13 October 2013

Martinique

Re-uploaded by request 06/07/2024
 


With its striking Afro-French creole culture, Martinique nurtures a strong heritage of unique music: drum dances, work songs, quadrilles, story songs, & popular urban styles such as beguine & mazouk.

Alan Lomax traveled extensively throughout the West Indies in the spring of 1962. His plan was to record traditional music throughout the area. The region was in flux at the time as many colonial holdings were being relinquished & many of the islands were gaining independence. The recordings that Lomax made in Martinique represent music that to a great extent no longer exists. He turned over copies of his recordings to the University of the West Indies where they have become invaluable local resources. Lomax wanted to release his recordings but that never happened until 2001 when Rounder released this.
 


 
Lomax's recordings are remarkable for illuminating three essential facets of Martinican music: there is rural folk music with direct ties to the Martinican African antecedents as represented by the Sainte-Maire sessions; there is rural/small town music with European derivation as represented by the haute taille; & indigenous popular urban music.

Tracks 1 through 17 are the Sainte-Maire sessions from the North Atlantic region of Martinique. Martinique is divided by a high range of volcanic mountains & the music of the eastern (the North Atlantic) region varies greatly from that of the western Caribbean area. Tracks 18 & 19 are the Le François sessions which are quadrilles from the mid-Atlantic region. Tracks 20 through 23 are the Fort-de-France sessions which is urban popular music. 
 

 Various - Martinique: CaneFields & City Streets, Rounder 11661-1730-2, 2001. 
decryption codes in comments

Tracklist –

Abraham Soulangé Mwen
Bélia Manmay-la
Woulé Mako
O-Mérilo
Etienne
Léonar-o Plan-o
Manman la Grév Baré Mwen
Bonm Kako-la
Carmélite
An Nouvoté Rivé
Lévé Ason Bwa
La Rivyé Léza
Lanso
Conte Guadeloupéen
Jean Mano di “Bouwo Déhye-mwen Alé”
Makak et Chyen
Oh, Madiana
Ti-Anne
Man Ti Sonson Averina
Ti Paul
Bertina
Homage à Ma Mére
Manzé Marie

Tracks: 1-6, 8, 12-13 - Raoul Grivalliers & group; 7, 10-11 Augustin Gourpil & group; 9 & 17 – Raoul Grivalliers, Augustin Gourpil & group; 14-16 – Malcousu Florius & group; 18-19 – Bernard Karaman, Francius Laurence, & Paulimy Laurence; 20 – Loulou Boislaville & orchestra; 21-23 – Hurard Coppet & orchestra.  

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Max Cilla is the Martinican master of the traditional flute. In Martinique he is called 'Le Père de la Flûte des Mornes' (The Father of the Mountain Flute).

The mountainous regions in the French West Indies are called the 'Mornes. The term also refers to the deep countryside, the big forests, which inspire mystical dreams. These dreams feed the imagination of storytellers, poets & musicians. The Mornes used to be the hide-out of run-away slaves. The Mornes are rich in history & vitality, where the breath of the spirit is felt & heard more intensely. It is known as the house of the Gods the legends have it. It is in the Mornes of Martinique in the middle of the countryside deep in the forests that the bamboo flute was born. It is a transverse flute with six holes. It goes by the popular name of 'toutou 'n bambou' (the sonorous bamboo tube).
 


 
Early on, Max Cilla became aware that an accumulation of the various historical & naturalistic attributes had gathered around the Mornes which magnified in them the rich symbols of natural & cultural values, the vibrant symbols of the authenticity of being, & the mighty symbols of resistance to all attempts at alienation & indoctrination.
 
With these deep convictions he set about to restore the presence of the 'toutou 'n bambou' to give it the place it deserved in organology (organology is the science of musical instruments & their classification. It embraces the study of instruments' history, instruments used in different cultures, technical aspects of how instruments produce sound, & musical instrument classification. There is a degree of overlap between organology, ethnomusicology which are both subsets of musicology, & the branch of the acoustics devoted to musical instruments). 
 


 
From the outset Cilla had the inspiration to legitimize the 'toutou 'n bambou' by naming it 'la Flûte des Mornes'. He has made the flute a living symbol whose breath propulses & animates the energies of life, of joy, of light. Since the 1970s Max Cilla has championed the qualities of this flute, not only as a specific instrument, but also as the vehicle of a style of musical expression synonymous with Martinique itself. He has had to persevere for long years to see the flute emerge into the respect he wanted for it. His research enabled him to work out a precise method of making the flute, of enhancing its tonalities, of creating a tablature unique to its music.

Author, composer, instrumentalist, flute maker, leader of a musical group, whose compositions are inspired by the rural oral tradition of Martinique, Max Cilla, after a 30-year career, offers music of both universal spirituality & deep roots, full of life, joy, & dancing, creating a harmonious alliance of melodies & rhythm.

On La Flûte des Mornes Vol II, the musicians are: Max Cilla – flutes en bamboo, ti bwa, & güiro; Michel Cilla – bass tambour & sound effects; Alex Soudin – bèlè drum & ti bwa; Sissi – congas; Joel Zebe – ti bwa; Georges E. Nouel – piano & ti bwa; Max Corneli - double & electric bass; & Jean Marie Courtois – synthesizer with Lucie Gascon – concert harp; Henri Guedon – ti bwa; & Roland Brival – accordion. The ti bwa is a percussion instrument made out of a piece of bamboo laid horizontally & beaten with sticks. The güiro is a Latin-American percussion instrument consisting of an open-ended, hollow gourd with parallel notches cut in one side played by rubbing a stick or tines along the notches to produce a ratchet-like sound.


 Max Cilla - La Flûte des Mornes Vol II, Coco Sound CS 750, 1988.


Tracklist –

Le Chant d’un Pauvre
La Danse des Bambous
L’Habitation Rochelle
Cadense Libre de L’Oiseau Pipiri
Mantra Solaire

Enjoy,
 



11 comments:

  1. key for flute des mornes not working!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have re-uploaded La Flûte des Mornes.

      Delete
  2. Now it's the Cane Fields that doesn't work (for me).

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you thank you!

      Delete
    2. Just in the process of fixing the gap in the Around the World project. Sorry it had been so long (June 3 last year) but if you follow things around here, lost music files (7T+), finally data retrieved by a dear friend & getting around to mending the fences. Thank you for the thank you.

      Delete
    3. Wow, good thing that it ended up good.

      Mine was/is tough too: three-month hospital stay that only ended a month ago, with complications still going, etc. Music keeps me going. Cheers.

      Delete
  3. can you reupload this one

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Both are re-upped. the decryption codes are below. Thanks for letting me know about the dead links. Enjoy.

      Delete
  4. La Flute des Mornes vol 2
    eqmh46u6qbFoNArdlGrvEWLWsfriATc6GtKs3bGwSq0
    Cane Fields & City Streets
    hqBc5uyNjPdcilkgd5ahsifGOgzpfS-YQA8dhJxSI2U

    ReplyDelete