Back in 2004, I had the luxury of accompanying master Derek Wang on his BubbaBoard in front of a packed house at Tonic as part of the New Interfaces for Musical Expression class taught by Gideon D’Arcangelo at NYU ITP. Just came across this footage, ripped from Derek’s old NIME blog. Clearly some things last the test of time.
I also performed a solo piece based on video tracking, but that performance ended in disaster, and I believe the footage is lost, if it ever existed… I certainly never had a copy… I’ll ask around to see if I can dig it up.
It was after escaping to Tangier that I discovered Rouicha. I was sojourning in the Hotel de Paris, venturing out into the evening streets only to watch the jalaba’d men walking hand-in-hand down the avenue while the kids hawked contraband $1 marloboro reds from tea salon to salon. After a few days, they knew to leave me alone. I would venture out to the outskirts of town on my thousand dollar Seattle-bought Bianchi Volpe by day, finding refuge in the mint tea cliffs of the slums overlooking the deep blue Mediterranean waters by eve, only to return to pick up a tape each night from the local music shop down the street. They quickly learned my tastes, and I would steal away after a seamless transaction in the late hours into my hotel room playing Gnaoua, Rai, and classic Berber hits as a result of merely being there. But it was all Rouicha, all the time. Nobody plays the turtle hide quite that way.
Gnaoua isn’t bad, but a bit African for my tastes.
It was only when flying through the Algerian border in my over-rented Land Rover digging deep into the Sahara (and eventually running randomly into old pal Brahim in Rissani) that I was properly introduced between oases by hired hand Abdullah to Cheba Maria, the mistress of Rai.
Sorry Yasmin Levy, you’ve got nothing on Remedios Silva Pisa:
no tengo lugar
y no tengo paisaje
yo menos tengo patria
con mis dedos hago el fuego
y con mi corazon te canto
las cuerdas de mi corazon lloran
naci en alamo
naci en alamo
no tengo lugar
y no tengo paisaje
yo menos tengo patria
Have you ever known a girl to be so infectiously happy about her dispossessed homeland? The best part about being in Seville is to hear this type of music on the public buses. Time to go back and get an infusion of flamenco pop.
Last night, I went out with my mama to see Yasmin Levy sing her “ladino not latino” sephardic music. I was surprised to enjoy it… Unusual for me, I had expected the worst: a dreadlocked Israeli raver who had picked up duende on a two week Israeli bus tour through Andalucia.
Israeli ravers
But actually, Yasmin Levy wasn’t like that. She had a sharp sense of humor about her own music. And we all know that Jews love self-deprecation, so the crowd composed of mostly Jewish women and their yarmulked companions was appreciative. And her music was unique, not attempting to be flamenco, but clearly using the influences in what I opine to be an unaffected way. Not that the music was great, but that it was an honest attempt at something interesting by people who are not relying on cheap musical or performing tricks, which I couldn’t help but remembering is a rare experience to witness.
My mom and I both agreed that she “overdid it” except on the very last song, the encore she requested we give her, which was understated and very good. They would do well to unironically reduce the reverb on her microphone so her perfectly fine singing sounds less “world music”-ish. She also clearly can’t dance, besides a forlorn look she tends to give the audience over her bared right shoulder, which is endearing. She has a very strong, rich voice that of course is necessary for both the spanish and turkik musics from which ladino draws material.
I don’t think the online videos or recorded music represent the experience well, but here she is singing to my favorite Kurd pop singer, Ibrahim Tatslises, sitting on a couch with a random hot blonde woman.
She is no La Paquera de Jerez, but you can’t hold that against anybody. There will only ever have been one La Paquera de Jerez. And while her guitarist was good, he was no Parrilla. But he wasn’t trying to be, so it’s ok.
She’s also nothing like Ibrahim Tatslises. But aren’t there enough mustachioed men in Izmir?
And who is Ibrahim Tatslises compared to Ataturk anyway?
On Friday, Handy and I saw Alessandra Belloni & John La Barbera with I Giullari di Piazza at the Peter Norton Symphony Space in the upper west. As soon as the band arrived, I thought I recognized John La Barbera from somewhere…
John la Barbera
He looked suspiciously like a younger guy at Curtiss’ birthday party I had met a few weeks ago, the night before the Harry Chapin Run Against Hunger (thus explaining my placing 61st in the race as I ran against hunger and a hangover). This guy had made an impression: he had arrived, after I was well on my way to happiness, with an amped-up entourage of two significantly larger women, all smiling, sweaty, and possibly drunk. Could this be the same person? The inimitable Alessandra Belloni introduced him on stage as someone she had begun performing with 30 years ago in Greenwich Village, so it couldn’t be.
Alessandra Belloni seems to be quite a character. Despite her age and girth, she can dance the tarantella with the best of them, and although her demeanor lacks any sensuality as she furrows her brow and manhandles her oversized drum, you get the feeling that she is a three-breasted Awa commanding devotion from her rabble of musicians and dancers.
Three beautiful muscular Italian girls began prancing around on stage, with a tall gangly but graceful Italian guy as their male counterpart. The movement was a mixture of traditional folk dance interspersed with segments of modern interpretive movement.
Antonio Fini
Caterina Rago
Greta Campo
Francesca Silvano
You see, the tarantella is a dance of trance-like exorcism in a traditional society, so it was only a matter of time until the girls began humping and flailing on the floor while Antonio Fini ran around with glow sticks in only his gold lamé underpants.
But I tell you, even that paled in comparison to the presence of Nando Citarella of Napoli. As soon as he stepped up to the microphone in his white linen shirt and pants and bare feet, you knew you were in the presence of a master.
The southern Italian Ninna Nanna lullaby rivals even my own personal favorite Georgian Nina Nana lullaby in its sweet sounding nananess. Nando Citarella does his own rendition in a living room in Napoli.
Contact
Subscribe
Mar 4, 2010 
1 Comment 
2004 nime itp tonic
