world Archive
11 Jan 2017
Jamie Laval’s Celtic Christmas
For several years now, Celtic fiddler Jamie Laval has crafted a special December program for audiences. Bringing together music, dance and storytelling, Laval presents “Celtic Christmas,” a family-friendly performance that […]
29 Sep 2016
David LaMotte: Bringing it All Back Together
Prior to 2006, David LaMotte was an extremely busy musician. “In those first 18 years, I kicked out 10 records,” he says. But in the decade that followed, he would […]
27 Jul 2016
Mamadou Kelly: “We Are Musicians. We Play Music.”
“The American blues form is foreign to us,” says Malian master guitarist Mamadou Kelly. That may come as a surprise to American audiences who hear in Kelly’s music a connection […]
12 Nov 2015
November 100-word Reviews, Part 4
My roundup of worthy albums that deserve coverage continues with five more hundred-word reviews. Each of these deserves deeper coverage, but “so much music, so little time.” Dig ’em all. […]
20 Oct 2015
DVD Review: Escala Musical TV 1966-67
I took three years of Spanish in high school – seemingly a thousand years ago, more like thirty – and to this day I can correctly pronounce the items on […]
26 Jun 2015
Rising Appalachia: Making Music with Intention (Part 3)
Continued from Part Three… Leah Song relates that Rising Appalachia have many friends around the country who are involved in art and creative projects. “Many of them,” she notes, “end […]
25 Jun 2015
Rising Appalachia: Making Music with Intention (Part 2)
Continued from Part One… In those years, music as a professional pursuit was never a goal. Leah Song says that even when she and sister Chloe Smith did begin making […]
24 Jun 2015
Rising Appalachia: Making Music with Intention (Part 1)
Sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith lead Rising Appalachia, a renowned folk/world music group whose music is as intriguing as it is hard to classify. Their eighth album, Wider Circles, […]
16 Jun 2015
Album Review: Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba — Ba Power
Ask most informed music enthusiasts to cite an example of “world music” from Africa, and one of the first names offered up will likely be Malian guitarist/vocalist Ali Farka Touré. […]
21 May 2015
Album Review: Shanti — Shanti
At this stage in the game, nobody’s sure who developed the genre (or, much less, coined the phrase) “world music.” And a definitive explanation for what is and isn’t world […]