost (white) ethnic past. Recorded in Real World Studios, "The Mummer’s Dance" currently receives significant air play on MTV. The piece combines contemporary pop (the rich string arrangement and drumming) with sonic references to Ireland such as the synthesized buzz of a mellow bagpipe and traditional folk percussion scrapers. The congas also create an geographical stretch&endash;a reference to African. According to her liner notes:

Note how the appeal to an ancient tradition in Turkey, Greece, and the Middle Ages appeals to the consumers of new age spirituality.

#4 "Pump Me Up," 1995 4:44

by Edwin Yearwood
Performed by Krosfyah (pronounced Cross Fire)
Originally from Ultimate Party, Rhadika Publishing ©1995
Caribbean Party Putumayo World Music 132-2/M132-2 ©1997

Another World Music chart phenomenon is the compilation. Extremely cheap to produce these theme albums appeal to an impulse consumer interested in learning more about World Music but unfamiliar with any individual group. (These discs are usually sold at a slight discount to encourage spontaneous purchasing.) Rather than an education in another culture’s music, however, consumers usually find a selection of ethnically flavored pop tunes designed to appeal to pre-established niches in the pop music market. What the record label hopes is that consumers will buy the discounted collection, fall in love with one of the songs, and then go buy the original album. "Pump Me Up" is taken from an album entitled "Putumayo Presents Caribbean Party" by Putumayo World Music. The group’s name is a good example of the conscious appeal to the American market as "Krosfyah" looks exotic, but sounds familiar ("cross fire"). According to the liner notes:

What disturbs me about this selection of music is that it removes the political satire and power of calypso and reggae. What is the subject of this tune? Do you agree with me that it’s been constructed with a profit motive in mind by conforming to an American image of the Caribbean as a tourist paradise?

#5 "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes," 1986

Words and music by Paul Simon (b. 1941)
beginning by Paul Simon and Joseph Shabalala
Performed by Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo (formed 1964, vocals); Chikapa "Ray" Phiri, Paul Simon (guitar); Baghiti Kumalo (bass); Isaac Mtsbali (drums); Youssou N’dour, Babacar Faye, Assane Thiam (percussion); Earl Gardner (trumpet); Leonard Pickett (tenor sax); Alex Foster (alto sax).
Paul Simon/Graceland Warner Bros. 9 ©1986

Like Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon has received harsh criticism for the use and abuse of foreign musicians on his Graceland album and 1987 tour. The album jump-started Simon’s languishing career by winning the 1986 Grammy for Album of the Year. In this light the cover art to the album is quite ironic as it depicts a white conquistador figure spear in hand riding a white stallion. The heavily outlined eyes and high forehead of the figure seem to represent Simon in his glasses. (Note that the #23 single "You Can Call Me Al" became the official theme song for the 1996 Vice Presidential candidate Al Gore.) Yet the issues of positionality and hegemony here are not completely clear. Although the cover of the album says simply "Paul Simon GRACELAND," the interior notes

acknowledge the names of each musician participating on the album. The South African choir Ladysmith Black Mambazo which sings on this track became an international sensation in part because of the high visibility offered them through their collaboration with Simon, especially on TV spots such as Saturday Night Live. (The vocal group has an entry in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia!) Their lead vocalist, Joseph Shabalala is even given co-composer credit for this work’s opening. LBM is a Zulu mbube choir who sing a rhythmic a capella music alternately called mbaqanga, Isicanthamiya, or "township jive." During the height of the war against Apartheid, LBM’s international prominence helped generate sympathy and awareness of the plight of South African blacks. Using the money from their albums, Joseph Shabalala hopes to construct an academy of music at Colenso in South Africa to teach traditional South African culture.

#6 "Saade (‘My Luck’ or ‘I’m Happy’)," 1991

composed by Hassan Hakmoun (b. 1963) and realized by Itaal Shur and Richard Horowitz
Performed by Hassan Hakmoun (lead vocal, sintar); Radouane Laktib(oud, vocal); Said Hakmoun (bander, vocal)
75th Birthday Celebration MCA GRD 2-619 ©1992

Charting a similarly narrow course between artistic collaboration and the commodification of authentic voices from World Music, The Kronos Quartet’s 1992 album Pieces of Africa spent 29 weeks on the Billboard World Music chart and reached #4. Regardless of the classical quartet’s eclectic / rock-star appeal (they have covered Hendrix’s Purple Rain for example), this was the first time they had crossed over to the world music market. While the string ensemble’s founder, David Harrington, has described the collaborative nature of the album&endash;his personal fascination with African drumming and the symbiotic rehearsals involving the quartet and the African composer-performers&endash;the recording’s liner notes tell a different and rather ambiguous story. Hakmoun’s composition, for example, has been "realized" by two other musicians, presumably two competent in Western notational practice. The notes explain very little about the compositions, but rather emphasize the mysticism and simple "primitivism" of these African creators using quotation of short simple sentences rather than the analysis or description that typifies the classical genre and the quartet’s other CD inserts. Hakmoun, for example, supposedly writes:

Yet, in contrast to Simon’s album, the Kronos Quartet gives complete compositional credit to the African musicians &endash; even though Harrington describes it as a process of group creation and collaboration. Why? It may be that the recording company wanted to create the illusion that this music was "authentic" African composition &endash; not classical arrangements of pre-existing compositions. It is in fact an arrangement, or at least, a re-composition of a previous tune to fit a new ensemble format. In an improvisational / oral tradition such as African music, this is not altogether fictional. However the whole category of African music is. Africa is an enormous country with a variety of distinct musical traditions.

#7 "Qu’ran" 3:46, ca. 1981

by Brian Eno (b. 1948, England) and David Byrne (b. 1942, Scotland)
Sample of "Algerian Muslims Chanting Qu’ran" from The HumanVoice in the World of Islam, Tangent Records TGS 131
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts Sire 6093-2 ©1981

One of the first albums to use the Western recording and copyright system to delete the agency of foreign musicians, Eno and Byrne’s 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts features "voices" (i.e., samples) from ten separate field recordings. This song "Qu’ran" features unidentified Algerian Muslims changing from the Qu’ran. The "composers" have used this sound source simply as another instrument or musical building block in their composition. Note how the vocal quality and quiver to the sound influences the guitar sounds. What other images of primitivism does this music call to mind? Do you think that these images are accurate? The album lends a techno / ambient / techno edge to the (at the time) growing fascination with world music? My Life is the pair’s first album outside of their collaboration with the Talking Heads (formed 1975 in New York), for which Byrne was a vocalist and guitarist and Eno was the producer.

#8 "Buffalo Soldier" 1983

by Bob Marley (b. 1945, Jamaica, d. 1981 of untreated cancer in Miami, Fl.) and N.G. Williams, 1983
Legend Tuff Gong 68861 ©1997

Marley’s career exemplifies two facets of world music: 1) the mutation of meaning in music as it shifts from one geographical/political context to the next and 2) the blatant financial exploitation of musicians by the giants of the industry. Despite several huge Jamaican hits in the early and mid 1960s, Marley received few royalties. In 1966, the Wailers disbanded and Marley moved to Newark, Delaware to work in a factory. When he returned to Jamaica, the Wailers reformed and dedicated themselves to the Rastafari religion. In 1971, they formed an independent record company, Tuff Gong, but the venture suffered when Marley was trapped by a contract commitment and had to tour with the American pop singer Johnny Nash (who had moderate hits with two Marley compositions: "Guava Jelly" and "Stir It Up.") It wasn’t until Island Records took over the international distribution (and profits) of Tuff Gong records that Marley became a commercial success. With this exposure and notoriety his music lost much of its political resonance. Many Americans think the group is called Bob Marley and the Whalers (not Wailers) and that reggae is a laid back music for relaxation and sunny days. In fact, reggae is a religious music of social protest. Often the words are encoded so that those unfamiliar with the Rastafari dialect cannot understand it well. The symbols are not hidden however ("Babylon," for example refers not to the Bible as much as to the dominance of the countries of the "First" world. American’s dancing to the phrase "Bring Babylon On Down" creates a brilliant sense of irony.) In this light, who or what is a "Buffalo Soldier?"

#9 "The Governor’s Own," 1921

by Alton Augustus Adams (b. 1889, St. Thomas, d. 1987, St. Thomas)
Performed by The Goldman Band, R.F. Goldman conducting
The Golden Age of the American March New World Records 80266 ©1976

Listening to this march, you’ll probably recognize the familiar strains of American patriotic music, á la John Philip Sousa. Rather than a patriotic American music, however, this is a local music of resistance and native identity disguised as music for the honor of the U.S. naval governor of the Virgin Islands, Governor Oman. Adams was a black composer, in fact, the first black naval bandmaster in the U.S. navy. His local band was inducted wholesale into the U.S. Navy in 1917 when the United States purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark and installed a new and all-white naval administration.

#10 "Jhala II" from Suite for Violin and American Gamelan, 1973

by Lou Harrison
Performed by David Abel, violin with John Bergamo conducting
La Koro Sutro New Albion Records NA 015 ©1988

Californian composer Lou Harrison has engaged with world music on a creative level, but has likewise been accused of reducing foreign cultural traditions to the level of sonic decoration. The American Gamelan is an instrument (or rather a set of percussion instruments) tuned in a tempered Western scale but modeled on the "Gamelan" percussion orchestras of Bali and Java. Harrison spent the 1970s studying with native musicians in order to understand not just the sonic trappings of the exotic, but to work with the compositional procedures and philosophical layerings of this tradition. He has composed works for traditional Gamelan ensembles, but this work is meant for a Western audience and features a Gamelan orchestra and solo violin.

#11 "Themes from Chaka, No. 1" 1996

Written and performed by Akin Euba (b. 1935, Lagos, Nigeria)
Taken with permission from private tape of composer

Currently living in the United States, Akin Euba is both a composer and an ethnomusicologist at the University of Pittsburgh. I got to know him because I wrote an article about him for the International Dictionary of Black Composers (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998). Euba was a child piano prodigy trained in the European tradition at a time when Nigeria was still a British colony. After Nigeria won its independence in 1960, Euba became increasingly involved in cultural politics and embraced traditional Nigerian music. Recently he has been a champion of interculturalism in which European and Nigerian musics are fused. Chaka is an opera for traditional Nigerian and Western European instruments. The story revises official history about an early Nigerian revolutionary fighting for independence. "Who was Chaka?" This is the principal question of Euba’s opera. What does his life mean for contemporary society? Who has the authority to write history and decide? Based upon a poem of the same name by Leopold Sedar Senghor (b. 1906), President of Senegal at the time of Euba’s first version and a prime mover of the pan-Africa movement, the opera recasts the history of Chaka as that of hero and martyr. Dedicated to the Bantu Martyrs of South Africa, the poem retells the story of Chaka, a nineteenth-century king of the Zulu people, considered and portrayed as a blood-thirsty tyrant by European colonists. A brilliant military strategist, Chaka was among the first African leaders to resist the incursion of Europeans and the racist policies that became known as apartheid. "Themes from Chaka, No. 1" is a piano suite based upon the music from the opera and is here performed by the composer. The military theme represents Chaka, while the lyrical melody signifies his lover Noliwe. Note the incursion of the Dies Irae theme borrowed from Western European Catholic Chant &endash; specifically the mass for the dead.