Live from Calgary,
it’s Sunday night! Book your time away from network television to watch the super
heroes and heroines of folk, roots and world music get totally gregarious at http://www.rootsmusic.ca/
RootsMusic.ca,
Sunday November 10 at 7:30 p.m. MDT/9:30 p.m. EST.
Canadian Aboriginal Music has gone through a robust year of rededication with the international
recognition of Idle No More providing an inspiring example of protest and
focus. The “Pow Wow Step” of A Tribe
Called Red made it to the Polaris Prize short list and the touring Beat Nation exhibition (currently in
the heart of Montreal) is drawing First Nations culture into an uncompromising
statement of the present and future of its cultural expressions. Toronto’s Mama D, aka Diem Lafortune, has certainly taken the B.S. by the horns with an
explicit stand on behalf of the poor, the oppressed and their potential
champions on her album, Beauty And Hard
Times. Lyrically, she digs deep into her life and history and laces urban
and natural images into a pulsating, militant call to action. She sings with
hard-won insights into the chances and dangers of progress, and drives home her
vital question:”What can we make of this?” Prince Rupert native Kristi Lane Sinclair has a
ground-breaking record (see RMC review http://www.rootsmusic.ca/cfma-nominee-kristi-lane-sinclairs-new-album/) called The Sea Alone, as mysterious, deep and raging as its
title. Kristi proudly self-identifies as an Aboriginal artist, although her
work could easily hold its own as a contestant for Contemporary Album or
English Songwriter awards. Soaring cello arrangements and intense drum and
guitar turmoil make it an amazingly accessible example of the kind of deserving
record that this celebration helps to elevate.
Essentially, the
World Music Solo and Group categories assemble music featuring artists who sing
in neither of the official languages. As
language learner Deborah Ostrovsky’s fine essay, Finding East, points out, “There are so many places that
translation can’t reach”. Music is a perfect conduit for pulling the interested
Canadian ear into distant realities that evade
close focus in the media or on the vicarious holiday trip. As Aviva Chernick
comments, “At least it gets the ball rolling”. When two of the diverse nominees
become recipients this evening in Calgary, the awards could potentially go to a
jazz band, a devotional singer, a pop star, an acoustic guitar virtuoso, a
klezmer ensemble or any one of a few pan-cultural mavericks.
Bass luminary Chris
Gartner last won for Second Nature, the fascinating Minor Empire album, in 2011 (dubbed
“Turk-tronica”). He is behind three of tonight’s offerings: as co-producer, on the
expansive and tender praise of Adonai on Aviva
Chernick’s When I Arrived You Were
Already There, and on the inventive explorations of
contemporary world fusion music by Aviva’s group, Jaffa Road, titled after Leonard
Cohen’s crystalline phrase, Where The
Light Gets In, and also as bassist for Fray, the ensemble on Lenka
Lichtenberg’s virtuosic group hug, Embrace, which reconstructs
traditional elements of her Euro-Judaic legacy into scintillating dances of
celebration and desire. On his tenth
album, Ici Bas, Rien N’est Pas Possible (Here Below, Nothing Is Impossible),
Njacko Backo conjures a whirlwind
tour of Diasporic styles using Kalimba
Kalimba, an elite squad of enchanted musicians of variegated backgrounds. As
a Cameroonian, Njacko can be heard singing in English, French and Bamileke.
With Alex Cuba’s emotive Spanish singing over muscular electric guitar
and drum builds on Ruido En El Sistema,
he propels himself into a strategically powerful position of rock gestalt awareness. If he wins, and
speaks, his eloquent disdain for the diffusive effects of the term “world
music” as a containment idiom should prove educational and provocative.
The only way to find out is to watch tonight. Make the
broadcast the “folk-al” point of your evening. There will be a convenient chat
box for sideline commentary. We’ll be talking later, then?
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