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Welcome to Bob's Notes from the Road
The following is Bob's ongoing diary of his non-stop world travels and musical adventures. Bob has been very busy in the past several years, and this section is "under construction" as we try to keep up with his travels (for an abbreviated list of his tour diary, see his Tour Archives, starting with 2000). Bob adds new entries periodically, so check back for the latest notes…
May 2004
SECOND TRIP TO PAPUA NEW GUINEA
In May 2004, we returned for more filming and a little more recording, and to help the bands organize their banking and postal accounts for the project. This time I was invited to Myoko Island, the home of the Ginatta Band. Getting to Myoko involves a two-hour trip in a small boat over the Pacific, east of Rabaul. Myoko is part of a small group of really tiny islands (1 or 2 km diameter), and is the most pristine and idyllic place I ever saw — no electricity, roads, stores, phones, etc, just untouched by modern life…..only grass shacks, coconut, banana, garden greens, spear-fishing.
The village houses are set up in family groups. On the bandleader Alan’s land, the villagers built me my own grass house to sleep in, incredible! Everyone head for bed pretty early, since there is no light, and then we awoke at about 4am, quietly playing guitars with a few of the band members.
One amazing thing there was the tremendously long attention span of the children, completely unlike Western kids. The film will show this incredible place, as well as much footage of the volcanic destruction in and around Rabaul, all of the recording sessions, and public performances.
Back in Rabaul, we did more recording with Alir Pukai, this time in their village. Since we were recording outside, there was a bit of a breeze. So we asked all the villagers to surround the musicians with their bodies, blocking the wind from the microphones. It seemed like a very important and special event for everyone. We tried one of their songs at a slower tempo, which was a little challenging, as the guys were very much used to their normal tempos. After a few tries, the results were beautiful. All of these musicians sing beautifully.
The whole project was very exciting and rewarding. When released with the film, the feeling of the place will be easily conveyed. As things are changing so fast in the world, I feel very glad to have documented this music.
I hope you enjoy the photographs [coming soon]. We hope to have some film footage up on this site soon.
I look forward to unleashing this pure and very lovely music and singing on the world!
October 2003
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
What an amazing place in every way! Through Macquarie University in Sydney, I was sent to PNG for the purpose of recording with five different string bands from East New Britain province (Rabaul town), with Denis Crowdy as engineer co-producer, and Phil Donnison filming the proceedings.
East New Britain, a large island northeast of mainland Papua New Guinea, is home to the Tolai people, and this project centers around their music. Rabaul town, once perhaps the most beautiful town in Polynesia/Melanesia/PNG, was 80% destroyed in 1994 by a massive volcanic eruption, covering most of the area with 2-3 meters deep of thick gray ash, and it still suffers today from 10 years of continual ash fall, which covers everything at a rate of about a millimeter per hour. This is where we stayed, and it proved to be a great endurance test for instruments and equipment for temperature humidity and gritty ash.
This area, however is one of the strongest guitar-band cultures in PNG, and is one of the youngest guitar cultures on the planet, something like Hawaii would have been in 1830-1910. As a result, there are several fascinating string band styles and open tunings unique to the area. The earlier styles of the first generations of PNG stringbands featured a few guitars, one ukulele , and many singers. The slightly younger players added more guitars and developed a distinctive band sound, including one guitarist to play dedicated bass lines. As with Hawaiian and Okinawan music, the bar lines are not regular to Western ears, but follow the lyrics and the feeling of the players, rather than some outside arbitrary rules. The guitars are tuned to a unique nearly-open tuning family, locally called "five-key" (5 different notes). This tuning, example EABEG#E, or the even more unusual E A B F# B D# (or F Bb C G C E) was developed fairly recently, after the guitar arrived in the 1950s and 1960s in standard tuning. These tunings are one note more complex than Hawaiian or blues "four-key" open tunings, in that there is the added IV note (A) in the bass, which helps in accompanying the 3 most often-used chords, I, IV, and V. It was fascinating and wonderful to observe how musicians approach challenges and solve problems. The music is incredibly soulful and uplifting, and the musicians were wonderful kind and gentle people. I found the strongest quality to be an innocence rarely found in music today.
The five bands ranged in style and musical complexity. Gilnatta Band, from the even more remote island of Miyoko, was perhaps the most pure untouched-by-modernism of all the groups, playing in a fascinating simultaneous group plucking sound, with 15 singers producing the most unearthly vocals I ever heard. It reminded my of what Hawaiians must have sounded like in the very earliest days after the arrival of the guitar. Except that the one guitarist in the group playing slow punchy bass lines reminded me of Charley Patton or Barbecue Bob! The Eagles Mixed Band, played in a style first pioneered in the 1960s, using a few guitars tuned to standard tuning, and 12 enormous vocals. Their sound was more influenced by Fijian music, Fiji having received guitars before they spread to East New Britain. The Eagles Mixed Band came from Makupit island, which due to the 1994 eruption, is now contiguous with Rabaul. This is the exact spot where guitars first arrived in Papua New Guinea. The remaining 3 bands, Dropsun, Lions 2000, and Alijopukai, play in the contemporary style developed in villages around Rabaul. When I say contemporary, I don't mean Western-influenced, but contemporary in the sense of individual musicians who are developing within their traditions and pushing the limits of the style. These bands had a higher ratio of players to singers, and the instrumentation typically was 3-6 guitars, ukulele, and one guitarist playing bass lines. The style of "bass" playing that has developed within these contemporary string bands is truly unique, both in the tuning and the phrasing.
As I write this, I am in Sao Paulo state, Brazil a month later, exploring one of the oldest colonial guitar cultures, where the guitars have 10 strings in 5 pairs. This viola caipira (literally country guitar) culture ALSO uses open tunings! (Open D and Open G!) It seems that some really interesting music emerges in areas with limited access to European instruments and little or no access to European style music education (thankfully!). It seems that the further away from cities that colonized guitarists live, the likelihood of open tunings increases. This is also true in blues, if you compare Mississippi Delta Blues with the more harmonically sophisticated (with more standard tuning used) music of the Piedmont or Atlanta area. More and more I am beginning to realize that open tunings were invented everywhere the guitar went outside of Europe, and this brings up several fundamental questions about how human beings apprehend music and solve musical "problems" on their own.
Release of this Tolai Stringband project is expected in 2005, and I am very excited about this one, musically, and also in the facilitating and empowerment of the musicians involved. The music industry as it has been set up in PNG has been very bad for the musicians, almost a sharecropper system, and even worse, there are no copyright laws. So, musicians are really discouraged to record and perform there, and these recording sessions were the first for these people. Now they are inspired to do more, having had a good experience recording in a situation designed to better their circumstances. The pride and conscientious dedication these musicians brought to the sessions was deeply moving.
Papua New Guinea is also one of the countries my new Global Music Aid Foundation will be working with, to provide instruments, strings and other basic musical equipment. For this project I brought a huge amount of strings and tuning gears with me, and they were all well-needed! The instruments there are of the lowest possible quality, made in China, and sold locally at inflated prices. Each day's session began with a massive string-changing and installation of new tuning gears on nearly every instrument! This incredible assembly of over 50 musicians and singers changed my life, and I am changing theirs as well. All proceeds from this CD will be split equally among all of us. For most of these musicians, it will be the first time they have ever actually been paid for their work, both for recording and for composing the music.
I look forward to unleashing this pure and very lovely music and singing on the world!
December 2002
AFRICA TOUR WITH THE RENE LACAILLE ENSEMBLE
In 2002, thanks to René Lacaille and to the Alliance Française, Bob and René's group were funded to visit a string of countries throughout East Africa, including:
- Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa
- Lusaka, Zambia
- Bujumbura, Burundi;
- Kigali, Rwanda;
- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;
- Djibouti City and Tadjara, Djibouti;
- Antananarivo and Antsirabe, Madagascar;
- La Réunion Island;
- Mauritius; and
- Maputo, Mozambique
The following is Bob's personal account of his experiences…
This tour, sponsored by the Alliance Française, took us to French Cultural Centers and outreach concerts through most of East Africa. I had the privilege of joining René Lacaille’s entire group: René (accordion, charango, tschoulas), his son Marc (percussion), Joel Gonthier (percussion), Bernard Marka (percussion), and Aldo Guinart (sax/flute). The traveling was incredible: 29 flights in less than a month! African airports are a little different than Western airports, the most modern having been constructed in the 1960’s. In each country our transport was by van or truck. In general, there is an overwhelming lack of basic infrastructure in Africa, to a degree unimaginable if not seen firsthand. However, due to the lack of refrigeration and industrial food production, I must say the food was incredibly good! Every country we visited had the most wonderful warm, generous and expressive people to be found anywhere on Earth, and the welcome and response we received was just beautiful. Most of the local organizers organized special informal evening meetings with local musicians for listening and jamming, which made each visit even more exciting for us.
Johannesburg and Pretoria, South Africa:
In both places we played at festivals, which were attended by local people in beautiful outdoor settings, with families gathered around cooking fires. It was a pleasure for us to play Miriam Makeba’s Malaika in the country of its composition, and people were very surprised to hear it from us. René’s music, though different than many typical African styles, really resonated with the people.
Lusaka, Zambia:
On our first day in Lusaka, in full blazing tropical heat, there was an hour long hailstorm with half-inch hailstones! This is a beautiful green country, but as with so much of Africa, there is such a poor distribution of wealth that many areas have ongoing hunger issues. The local organizers set up a night in a club for us, before the official concert, so that we could hear the best local groups play, and then play with them. Of one the best groups consisting of three 15-year old women playing guitar bass and drums was our opening act at the concert. They were amazing and could be on any stage anywhere.
Bujumbura, Burundi:
Burundi, next to Rwanda, was also heavily affected by the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and today, while conditions in Rwanda have improved, there is still low-level civil war going on as close as 30km to Bujumbura, when we were there. The scenes of extreme poverty in the streets are heartbreaking. Unfortunately I have since heard that the place where we played was damaged or destroyed in subsequent conflict. It is in Burundi where I met people who are working with street kids to help them learn to read and write and trying to feed and house them. I read through many of the kids’ transcribed “autobiographies” — devastating stories of brutality. One man is working with 500 kids, teaching guitar with ONE guitar (and to think, I know of some US guitar collectors with 500 guitars!). It was here that I began to give serious thought to creating the Global Music Aid Foundation, to get surplus instruments to people like this.
Kigali, Rwanda:
Kigali seemed almost prosperous, compared to Bujumbura, with lots of construction and development. Local people told me that Rwanda is profiting from the war in Burundi. In each concert, we had the right to invite whomever we wanted, so we always invited all the hotel staff and workers, who stayed in back, but shouted the loudest!
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:
Wow! Addis has to be the most swinging town in Africa. It was full of tiny “clubs” where there would be 2 small tables, a small bar for 4 people, and six musicians! Whole blocks of clubs like this, with really wild music. At 8,000 feet elevation, plus the normal heavy air pollution present in all African cities, we spent a fair amount of time being a bit dizzy! We performed at the Ethiopian-Italian Cultural center, and had the privilege of meeting some of the greatest Addis musicians. Ethiopian people are very beautiful, with distinct faces and high foreheads, and their alphabet is over 3,000 years old. They seem to feel distinct from Africans, even commonly saying, let’s go to an African restaurant tonight. It is believed that the first humans to leave Africa for Eurasia came from this region, and crossed over near present day Djibouti, our next destination.
Djibouti City and Tadjoura, Djibouti:
Djibouti is a tiny coastal country wedged in between Ethiopia and Somalia. Most of the country is barren with black rock volcanic desert, dotted with salt lakes. Average temperature there is always over 100 degrees. Djibouti has 750,000 people, with 650,000 in Djibouti city, and 50,000 in Tadjoura, with the remainder in smaller towns and villages, and many nomadic people making their living harvesting salt from the lakes and transporting it by camel to Ethiopia. The large French and US military installations are away from the city and completely cordoned off.
After our outdoor concert in Djibouti we went by local freight boat to Tadjoura. The boat was ancient and crammed full of people, chickens, goats, and all of our gear. We arrived in Tadjoura, a real outpost with no roads or large structures of any kind. For the concert, we were set up in the middle of a flat plain, with a rickety stage, twenty chairs just in front, for the local dignitaries. Behind this, 200 yards of empty space separated these chairs from a perimeter of police holding back 15,000 people. Locals came up beforehand to ask us “what is the objective of this evening?” Music happens so infrequently there that they did at first understand why we were there. So, when we started, René and I shouted (in French, the local lingua franca): “We are here for everybody, please come closer!” The police madly reduced their perimeter to just a circle around the stage and dignitary seats, using batons to control things, as the crowd rushed forward to watch us in excited fascination. Any extended arms of dancers were whacked by batons — it was strange to say the least. It was a very fiery and enthusiastic show for all of us. We tried to get the police up on stage with us, but they were too shy.
Antananarivo and Antsirabe, Madagascar:
Whole books have been written about this incredible country and its rich and complex music. Madagascar is the physical and cultural neighbor of La Réunion, so René knows it fairly well, and was very happy to spend time there. The French Cultural Center there actually organized and facilitated the entire tour, and so the Madagascar shows were among the biggest. Antananarivo, while not as beautiful as it must have been a few decades ago, is a very intense city, sadly with much poverty. Tarika's Hanitra Rasoanaivo runs a new cultural residential site, and she invited us for a lunch and musical meeting with many of her bandmates and other Malagasy musicians. A web search on Hanitra will yield a lot of information about her wonderful activities. We went on to Antsirabe, several hours away, to play at another wonderful local cultural center, where education in music and art for local children is part of the program, in addition to concerts. During the show there were storms and the power went off a few times, but we just kept playing acoustically without the sound system, in the dark with a few candles, for 500 people.
La Réunion Island:
Our return to Réunion Island was all too brief, only 3 days, for 2 shows, one on either side of this beautiful island. René really lights up playing on his home island, where he is considered a national treasure. We managed to cram in as many Réunion curries as possible! It was great to see Alain Courbis again - he was the original facilitator of the whole Digdig project.
Mauritius:
We had a few days rest at the beautiful beaches of Mauritius before our concert there in the cultural center. Many local musicians turned out to see us. By chance we met a very old friend of Joel’s — a great traditional Mauritian musician named Menoir, and we had several all night jams on the beach.
Maputo, Mozambique:
Maputo has a really different feeling than other African cities, because the Portuguese influence is very strong. Unlike most African cities where numerous tribal languages are spoken, most people in Maputo speak Portuguese. The city is reminiscent of Portugal and Brazil as well, and seems to be functioning fairly well. All over the city are benches and sculptures made from welded-together old guns, which were turned in at the end of the civil war there. The cultural center there is huge and very active. We had a wonderful music meeting with the three top groups from there, including our record-label mates Mabulu. With no languages in common, we sat awkwardly for a few minutes, in a big circle. Then I pulled out a charango, started playing, and within a minute, everyone was happily playing together for a few hours.
January 2002 back to July 2001
JANUARY 2002 - AUSTRALIA TOUR ROUND 1, WITH JEFF LANG:
I spent New Year's Eve in the sky, en route to Australia, for a 2 week run with Australian slide guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Jeff Lang. We had met and had great jams the first time we met at the Woodford festival in Australia the year before, and in New York and Canada in between. So we thought it would be a great idea to tour together, and then record a duet album, actually a trio, with Jeff's amazing drummer Angus Diggs. This tour covered a lot of distance, yet was all within New South Wales and Victoria. The first morning of the tour, Jeff knocked on my hotel room door, pointed at me, and started laughing. It took me a second in my morning haze to see why-I was wearing my "McDeath" t-shirt, and by coincidence he was wearing his "McShit" t-shirt! So we knew we'd get on fine. We played a show every night in a different location, except for the two days of recording at a studio set up in Jeff's house. Some of the temperatures at the shows were well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a real test for instruments, strings, and human bodies! The music was wild, ranging from sweet slide duets and bluesy sounds to rocking and heavy grooves including some African beats. Jeff is a great slide guitarist, both lap style and bottleneck, with a lot of fresh new ideas. We each brought interesting songs to the table, and learned lots from each other. Our album, "Rolling Thru This World," releases in Australia in March 2002. I return to Australia for Round Two from March 1-April 24, mostly solo dates, but March 20-31 will be with Jeff & Angus to celebrate the release of the new CD.
NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 2001 - MOSTLY HOME:
This period of time was slightly less hectic than usual, giving me some well-needed rest and temporary relief from the stresses of modern traveling. I did six west coast shows with Hawaiian slack-key guitarist/writer George Kahumoku. George is a great storyteller, singer, and 12-string player who also loves to cook, and when you travel with George you never go hungry, since a big ice-chest full of homemade Hawaiian food is part of the gear. We finished up the series of shows by going into the studio to record some tracks for a future Dancing Cat release of George's.
I also conducted 5 different weekend intensive guitar workshops at my home during this period, covering a variety of subjects: rhythm, swing chords, world rhythms, blues, and lap steel. This series had a great group of students, both new and returning. I have to admit, it really was nice to be home for a bit, taking care of the fruit trees, grapes and chickens. It looks like I won't be there much in 2002.
OCTOBER 23-29: ROTTERDAM FOR WOMEX:
Another round-trip to Europe, this time to appear at the WOMEX convention with Takashi Hirayasu. WOMEX is an annual event where everyone who is involved with world music is in attendance -- labels, artists, festival presenters, journalists, etc. We were happy to have our showcase performance there, under the auspices of World Music Network Records, the label of our last 2 releases, and who is also releasing DIGDIG, the project with René Lacaille. Thus, we promoted both artists, and received many bookings worldwide for the next two years as an ensemble. One of the best parts was hooking up with friends old and new, Ben Mandelson, Ian Anderson, Alain Courbis, Gilbert Castro, Doug Spencer, Jon Kertzer, and so many more.
OCTOBER 7-12, 2001 -- FRANCE:
A quick trip to Paris to play at a festival in St. Germain-en-Laye, solo and with Djeli Moussa Diawara. As always with Djeli, no two versions of a particular song are ever the same, so each concert featured more development of our recorded repertoire, as well as adding several new compositions. It was good to be back in France again, however briefly, and I found traveling to be unnerving, but not too difficult.
SEPTEMBER 8-16, 2001 -- MONTREAL to CALIFORNIA:
I went to Montreal for a week-long rehearsal with DJ RAM and a 20-musician ensemble for a cooperative event between the cities of Quebec and New York. The event was to have been held Sept. 20, in the World Trade Center complex. World events unfolded, as we all know, on September 11. I spent the rest of that week trying to get home to California, stranded in Canada like so many others. The first show after that was at the Mill Pond Music Festival in Bishop, Calif, on September 16. Like so many musicians I have spoken to since, I was wondering about the relevance of music in our world. As I walked on to the stage, I realized that I actually had not thought about this very much, considering the state of shock everyone was in. It turned out that the people really had a strong need to bond together through music, and the shows were uplifting for all concerned. Peter Burtt joined me on kora and percussion.
AUGUST 28-SEPT. 3, 2001 - TRNAVA, SLOVAK REPUBLIC-10TH ANNIVERSARY DOBROFEST!
This year marked my 7th time back in Trnava for more music, friendship, Slovak language, and general conviviality in the good old Eastern European manner. It's such a friendly town, and everywhere people yelling "Ahoj, Bobi!" (pronounced AHOY) An old musical friend from 25 years ago, Ken Emerson, was there, and through the good vibes of Hawaiian and other island music, we rekindled an old friendship in order to make new music. Every year Trnava's beautiful old architecture is being lovingly restored. 10 years ago, things were in very bad post-communist condition, but slowly and steadily, life has improved there. I only hope they don't move too far towards the "American" Western way of life. Sometimes I think the only freedom left for the majority of Americans is the freedom of choice between McDonald's and Burger King, or Britney Spears and Madonna. Lots of musicians from several countries were in attendance, including some IGS alumni. I feel a real kinship to the Slovak people, as Eastern Europe is definitely in my family background, and the language seems to come naturally to me.
JULY & AUGUST 2001: IGS CALIFORNIA and VANCOUVER SESSIONS:
The second and third IGS 2001 sessions were made great fun by the great groups of people at each one. There were several peak moments of jamming. All through both weeks and late into the nights, there were some real inspiring polyrhythmic jams, some real musical growth and risk-taking, and a lot of laughs. I was glad to introduce new staff members Happy Traum, Mike Dowling, and Steve Dawson (who I met in Slovakia last year). Saw many old friends and new, and watched our community continue to build and solidify.
JULY 2001: CANADIAN DESTINATIONS, PLUS MY FAVORITE FESTIVAL: QUEBEC CITY!!
This year I returned to Canada for several events: We began July 2nd in Trois Rivieres, Quebec, where I played with my bassist Doug Robinson and drummer Mike Ricciardi for 2 hours of politely anarchistic improvised music. On the 3rd we went to Ottawa for a Francophone festival appearance, with René Lacaille ensemble AND with the fabulous Malagasy accordionist Regis Gisavo! What a powerful blend of syncopated 6/8 mayhem!!! We played on a beautiful stage overlooking the river, unfortunately in a heavy rainstorm.
My old, old 1933 style O National, which I have been using steadily (with all original parts) for EVERY gig since 1967, got soaking wet. Dried it off as best as I could, then packed it up for a flight to Washington DC to play at the July 4th opening of the new Slovak Republic Embassy. After the rain, the cold of the baggage compartment, and then the summer heat, I discovered to my horror, during the first song, that the fingerboard had come unglued from the neck and was warped like a banana, resulting in unplayable inch-high string action. I finished the show with my other guitars, and headed back to Ottawa for the next 2 days for the Ottawa Blues Festival. Back at the hotel in Ottawa, I borrowed some crude tools from hotel maintenance, and proceeded to try and fix the neck. This involved removing and re-installing the neck several frustrating times before getting it right, complete with all kinds of ugly mismatched screws. Thus fortified, though esthetically challenged, I continued the tour. Played a show at the blues festival with Jeff Lang, individual and duet sets. I then continued on to Quebec City, with Doug and Mike, to rejoin René Lacaille. The first 2 nights were solo shows, accompanied by Doug & Mike, to enthusiastic response from the Quebec folks, who may be the hippest audience on earth, always prepared for something experimental. Subsequent nights found René and I leading a group of players in heavy Réunion Island 6/8 syncopation. My experiences with René, Bernard Marka, and Joel Gonthier are always a thrilling education; this time enhanced by the presence of René's 14- and 18-year old kids, Marc and Orianne Lacaille. I also collaborated with Montreal's DJ Ram for a rave-up of experimental music, mixing turntables, sample and live slide guitar. The crowd was very young and wild, and the music was adventurous and wacky, mixing spoken word, live instruments and electronica grooves. Ram and I will have some performances in New York in September (cancelled due to Sept.11).
Bob Brozman Notes from the Road Archives - coming soon!
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