If you’re like me, summertime is when you throttle down and maybe try a few new things. This column features world music offerings, many of them from musicians based in Barcelona. I justify this by saying that it’s a seacoast city, so if you’re bold you can load some of these artists onto your favorite music delivery device and give them a metaphorical test drive. Will you like them? Probably not all of them, but why not branch out a little?
Vanessa Bissiri is Italian, but now lives in Barcelona, a hotbed of contemporary jazz. Hers is sometimes called “neon jazz,” a fusion form that blends the swaying Mediterranean feel of the 1970s with more recent trends. “C’è sempre il mare” is an example. It’s decidedly in the softer “cool jazz” idiom, but her voice hints that she might also be able to walk across the avenue into a pop club and hold her own there. “Se perfuma y toma mast,” which is roughly about a dandy who smells good but drinks, finds Bissini singing in the seams of quirky beats. These are two offerings from her recent album Empatica (“Empathetic”) and are typical of the whole.
For a different Catalán experience try Clavellina D’Aire, the stage name of two music teachers, Cati Plana (diatonic accordion) and Jordi Macaya (viola). They prefer folk stylings, but again in an airy, light style. Their album Musiques per emportar-se a iles desertes translates music to carry away to deserted islands, akin to the similar English idiom. It’s a nonsensical phrase if you truly consider it (where would you get batteries or electricity on a deserted island?), but Clavellina D’Aire could definitely provide some chill-out sounds to help you calm down. I recommend them for relaxing on non-deserted beaches. Try the combo of “Pròleg/La Tosca,” the first café-like and the second brighter and traipsing. If you like their keep-things-simple approach as much as I, you can find a half hour concert on YouTube. Appropriately, they perform in a sunny park with children playing quietly and adults doing nothing much in particular. You can readily see, though, that these are two talented people, something that needs no translation. I especially enjoy the way Macaya flirts with discordant notes without actually crossing over. He also has a capable singing voice I find infectious.
How about a flamenco guitarist in a highbrow vein? Feliu Gasull has released Pit roig (“red breast”), an album that will have appeal to fellow string wizards. The title track showcases Gasull’s talent. “Caminet” is also typical of his more classical touch. A hora is a circle dance that’s often exuberant. Gasull, though, opts for a quiet approach to “Hora Baixa.” Sample before you purchase, though, as this is cerebral material that won’t be everyone’s cup of chocolate caliente.
The name Laura Downes might ring a bell for National Public Radio listeners. She hosts the world music show AMPLIFY, on which she sometimes showcases female musicians of color. She is of Jamaican/Russian heritage, was born in San Francisco, and raised in Europe. If you don’t know her, though, don’t expect her own music to bop like Afropop or even come close to rocking out; she’s a classical pianist. Her latest recording, Love at Last, has nearly two dozen tracks but don’t anticipate from their titles. Folk music, for example, is replete with songs titled “Tree of Life,” but none of have the same take as hers. Nor should you expect an offering such as “Blessing” to sound either anthemic or balladic. It’s a frenzied trip up and down the white keys that’s a loosely structured composition that drifts toward atonality. Downes is impressive, though I confess that her work–like Gasull’s–impresses me more than it attracts me.
If you’ve had enough of the quiet stuff, slide into the evening with something that falls into the rowdy and stomping category. Barcelona is, after all, a warm city and Julivert likes its music accordingly. The title track of “A Tamarit” sounds like a big party is about to break out and as soon as everyone is lubricated, maybe they will ask some Balkan, Cajun, and Roma musicians to join them. “Som de l’oest” hints they will lower the pace. Never fear! The moment fingers touch the fiddle, the temperature rises. If “Bella Ciao” got any more tongue in cheek, lead singer Jordi Suñé would need a surgeon to dislodge it. Julivert specialize in cançons, high-spirited dances you’d find at a village feast or an Argentinian tavern. Call Julivert—the word means “parsley” by the way–the antithesis of the mannered offerings above. If the music sounds rough around the edges, I suspect they’d have it no other way.
Rob Weir
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