Thursday, January 10, 2013

Globalfest makes NYC a rich crossroads for world music

Globalfest makes NYC a rich crossroads for world music

Christine Salem

Valérie Koch

Christine Sale, from Reunion Island, will perform at Globalfest.

The world comes to New York this weekend.

For the 10th year, the city will host Globalfest, America’s best-curated nexus of sounds from around the planet. Sunday at Webster Hall, fans can hear acts from Zimbabwe, Mali, France, Spain, Canada, Iran, Turkey and Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, as well as Canada and the U.S.A. â€" without leaving a single building.

If those last two countries don’t sound sufficiently exotic, the musicians from them perform styles cooked up in South America, Cuba, the Balkans and other spots.

For the last decade, Globalfest has served two functions. First, it’s a place where music fans can sate their sonic wanderlust. Second, it’s a confab for members of the Arts Presenters Council to book bands for culturally starved places around the country, from Binghamton to Butte.

Careers in America can be launched this way. The artists showcased at Globalfest often go on to become the country’s most talked-about stars from far-flung locales.

Here’s a look at the dozen who make up the class of 2013:

A Tribe Called Red: Was North America’s aboriginal “pow-wow” music the original hip hop? A Tribe Called Red seems to think so. Comprised of three Native American DJs from Ottawa, A Tribe Called Red makes the connection between the drumbeats of this continent’s earliest music and the raps and rhythms of current clubs. To make things more animated, they use as a backdrop archival film of “Indians” while they riff on cultural stereotypes, wrenching the image of aboriginals into something more modern and nuanced.

Christine Salem: Few Americans could pinpoint the island of Reunion on a map. (Hint: Head out to the Indian Ocean and make a hard turn east from Madagascar.) Christine Salem takes traditional music of that French-speaking island and enlivens it with dark, throaty vocals and beats to die for. Salem anchors her music on the rhythms of Maloya music, which she pounds on the kayanm, a drum made from sugar-cane flower stems and seeds. Singing in languages from Creole to Swahili, Salem melds sounds originated in Africa and the Asian subcontinent, with a hint of French wit.

Fatoumata Diawara: The troubled African country of Mali has given the world some of its most sophisticated and accomplished musical acts, from the blind couple Amadou and Mariam to the ace guitarist Ali Farka Tour. Their latest hot export? Fatoumata Diawara, who released her silky, sweet U.S. debut, “Fatou,” this past August. It mixes crisp Western pop with snaking melodies from Diawara’s Wassoulou culture, all of which she delivers in a hot, throaty quaver.

Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan: The musical border between Persia and Turkey finds one of its finest current expressions in the collaboration between two masters: Kalhor plays the kamanche (an instrument which looks like a shrunken fiddle), while Erzincan mans the baglama (a long-necked lute). Together, they spin wild and lovely lilts around each other.

La Santa Cecilia: Much of Latin America’s rhythms march through the music of this six-member, L.A.-based outfit. Elements of rumba, cumbia and bossa nova, as well as boleros and tangos, turn up in their songs, along with splotches of modern alt-pop. They’re enlivened by the voice of mono-monikered Marisoul, who ricochets between the sultry and the gutsy.

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