General was a record label based in New York that began in the late 1930s. While the label is best known for it’s 1939 set “New Orleans Memories”, featuring the last recording sessions of Jelly Roll Morton, they also released several sets of ethnographic music. These include the Yaqui (and Tarascan) set by John H. Green heard in the last post, as well as a set of Haitian music, presumably recorded by Harold Courlander. Courlander was the son of a noted American painter and intellectual. In the 1930s he made folkloric field recordings across the American south and eventually became smitten with Haiti. Haiti seems to have been a super hip place to be “into” back in the 1930s through the 50s, with artists like Maya Deren and choreographer Katherine Dunham taking inspiration from the music and Voudoun practices of the island. Courlander made more than 20 trips to Haiti and wrote the classic “The Drum and the Hoe: Life and Lore of the Haitian People.” As if that wasn’t enough, Courlander was general editor of the Ethnic Folkways Library, recording over 30 albums for the esteemed label.

Admittedly, I’m not absolutely positive that Courlander made these recordings for General. Please give me a shout if you have further information. Unfortuntely, these recordings are simply credited to the “Damballa Wedo Singers,”  with no indication of the performers’ names. Damballa Wedo is one of the primary spirits in Haitian Vodou, as well as in West African Vodoun, from which the Haitian religion is descended.

General closed shop in 1943 and the masters were subsequently purchased by Commodore. To my knowledge, Commodore did not reissue any of the ethnographic recordings.

Shawm-like instruments are found all over the place, from the well-known Turkish zourna to the obscure Khmer sralai, or the Algerian ghaita, as heard in the previous post. The double reed oboe has been an important instrument in military and festival musics around the world. It even made it’s way to the Americas. The P’urhépecha, or Tarascan as they were called by the Spanish, are a pre-Columbian culture from the Mexican state of Michoacán. Much of their music heard today is Spanish influenced string music, but these examples recorded by John Green in the early 1940s showcase an earlier traditional style. For some unknown reason, this single P’urhépecha record was included in the 4 record set of Yaqui music recorded in Arizona. This side of the record is divided into 3 tracks. The first two tracks feature the double reed chirimia, a member of the shawm family brought to Mexico in the 1600s by Spanish priests. In the third track we hear a small reed flute, which unfortunately ends somewhat abruptly.

We just heard the Colombian flutes called gaita, then the Galician bagpipe of the same name, now let’s check out this version from the Mozabites of Algeria. The Mozabites are a Berber cultural group living at the north end of the Sahara in Algeria. Their ancient hilltop cities are built around oases in the Mzab valley. The ghaita played by the Mozabites, and other North Africans, is a reed instrument of the ubiquitous shawm family, the predecessor to the modern oboe. This rarity was recorded using the old acoustic method in 1924 by George Dillnut in Oran, one of only three Mozabite records released from that trip.

Here’s a completely different type of “gaiteros”, this time from Galicia, the autonomous region of northwest Spain. Here, the gaiteros is a player of the gaita, a celtic bagpipe found also in Asturias and northern Portugal. It’s been suggested that the name gaita comes from the Eastern European word for goat (gait) and was brought by the Visigoths in 800 A.D. when they conquered Spain. In any case, the gaita is the iconic instrument of Galicia, and players have been the rock stars of their culture for centuries. It can be played solo, in small groups, or in large military style marching bands, as heard here. The song ¡Ay Maruxa! is a muiñeira, the most common song form in Galicia in 6/8 time.

Cumbia is the popular dance form of Colombia with roots in Africa and influenced by Spanish and indigenous cultures, and a big helping of Afro-Cuban sounds. While the accordion is the true hero of cumbia, and Cuban styled orchestras have been nearly as popular, it’s the gaita that represents the real roots of cumbia music. The cane flute called gaita, played by gaiteros, is most often played in pairs, the small hembra (female) flute and the larger macho (male) hypnotically weaving around each other.
Discos Curros was started in the early 1950s by Curro Fuentes, who, along with his brother, had created the monumental Fuentes label.

Jal tarang (spelled many ways) is an instrument that consists of ceramic bowls tuned by water. The name means “waves in water”, and although the instrument is rare it has a spellbinding sound. It was first mentioned in the Sangeet Parijaat, written in the 17th Century, but it was likely used even earlier. It’s used in both Hindustani and Carnatic music.

Although this label indicates the lead instrument is the Cretan lyra (a pear-shaped, three-stringed bowed fiddle), my Cretan-music-playing friend Al Davidson insists it’s actually a violin. While Haniotikos simply means “from the city of Hania”, the Crete’s second largest city located along the northwest coast, the fast and wild sounds of this recording suggests it may actually be from the nearby city of Kissamos.

Bruno Villareal was a half-blind accordion player from Santa Rosa, Texas, who played for money around town with a tin cup attached to his accordion. Nicknamed “El Azote del Valle” (the Scourge from the Valley), he became well-known as the first Tex-Mex accordion player to record. He recorded under his own name or as the Texas Accordion Boys, or in this single case, The Rooster. He was a traditionalist, with equal use of the left and right hand. But as the right hand came to dominate the sound, as in the style of Narciso Martinez, old-school players like Villareal were left behind. This song was recorded at the Texas Hotel in San Antonio on August 16, 1935. He died, destitute, in 1976.

Abdel Hamid Kandahari is a Pashtun from Kandahar. Here he sings Cheeri Kariwan on the Russian state-owned label CCCP. This was likely produced by Radio Kabul around 1960. The ensemble consists of rabob, tanbur and sarangi. Unfortunately, the fundamentalist psychopaths known as Taliban have destroyed most of Afghanistan’s remaining cultural artifacts, including whatever 78s they could get their hands on.

Rajamanickam Pillai (1898-1970) was a famous Indian violinist in the Carnatic tradition of Southern India. Here he plays a well-known song in the Behgada mode, accompanied by the morsing, a South Indian jaw harp. Morsing playing technique is mainly rhythmic, working in conjunction with the mridangam, the primary drum of Carnatic music. While the morsing is an ancient instrument used throughout South India and the Sindh region of Southern Pakistan, the violin only became popular in the 19th Century after it was introduced to the region by British colonialists.

Broadcast was an excellent independent Indian label in the 1930s. I believe this record was made in 1937.