This Mexican walks into a bar in Brooklyn...

There’s a tendency to view Brooklyn through the lens of hipsterdom. You know, white millennial creative types who populate formerly gritty neighborhoods, driving up real estate prices and driving out long-time residents, gradually transforming a formerly diverse ethnic neighborhood into a homogenous land of pour over specialty coffee, black frame glasses and mountain man beards.

There’s a glimmer of truth in all that. Neighborhoods do change as young people move to them. Sadly, this often causes rents to go up as long-time residents leave for someplace more affordable. What is also true, but not usually accounted for in these stories, is that these creative types are also surprisingly diverse. In some ways, Brooklyn is as it ever was: A destination for immigrants. Two of my favorite ‘world music’ bands, Chicha Libre and Red Baraat, call Brooklyn home. Dev Hynes, an Afro-Brit who records as Blood Orange, makes edgy yet strangely elegant 21^st century R&B. The Dutty Arts DJ collective mashes up all sorts of Latin American sounds to keep dancefloors hopping. The empress of carioca funk, Zuzuka Poderosa, also calls Brooklyn home, and even René Pérez of the Puerto Rican duo Calle 13 is rumored to have a place there. The close proximity of these musicians to one another all but insures that music coming out of Brooklyn often draws from unlikely sources.

And the, there’s Rana Santacruz, a creative if there ever was one. He was born in Mexico City and led an alternative rock band there called La Catrina. That band had an affinity for genre-jumping, sometimes in the course of a single song. Moving to Brooklyn in 2002 only accelerated Santacruz’s eclectic tendencies. He released a well-received recording in 2010 called Chicavasco and has just come out with a second, Por Ahi. 

What Rana Santacruz has most in common with many other Brooklyn artists is a drive to make music on his own terms. Colors and styles that engage him work their way into his canvas, but his music isn’t calculated to cross over in the direction of the mainstream. Instead, it asks politely that you travel a bit to get to where he’s at. If you do, there’s much to reward you.

I’m going to refrain from a track-by-track analysis, but depending on where you drop the metaphorical needle, you are going to hear bits of several musical styles going on at once. French chanson, bluegrass breakdowns, Celtic sea chanties, East European polkas and more are interwoven with Mexican and other Latin American forms like son jarocho, mariachi, cumbia and tango. This all might play out as an amusing diversion if not for the fact that Santacruz is a first rate songwriter of the storyteller variety, vividly creating characters with their various passions, desires and obsessions. In an Anglo context, both Randy Newman and Tom Waits are masters of this form. Santacruz aspires to be among them, and judging from the songs on Por Ahi, he’s got the chops to pull it off.

All of these stories are in Spanish, but if you’re an English dominant whose grasp of other languages is shaky (yes, my hand is raised here) you can follow along with a translated lyric booklet. To be sure, Santacruz has not abandoned Mexico. Rather, he’s expanded its cultural reach and found a new context in which an old Mexican form—the corrido—can flourish. The music is resolutely acoustic, but does not lack for energy. Banjo and fiddle figure prominently, as do mariachi horns. Santacruz leads on accordion, and though he’s no Flaco Jimenez, the instrument provides just the right amount of color to enliven the arrangements and lend credibility to other genres like tango, Irish reels and Gypsy jazz.

As long as Brooklyn keeps producing music like this, I’ll keep listening.

 

Music without walls

Miles of Aisles

Back in my record retail days, I used to joke with my colleagues that if we owned the store, it would be one big A-Z section. The impetus was often something like a new Prince CD, or (then) Chicago Symphony Orchestra conductor Daniel Barenboim recording an album of tangos. An inventory tag was always attached that we were sworn to obey. Prince could rock out, but the directions said file under R&B. Plenty of music borrowed from multiple sources: funked up jazz, poppy disco, Celtic rock. Still, the categories served a function, guiding curious explorers to the section where they were likely to find a concentration of the artists and titles they might like. There's a problem with this, though. In a relational sphere, James Brown and Fela Kuti were spiritually much closer together than, say, James Brown and Michael Jackson. But they weren't in the same section, so how would you know?

Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events just created their all encompassing A-Z section. They took a handful of formerly separated free music series at Millennium Park and combined them. One of them, called Music Without Borders, was retired a few years ago. Its focus was that curious category called 'world music', which pretty much meant anything originating from somewhere other than the United States. I loved it. It was for me. Implicit in that, though, was a thorny problem: Is the United States not part of the world? What, then, of James Brown and Fela Kuti?

I loved Music Without Borders so much that, for the life of me, I can't remember what was on the stage during the other nights of the week during it's 8 week summer existence. I do know that, if I have my chronology right, two distinct series emerged in its wake, the mostly rock Downtown Sound and the mostly experimental new music Loops and Variations. Downtown Sound occasionally presented world music artists, and when they did I took the train downtown to attend some pretty memorable concerts. But I was inconsistent, and I never went to Loops and Variations. It was not, um, my thing. Sometimes we think we know what something is about before we even check it out. Sometimes, we're wrong.

Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park

It, perhaps, wasn't a lot of people's thing. For 2015, the label has been retired. Instead, the city has greatly expanded Downtown Sound and essentially put these three seemingly divergent categorizations on equal footing. In the process, they seem to have made a conscious decision to breach a few walls and, if the saints are willing, this move will expose a lot of Chicagoans to music that isn't their thing.

All of it, at cursory listen, sounds engaging and fun. I know this because the internet is a wonderful thing and an enterprising person named Bryan Kevton built what appears to be an unofficial website guide to the whole series, which very helpfully lists all dates and artists in chronological order that is easy to read on your phone and includes one Soundcloud track for each artist.

Go through it. Date by date. Artist by artist. Listen by listen. All 31 of them. You'll probably find a thing or two that you don't particularly like, a few things that you love, and a fair number that lie somewhere on a continuum between the two and that you'll hopefully be curious about.

David Wax Museum

It's already happened to me. On July 23, the ultra traditional Mexican son jarocho group Los Cojolites are headlining over the Boston based indie rock band David Wax Museum, who borrow heavily from Mexican music. My old employer would have filed them on opposite ends of the store, but as a double bill it's a brilliant conception. Los Cojolites grabbed my attention first, but now my universe has suddenly expanded as I learn more about David Wax Museum.

Third Coast Percussion

The summer is full of nights like that. Poi Dog Pondering, a favorite of my young(ish) adulthood that transformed itself from a multi-ethnic folk group to a multi-ethnic dance party upon migrating to Chicago in the early 1990s, is preceded by a woman from Minneapolis named Caroline Smith that has a rootsy folk-jazz sound that is absolutely beguiling. The eclectic yet highly listenable Snarky Puppy, whose world jazz (uh-oh, another hybrid category - where the hell am I going to file them?) reminds me a bit of everything from highly polished L.A. studio fusion to NOLA groove to Afropop, will be preceded by the avant-classical ensemble Third Coast Percussion interpreting composer Terry Riley's seminal minimalist work In C. (Easy, file in the most obscure corner of the classical department.)

Or how about this one? The kick ass retro R&B of Sonny Knight and the Lakers opening for Antibalas, who carry on the AfroBeat tradition in both the musical and revolutionary sense. Yep, it's that James Brown-Fela thing again.

It's like this, over and over. San Fermin creates multi-layered and slightly unsettling chamber pop that is nonetheless pretty damn catchy and is paired on this gig with a barely melodic percussion quartet. The Very Best samples and cross-purposes various sounds in an African context that brings to mind So-era Peter Gabriel, yet to get to them you will be treated to the electro-disco wonderland of Glass Lux. Not so sure about that last one, but I'm going. The London Souls are loud hard rock (my inner AC/DC can't wait to hear an electric guitar crunch coming from that hallowed stage) but I'll be sure to get there early for the quirky Czech (my people!) pop of Eggnoise. Matthew Sweet's Time Capsule collection is a CD I would want with me if stranded on that proverbial desert island, but the DIY pop of Sweet's opener In Tall Buildings has its charms as well. There's even a reggae night featuring the legendary Mighty Diamonds. Pass the kouchie from the left hand side, just watch out for security.

Ondatropica

And I haven't even mentioned the single (for me) most anticipated show of the year, the long awaited Chicago debut of Colombian / British collective Ondatropica. But even here, the opener is another 'world music' artist that so far hasn't excited me much, Helado Negro. People far smarter than me like him quite a bit though, and now I get to hear him live and maybe reevaluate my previous stance.

There was one thing about the old Music Without Borders that made it special, and that was the city's sincere efforts to make sure that the ethnicities and nations represented on stage were represented in the audience as well through tireless outreach. There is something about Downtown Sounds that has the air of being for the cool kids. And that is cool, no doubt about it. Cool kids have pretty good taste. But I also hope to see, for example, when King Sunny Ade strolls on stage, a large contingent of African expats in the audience, thirsty for a taste of home. That's where the joy begins.

Chicago music fans will have the opportunity to tear down a few walls this summer. We'll see if they do.

Goin' "globo"

One of the pleasures of living in Chicago is that it is also home to jazz trumpeter Orbert Davis. I'm not sure when we met, but if you are paying close attention to music in Chicago, he's a hard guy to avoid. He is, of course, a musician of amazing dexterity and taste, but he's also an ambitious conceptualist and visionary, unafraid to pursue daunting projects, not the least of which was the founding of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic in 2004.

Meanwhile, Chicago is likewise the home (and by home I mean I'm pretty sure that's where he sleeps at night) of Howard Levy. A virtuoso harmonica player, he's also a terrific pianist. I know him mostly as music director of Chévere de Chicago, a Latin jazz supergroup if there ever was one, but the rest of the world might know him better as a founding member of Bela Fleck & the Flecktones.

A year doesn't go by when I don't encounter one of these guys in performance. Chévere killed at the Chicago Jazz Festival last year, and the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic's 2013 collaboration with River North Dance Chicago, Havana Blue, was simply one of the best concerts I experienced that year.

It's about time these two got together.

One of Levy's ongoing projects is the world music ensemble Trio Globo. He's not the 'leader' per se, but an equal partner with drummer/percussionist Glen Velez and cellist Eugene Friesen. Over the course of three albums, they've explored a a rich mix of Eastern European folkloric music, American bluegrass, Latin rhythms and, of course, jazz. This weekend, Trio Globo will be the guests of the Chicago Jazz Philharmonic Chamber Ensemble for a pair of performances.

Writing for strings in an improvisational context means that you need to capture the swing of jazz, even when the musicians are playing notes on paper. Fortunately, Orbert Davis has already shown some pretty heavy chops in this area through the many ambitious projects tackled by the CJP. And despite the presence of piano and harmonica, Trio Globo's acoustic sound often brings to mind a rural front porch jam session. The fiddles just seem to be there, even if they are not.

If Trio Globo has attempted this sort of thing before, I'm unaware of it. Davis, meanwhile, seems to have no end to his curiosity at trying new challenges. New projects are, of course, fraught with risk. Lucky for us that there seems to be something in the water here in Chicago from which artists can drink, get a little tipsy, and think "Why the heck not?"

Sound Culture Celebrates its 5th Anniversary

This article was originally published at Agúzate, the website of an organization in Chicago that is dedicated to Afro-Latin music and culture. But, because it fits so well with the overall purpose of this blog, I'm reproducing it in full here. At one point in this interview, we talk about the Celebrate Clark Street Festival and my neighborhood, which I've written about before. Click here and here if you want to check that out.

On to the article... 

This Saturday, May 3, Sound Culture Center for Global Arts will mark 5 years of presenting global music in Chicago with a party at Subterranean in Wicker Park. We at Agúzate know Sound Culture well, having partnered with them to bring Novalima, Orquesta Macabeo, Henry Cole & the Afrobeat Collective and several others to Chicago. I sat down with Sound Culture founder and Artistic Director David Chavez to talk about Sound Culture and the Chicago world music scene.

“I had done programming for different institutions, HotHouse, Uncommon Ground, and Morse Theater” says Chavez, a Chicago native of Salvadoran immigrants who makes his home in Albany Park. “I felt like I was always starting over at each of them…  I saw a chance to build my own community and institution around what I am most passionate about, multiculturalism and music.​  Sound Culture was a vehicle to realize my own vision and mission to expand the audience for international music.”

Sound Culture Director David Chavez

The organization began when Chavez and Amor Montes de Oca (of Arte y Vida Chicago) started programming global music by local and international artists for HotHouse after they vacated their South Loop venue, producing shows at various donated spaces throughout the city. They celebrated their first anniversary with the Nomadic World Music Festival, presenting 10 shows at 5 venues in April of 2010.

When Mayne Stage in Rogers Park opened in 2011, it became Sound Culture’s primary (though not only) venue. “Mayne Stage provides the perfect setting for the majority of my shows” Chavez states. “It's classic but not pretentious, it's open to all ages and accessible, the sound and AV are the best in the city, it's suitable for either a dancing show like Sierra Leone's Refugee All S​tars, or sit down show like the Eddie Palmieri Quartet.” He continues, “They've also been genuinely interested in Sound Culture's programming and as a brand, not just the  ​dollars and cents.”

Chavez had been involved in the Rogers Park community prior to starting Sound Culture. “I'd been programming Celebrate Clark Street (an annual summer festival in Rogers Park) for many years before Morse Theater turned into Mayne Stage. That festival is very special because it has defied the cookie cutter festival landscape that currently exists in Chicago.  It's not about selling beer and listening to cover bands.  It's about celebrating the cultural diversity of the neighborhood both on and off stage.”

As a Rogers Park resident, I can attest to Chavez’ assessment of the festival’s vibe as well as his description of the neighborhood’s diversity. In recent years the modest street party has evolved into a de facto second Chicago World Music Festival.  It’s one of the things I love about living here.

When I ask Chavez about some of his most memorable shows, it’s a pretty long list. “I really try to produce shows that are culturally significant.  And so when you start with that, you set the bar high for yourself from the get go.  Susana Baca, Eddie Palmieri, Gregory Porter, Sargent Garcia, Idan Raichel, Orquesta Aragón, Brownout, Wake Up Madagascar with Jaojoby, Bomba Estereo, O​rchestre P​oly Rythmo de C​otonou, Novalima, Juana Molina, DakhaBrakha… ​I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot.”

Chavez has also been a DJ since he was 18, and he changed his nom de disc to DJ Sound Culture after starting the organization. “The musical aesthetic and message in the artists that I presented on stage was the same as what I was spinning anyway.  So to me, they go hand in hand and provide two different vehicles to carry the same sound culture message, albeit to two different audiences in most cases.“ 

About those different audiences: “I feel like the world music scene is in transition, a good portion is graying but there's also an emerging generation coming into the fold.” Chavez continues, “Apart from wanting to expand the audience for world music across the city I also wanted to expand it to a new generation of globally minded music audience. I've been a key player in helping to develop a global bass scene in Chicago, a predominantly dance music oriented audience that tends ​to erase national borders and cross cultural lines both musically and on the dance floor.”

And that brings us to this Saturday’s anniversary party. The lineup is a slice of everything that makes Sound Culture unique and important.  For one thing, the event is timed to coincide with International Workers Day. For another, it features music from out of town as well as local artists. Finally, DJs will keep the groove going when the bands aren’t playing.  All of the artists fit it well with Chavez’ mission. I can hear the passion as he describes the lineup.

Boogat

“Boogat, from Montreal, is one of those artists that straddle the live and the electronic; his message is often one from an immigrant experience or one of self identity as a minority in an Anglo Francophone culture. Very in tune with the International Workers Day theme. Los Vicios de Papa is a hometown hero also championing human, worker and immigrant rights. They were probably the first real Latin band in Chicago that wasn't conforming to traditional salsa or Mexican regional music and resonating with young 1st and 2nd generation urban Latinos. DJ's Chief Boima and Geko Jones, from New York City, have a new Africa Latina project that celebrates the African diaspora in Latin America.”

Add in other local favorites like SOULPHONETICS, Esso! Afrojam Funkbeat, Las Selectas, the FEx DJ collective (collaborators for this event) and a set from DJ Sound Culture himself, and it’ll be quite a night.

I’ll see you on the dance floor!

Monolingual in a multilingual world

I've been an avid listener to global music for something like 25 years. One might even say I'm somewhat of a fanatic. It started when I picked up my first Ruben Blades record, or maybe Bob Marley. In all that time, I haven't had the slightest idea what most of the artists were singing about. (Thank you Mr. Marley for being born in Jamaica.) There were always a few artists that were explicitly trying to crack the Anglo market and thought it advantageous to include printed English lyrics or detailed liner notes with the package. Other than this, I was on my own. For a long time, though, that was fine. Whether it was Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic... I considered it all part of the music, an aural element in the mix, one more texture and color. I even told myself it was better that way, that I could dig the music more because I wasn't distracted by the lyrics.

I've come to realize that's bullshit. But it might be too late for me.

I've been fitfully trying to learn Spanish for several years. I dropped almost $500 on Rosetta Stone software, lured by their promise of fluency. It didn't go well. I was a good student for several weeks, dutifully donning my headphones for a half hour a day, running through the lessons. I think I made it to Level 3 of the first chapter. Much of it, though, was excruciating. I was good enough at picking out the right word, and my pronunciation skills weren't half bad. But when it came time to freestyle, to actually think, to figure out the right response to a question, I froze up, my brain rapidly tumbling into panic as I grasped for a lifeline.

After a while, I gave up. And, mostly, that's OK too. I live in a country and society where it's more important for non-English speakers to figure out my language than for me to understand theirs. So, despite my interest in cultural exchange, my fascination with issues around migration, my wanting to have some understanding of how the world works, I muddle through.

I've traveled to Puerto Rico several times, a few of them by myself, taking advantage of the fact that over a century of American colonialism will ease my gringo way. Hell, I can read road signs, and tourism insures that in places like San Juan, I'll find plenty of folks who will humor me. But I have a memory seared in my brain of visiting the La Guancha boardwalk in Ponce and looking for a table in a lovely open air restaurant. La Guancha isn't exactly locals only, but as I tried to figure out where to sit (the restaurant seemed to be divided into casual and more formal sections) I was a bit confused. So I asked for help. The waitress (hostess?) didn't speak English, and you already know about my Spanish. Panicked, I left and got some pinchos de pollo and a beer at a stand a bit farther down. Hey, anybody can point, signal quantity and pull out their wallet. Even me.

I began dating a woman from Guatemala three years ago, and have fallen deeply in love with her. I have every reason to believe we will be life partners. My fondest wish is that we'll retire somewhere in Latin America, living out our days in some idyllic coastal village that will somehow also have access to all the great things that urban life provides. And, given my lack of Spanish skills, I'll be somewhat lost.

When we started dating, I thought, OK, this is it, I'm going to be spending a lot of time around Spanish speakers. I'm finally going to learn some Spanish. (I should mention here that I took two years of the minimum required high school Spanish plus two semesters in college. It's not like I wasn't previously exposed to it.) Indeed, many of my girlfriend's friends are also from Latin America. Further, many of them are writers and poets in their native tongue. They are also by and large wonderful people, so when I'm around, they speak in my language. I'm grateful, of course, but I also have an awareness that they are doing me a favor, that they'd rather be speaking Spanish.

I regularly attend something called Palabra Pura, a bilingual spoken poetry and literature series that takes place above a Puerto Rican restaurant in Humboldt Park. That doesn't mean that everything is presented twice - it means that the writers use the language in which they can best express themselves. Many are Latinos, born in the US, growing up speaking English in public, Spanish at home. And then, of course, there is Spanglish, that fluid movement between two poles, using the one that has exactly the right word. Unlike music, there are only words for me to process at Palabra Pura. So, when Spanish predominates, I struggle, listening intently, catching random words, missing meaning. I've come to realize that I am missing the meaning of all that music as well.

I've begun to think that I'm suffering from the Michael Jordan syndrome. You know, Michael Jordan. Supremely athletic, perhaps the greatest basketball player of all time. At the age of 30, he decided that he wanted to play professional baseball. It was a disaster. See, Mike didn't learn how to hit a curve ball when he was young, and by 30 it was too late.

I'm way past 50. When I took those Spanish classes 30 something years ago, I was more interested in getting by than learning. I had no curiosity. I barely squeaked out of high school on schedule, and though I got a bit more serious in college, I still did the minimum, relying on superior test scores instead of hard work and studying. Now, I fear, I've lost the ability to make up for my youthful negligence. I look at my Rosetta Stone headphones, curled up on my nightstand, gathering dust, and I'm frustrated and angry with myself.

I generally celebrate that which I don't know, an essential component of learning. When it comes to language, though, I feel the presence of this thick, gauzy wall. It gives a little bit from time to time, only to close up once again, with me on this side and knowledge on the other. There's a whole world out there that I might never quite understand because of this, nuances I'll never grasp, poetry I'll never feel.

I suppose I'll keep muddling along and perhaps, with time, the gauze will begin to wear thin and show a few holes, revealing the mysteries beyond. Until then, I'll keep pointing and signaling.

What goes around...

I recently wrote a brief preview article for Arte y Vida Chicago of an upcoming concert by Novalima, a band that I'm familiar with and like quite a bit. As I put it together, I had a whole bunch of thoughts that there wasn't room for, prompted by my musings on travel and the two-way nature of global exchange.  I've got room here, though....

In the age of sampling, with hip hop's aesthetic of combining disparate elements to fresh and new effect, global dance music has flourished. The Washington D.C. based DJ duo of Rob Garza and Eric Hilton have been doing it for almost two decades as Thievery Corporation, a name I always took as a sly reference to the liberal borrowing of sampled exotica that they layered into their early recorded projects. I'm not sure if they were the first to do so, but like most that were good at it, the studio sampling was soon supplemented by live musicians who could take their multi-kulti kaleidoscopic sound to the stage.

Soon, there were other examples of this new sound emerging out of the dance clubs, like the Paris-based Gotan Project's take on tango. DJs around the world were introducing ethnic sounds into club sets or, just as often, injecting electronic beats into local traditions, packing dance floors in São Paulo, Beirut, Mumbai... pretty much everywhere.

Novalima

In the midst of this freewheeling global exchange stepped four kids from Lima, Peru who dug rock, pop, salsa, reggae, dance and electronic music.  One stayed in Lima, but the others headed off to make music in London, Barcelona and Hong Kong. They stayed in touch, though, e-mailing song ideas back and forth in a long distance collaboration that became Novalima. And what they settled on for a creative anchor was music from home, Afro-Peruvian traditions dating back centuries. Returning to Lima, the core members sought out the best traditional musicians to give organic life to their vision, forming a powerful live band that now takes Afro-Peruvian music to the world stage in a form that is irresistible to club kids and musicologists alike.

Musical blending is probably as old as music itself, and there are dozens of current examples of artists creating out of their own traditions and pumping up the volume with electronics, hip-hop, funk and rock. Novalima has been doing it since 2001, and I find something charming and perhaps even reassuring in their back story, that you can travel the globe making discoveries and yet find your muse is something that was back home all along. It's about holding on to your cultural identity even as you participate as a citizen of the world. Still, you return changed by those journeys, and out of that comes something new.

Novalima is, in a sense, kind of a mirror image to Thievery Corporation, who cast about for global sounds to spice up their dance floor mix. Novalima brought dance beats (and a lot more) back home and integrated them into their own traditions, creating a sound that is culturally authentic and at the same time thoroughly up-to-the minute. You might want to check it out for yourself.

Colombia Three Ways

Nope, it's not the lastest chef creation from Las Tablas Colombian Steakhouse.

It's three bands back to back at the Celebrate Clark Street Festival on Saturday. One stuck to tradition, while another applied psych-rock riffs and traced cumbia's migrations to other parts of Latin America. A third incorporated ska and delivered power to the people anthems worthy of the Clash. All three made for an exhilarating (and exhausting) two and a half hours of dancing in the streets.

Dos Santos Antibeat Orquesta - Cumbia may have originated in Colombia, but like reggae it has spread throughout Latin America. As things do when they arrive in new regions, the original chemistry is altered in accordance with local customs. When cumbia arrived in Peru in the 1960s, it was adapted by local musicians and renamed chicha, after the mind-altering corn liquor favored by indigenous locals. At once traditional and modern, it became a psychedelic sound when surf guitars, wah-wah pedals, farfisa organ and other western rock elements were added (not to mention that corn liquor). Dos Santos specializes in this with both original songs and vintage covers. They also explore what happened to cumbia in Panama and other destinations, and I love that their full name is a sly tip of the sombrero to Fela Kuti's African rebel music.  I'm told that the band has only been together a couple of months, but they were remarkably tight, and I'm very eager to hear what they do as they write more songs.

Los Vicios de Papá - These guys are local favorites of mine. Their brand of cumbia is heavily flavored by Jamaican ska filtered through 1970's England and the greatest punk band of all time, the Clash. At least that's the way I hear it. Ska was introduced to England by Caribbean immigrants, and it's sound was adopted by what were known as 'two-tone' bands because they very deliberately included both blacks and whites in their membership when racism and nationalism were flourishing under Margaret Thatcher. No band better represented this anti-racist, anti-colonialist stance than the Clash, who soon turned their insightful gaze on the rest of the world, including the U.S. interventions in Southeast Asia and Latin America, adding a world of rhythms to the original rock and ska. Los Vicios is the sound of Latin America reflected back, and between the irresistible dance rhythms and shouted choruses of "lucha y libertad!" and "pueblo resiste!", it's party music of the highest order. 

Beto Jamaica Rey Vallenato - And finally, the traditionalist, albeit one with an extremely funky electric bass. Beto is an absolute master of button accordion. I think he's right up there with Tex-Mex wizards like Flaco Jimenez and Esteban Jordan. The stuff he was doing, cranking out two or three melodies at once like an accomplished jazz pianist, was mind boggling. Vallenato, for lack of a better term, is country music from Colombia's interior ranching area, and Beto calling himself "Rey", or King of this sound, isn't much of a stretch. In addition to that funky bass player, his band is mostly made up of traditional percussion that churns along at almost superhuman speed. Hearing them after bands with their modern take on tradition was revelatory, and the number of dancers per square foot (and the waving of Colombian flags) certainly attested to the deep appreciation the crowd felt for this taste of home.

And, hey, that's only day one of the festival.

Celebrate Clark Street: The Music

I recently wrote about where I live and why I like it.  I concluded the post by mentioning that a festival called Celebrate Clark Street will take place in my neighborhood this weekend and that I was looking forward to attending it.  I was also asked by arteyvidachicago.com and chicagomusic.org to write a preview of the festival itself, focusing mostly on the music.

Here's the beginning of the preview. To read the rest, click on the link at the end.  Enjoy!
____________________

Fans of world music would be wise to take the Red Line north to Rogers Park this weekend. That’s where the 8th Annual Celebrate Clark Street Festival takes place on Clark between Morse and Estes. The neighborhood is as diverse and eclectic as they come, and the fest embraces this with food, art and music.

About that music: For the past three years, it’s been programmed by David Chavez of the Chicago based global arts organization Sound Culture, which has brought world music artists to Mayne Stage and other venues around the city. Thus, what was already a fun street party has recently turned into a de facto world music festival that ranks among the best of the city’s musical offerings.

Some highlights include:

Click here to read the rest.