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Rhythm Planet
When World Music first captured the public imagination in the early 1980's, NPR's Tom Schnabel was in the vanguard. He introduced international musicians to public radio and pioneered an eclectic format that has become a standard for alternative radio nationwide. Inspired by more than a decade of interviewing international artists and playing their music, Schnabel has mapped a global tour of the international figures making music history today. A stunningly illustrated and fact-filled journey, Rhythm Planet also features selected discographies and Schnabel's list of essential World Music recordings. An antidote to the latest flavor of pop, Rhythm Planet is an affirmation of what music can the most passionate expression of the human spirit, transcending limits of culture and language.
- GenresMusic
160 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 1998
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October 19, 2011
We've listened to Tom Schnabel's radio program in LA for over twenty years at this point; that the exceptional music on the radio show would be enhanced by a book wasn't a certainty. But Schnabel's very knowledgeable book is a great aid and a personal connection to the still not-well-known artists and musicians involved.
My theory is that part of the immediacy and success of The Beatles was the slight deflection in accent & taste (even to Londoners, for whom Liverpool was in the far hinterlands, and certainly to those of us in America), the sense of another, very similar, but still foreign sensibility --creating that rivetting sound-- that was a pillar of their appeal. Odd minor keys, medieval touches, and celtic harmonies (perhaps more due to George Martin's influence, but that's a quibble) found their way into Beatle pop music, sending the discreet signal that this was something different. Different but mesmerizing, and wrapped in a sugar-sweet bubblegum wrapper.
World Music© came to the attention of the music world after punk, disco and new wave had levelled out in popularity. The concept of 'rock' was morphing (and dwindling) merrily away, and the giant radio-friendly stadium acts, ala Journey or Boston, were on the wane. As the main influence and stepping-stone to the West, I think it may have been the catchy, slightly singsong aspects of Reggae, significantly having English lyrics, that disarmed the idea of music from other cultures as being challenging or "difficult".
I personally remember the very moment in the early eighties, even already familiar with African music a little (Miriam Makeba, Manu Dibango) and Caribbean music, in the reggae, zouk or calypso veins... that I first saw and heard a filmclip of the Senegalese band Toure Kunda. Driving infectious rhythm, and a kind of euro-colonial-african melodic feel really dealt a knockout blow to whatever was going on commercially here. And it was certainly something legitimate and organic, rather than some followup rock opera or twelfth double-album from a millionaire supergroup of the day. The howling, hungry, syncopated rhythms of a whole other world were out there to be heard, and nothing in the West was vaguely comparable.
Schnabel rightly points to the Brian Eno / David Byrne collaboration My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts as another watershed moment in crossing the boundaries, ennabling African and Arab influences in world culture to begin to speak for themselves. The introduction to the book is in fact written by Brian Eno.
About thirty years later, it's cool to see TS's book, filled with biographical backgrounds of these far-flung artists, and to read about their origins and influences. Interesting, for example, to know that West African Baaba Maal's father was the village Muezzin, using song to call the faithful to prayer at the mosque. His son would go on to study in Dakar and then Paris before learning to integrate an electric groove with the Euro/Afro mix he was helping to forge. Interesting also to learn that Argentina's tango master Astor Piazzolla found his muse hearing a Hungarian concert-pianist neighbor, in New York city, rehearsing Bach every morning, across the backyards behind his house.
To hear Official US Pop Culture tell it, modern popular music was found, sitting at a soda fountain at Hollywood & Vine waiting to be discovered.
Rhythm Planet and its Discography says it ain't so, but a very nice little tale thanks, and where can we plug in our amps ..?
*** do take note of that excellent discography in the back of the book, more important for it's brevity than any attempt to be complete. All selected by Schnabel as the best of the best, the two or three absolute killer titles in what can be a bewildering list of records in each artist's repertoire.
Love to see a Volume II or updated edition of this '98 volume.
My theory is that part of the immediacy and success of The Beatles was the slight deflection in accent & taste (even to Londoners, for whom Liverpool was in the far hinterlands, and certainly to those of us in America), the sense of another, very similar, but still foreign sensibility --creating that rivetting sound-- that was a pillar of their appeal. Odd minor keys, medieval touches, and celtic harmonies (perhaps more due to George Martin's influence, but that's a quibble) found their way into Beatle pop music, sending the discreet signal that this was something different. Different but mesmerizing, and wrapped in a sugar-sweet bubblegum wrapper.
World Music© came to the attention of the music world after punk, disco and new wave had levelled out in popularity. The concept of 'rock' was morphing (and dwindling) merrily away, and the giant radio-friendly stadium acts, ala Journey or Boston, were on the wane. As the main influence and stepping-stone to the West, I think it may have been the catchy, slightly singsong aspects of Reggae, significantly having English lyrics, that disarmed the idea of music from other cultures as being challenging or "difficult".
I personally remember the very moment in the early eighties, even already familiar with African music a little (Miriam Makeba, Manu Dibango) and Caribbean music, in the reggae, zouk or calypso veins... that I first saw and heard a filmclip of the Senegalese band Toure Kunda. Driving infectious rhythm, and a kind of euro-colonial-african melodic feel really dealt a knockout blow to whatever was going on commercially here. And it was certainly something legitimate and organic, rather than some followup rock opera or twelfth double-album from a millionaire supergroup of the day. The howling, hungry, syncopated rhythms of a whole other world were out there to be heard, and nothing in the West was vaguely comparable.
Schnabel rightly points to the Brian Eno / David Byrne collaboration My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts as another watershed moment in crossing the boundaries, ennabling African and Arab influences in world culture to begin to speak for themselves. The introduction to the book is in fact written by Brian Eno.
About thirty years later, it's cool to see TS's book, filled with biographical backgrounds of these far-flung artists, and to read about their origins and influences. Interesting, for example, to know that West African Baaba Maal's father was the village Muezzin, using song to call the faithful to prayer at the mosque. His son would go on to study in Dakar and then Paris before learning to integrate an electric groove with the Euro/Afro mix he was helping to forge. Interesting also to learn that Argentina's tango master Astor Piazzolla found his muse hearing a Hungarian concert-pianist neighbor, in New York city, rehearsing Bach every morning, across the backyards behind his house.
To hear Official US Pop Culture tell it, modern popular music was found, sitting at a soda fountain at Hollywood & Vine waiting to be discovered.
Rhythm Planet and its Discography says it ain't so, but a very nice little tale thanks, and where can we plug in our amps ..?
*** do take note of that excellent discography in the back of the book, more important for it's brevity than any attempt to be complete. All selected by Schnabel as the best of the best, the two or three absolute killer titles in what can be a bewildering list of records in each artist's repertoire.
Love to see a Volume II or updated edition of this '98 volume.
Displaying 1 of 1 review