You probably have seen the glazed blue and white porcelain pots and tiles in more than one country – from China to Denmark, from Russia to Turkey. The popular art of painted porcelain dates back to the 14th century, and although some argue that the craft takes its origin in Turkey, it seems the Chinese discovered it first. While they fiercely guarded their secret, the Turks eventually learned the method, and from there, it found its way to Europe.
Whether the Russians guessed the Chinese method or slowly perfected their own, the Russian folk pottery was thriving in Russia centuries ago. Famous for its rare white clay, Gzhel, an area about 50 kilometers southeast of Moscow, had been a potter’s heaven since the 14th century. A medieval Russian document chronicles that a man who discovered the clay exclaimed, "Nowhere did I see a clay whiter than this!" The very name of Gzhel derives in all likelihood from the Russian verb zhech, which means “burn” or “make fire.”
Gzhel pottery was originally created by potters in their homes, but soon they began to gather into workshops and later into factories. Eventually, the craftsmen developed their niches – some made the pottery, while others painted it. In the 17th century, tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich learned about Gzhel’s clay, and an industry was officially born.
Nowadays, a Gzhel specialist creates a plaster model first. Using a potter's wheel with special attachments and a shaping device with a steel blade to scrape off excess plaster, he creates a working mold. Another specialist fills the mold with porcelain paste. The porous plaster of the working mold absorbs moisture from the paste and lets the porcelain harden slowly. After that, the piece is ready for its first "firing" or "burning." Once the initial burning is done, a painter takes his brush to it. The traditional Gzhel style revolves around floral and geometric patterns applied with quick brushstrokes. It is traditionally blue on white. A somewhat different style – a combination of blue, green, yellow, and brown – is called majolica.
The Gzhel’s tradition is passed from one generation to the next, and there seems to be no end to artists’ creativity. Gzhel produces samovars, vases, clocks, lamps, candleholders, and figurines as well as dinner and tea sets. As centuries before, all the pieces are hand made and hand painted, and every item is a piece of art on its own.
By the time I reached Ecuador on my first South American trip, I had suffered market overload. After travelling through Bolivia and Peru and having purchased an array of pottery, knits, and paintings, I needed to give myself (and my heavy backpack) a rest. But then I learnt about the Otavalo market.
Located two hours from Quito, a trip to Otavalo is a step back in time. Saturday is market day, and the best day to visit if you want a taste of what market life is like for the Otavaleños. Some Quito locals had told me to arrive on a Friday and to set my alarm for early Saturday morning. The beauty of the markets can be seen when the sun is barely over the horizon, way before the place is overrun with tourists jostling for the best photographs to post on their Facebook page.
The markets have existed since pre-Colombian times, and a short walk across the bridge leads to the animal market that looks like it could be straight out of the pages of National Geographic. Not for the faint of heart, these markets will leave animal liberationists seething and unable to cope with the matter-of-fact treatment of the animals, but for those able to handle such things, it is a chance to discover what life is like for the locals. Bartering, yelling, laughing, and backslapping Otavaleños weave between the clucking chickens and squealing pigs, while the heavy scent of fresh manure hangs over the dusty market.
Photo by PICQ
In stark contrast to the animals is the artisan market, located in and around Poncho Plaza. Andean pipe music mixes with locals speaking Quechua, and a kaleidoscope of colours fills the square and surrounding streets. Woven wall hangings depicting exotic birds and scenery, thick woollen ponchos dyed blue with agave juice, woollen hats, mittens, and socks all entice the passer-by to part with their money.
The one thing that struck me when I strolled the streets of Otavalo, is that even though the locals were dressed in their traditional attire, they didn’t appear to be doing it for the tourists (as I have experienced in other parts of the world, including in other parts of Latin America). The women’s colourful shawls, intricately embroidered shirts, and layers of beaded necklaces are part of their everyday garb. The men, for their part, have long braided hair and wear sandals, ponchos, felt hats, and calf-length white trousers. This lends an authenticity to this market that people from all over the world come to visit.
Otavaleños are renowned for their textile making and are savvy business people. They are now one of the most prosperous indigenous groups in Latin America and today, 80% of Otavaleños are involved in the textile industry and their products are sold around the world, including in Europe and Asia.
Prior to the 1400s, the Otavaleños used the back strap loom to create their textiles. Then the Incas arrived and Otavalo became an important administrative centre for the Incas. The Incas were smart enough to see the strength and uses for the Otavaleño textiles, so they collected these lovely pieces and put them to use throughout the empire. After the Spanish arrived and Ecuador fell under their rule, Rodrigo de Salazar, a Spanish conquistador, set up a weaving workshop on his land and employed hundreds of workers to produce beautiful, durable textiles to be sold and used throughout South America. Despite the sweatshop conditions, the Otavaleños produced beautiful work and adapted their technique with the weaving tools and fibres given to them by the Spanish. This is how they also learnt how to produce their textiles in mass quantities – a skill they employ even today.
In the 1960s, the Otavaleños adapted a weaving technique from Scotland and developed a material known as Otavaleño cashmere. Then, in 1964, the Law of Agrarian Reform granted workers title to own land. This meant Otavaleños could legally weave in their own homes, and from this law, a thriving cottage industry grew and continues to expand.
After a day spent wandering the streets and enjoying the locals, colourful crafts, and eating freshly cooked humitas, fried bananas and lentils, I ambled back to my hostel, arms fully loaded with various textiles I couldn’t resist. Luckily, I’d purchased a woven bag to load my goodies in and send it all back to Australia. With a rich history and beautiful, hand-made products, it’s impossible to not to buy a piece (or five) of Otavaleño history to take home and relive memories of one of the most captivating and historical markets in the world.
“Put on your sunglasses,” my sister-in-law advised.
It was not immediately apparent why, since we were entering the dark heart of the Esfahan Bazaar, far from the desert sun beating down on the square outside. With every step, the tapping of metal on metal grew louder, a percussion orchestra beating out a rhythmic symphony.
But as we turned the corner into a long hall, a blaze of reflected light dazzled my eyes. Row upon row of embossed copper vases, engraved silver trays, and gold-plated bowls sparkled and gleamed down the length of the endless hall. And all along the stone walls, men sat at workbenches, hammering, chiseling, and shaping metal into practical vessels and decorative plates, their hand tools creating the syncopated music that reverberated through the space.
We had entered the workshop of the ghalamzani artisans, practitioners of the art of Persian metal engraving. The name of this handicraft is derived from the Persian word for pen (ghalam) and the verb “to hit” (zadan).
I slid my sunglasses over my eyes, suddenly grasping the urgency of my sister-in-law's warning. Tiny chips of metal could fly through the air, too small to see yet sharp enough to do serious damage. And yet none of the men laboring so hard in this long corridor wore any type of protective goggles.
Carving designs in metal has been practiced for three millennia, but in Persia it rose to a fine art in the twelfth century, when the Turkish-speaking Seljuks (11th to 14th centuries A.D.) perfected their metalworking techniques. They fashioned many practical items from metal, mainly bronze and copper, including incense burners, mirrors, and candlesticks.
The centers of ghalamzani production in modern Iran are Kermanshah, Shiraz, Tehran, and Esfahan. And this handicraft includes several metalworking techniques, the main ones being embossing and engraving. The materials most commonly used are copper, bronze, gold, brass, and silver.
In embossing, a raised design is worked into the metal from the back using a hammer and blunt punch. A thick layer of tar is first applied to the inside of the object or the back of a flat sheet of metal to absorb the impact of the hammer and protect the material from damage. The design is traced into the back of the sheet with a tool called a nimbor. Upon completing the design, the object is heated to remove the tar. In Shiraz, the metal of choice for embossing is silver; in Isfahan, it is copper. Embossing does not involve removing metal, so there are no chips to fly through the air and invade an unprotected eye.
Isfahan artisans are recognized masters of the other technique, where the artisan uses a hammer and sharp chisel to etch designs, many of them quite intricate, into the surface of a bowl, vase, mirror frame, or other object. The artifact is first polished and the pattern applied (often using a piece of perforated paper and rubbing coal dust over the holes). The engraver etches the positive elements of the motif into the metal and leaves the negative elements as raised areas.
The day we visited the ghalamzani workshop at the bazaar, I learned that my sister-in-law’s warning to protect my eyes came from experience. She worked as an eye surgeon at a charity hospital in Isfahan, and every day ghalamzani artisans traipsed through her examining room, needing her to remove tiny slivers of metal from their eyes.
Two pieces of ghalamzani hang on my wall, intricately engraved plates with interlinked geometric patterns chiseled into a nickel alloy. When I look at them and admire the workmanship, I try not to think of the high price they may have demanded from their creator: the loss of his precious eyesight.
Pete Seeger (l) and Rik Palieri (r) in 1980
Photo by Bob Yahn
Our guest today is Rik Palieri, a singer-songwriter based in Hinesburg, Vermont, who performs both original and traditional songs on a variety of instruments, including the banjo, guitar, mouth bow, Native American flute, and Polish bagpipes. Rik is author of the book, The Road Is My Mistress: Tales of a Roustabout Songster, and producer of The Song Writer’s Notebook, a TV show that is now archived in the new Rik Palieri Collection in The Library of Congress. Rik has eight CDs and was recently featured on the Grammy-nominated Singing Through The Hard Times: a tribute to Utah Phillips. More about Rik Palieri can be found at www.banjo.net.
Did you ever experience one moment that changed your life?
For me, that moment came in the mid-1970s, back when I had dreams of becoming a banjo player and folk performer. Yes, while most kids my age were having rock & roll fantasies, I was trying to plunk out a few old folk songs on my long-neck banjo. I had been inspired by activist, songwriter, and beloved performer Pete Seeger. Pete’s life story of rambling around the country by freight train and thumb, learning and sharing music with everyone he met, not only excited but inspired me. After seeing Pete live at a college show, I felt a bright light burn inside me and sensed that it would somehow be my destiny to carry on in his spirit. At that time, this notion seemed ridiculous, as I was just fifteen and a mere beginner on my instrument. Pete was only known to me by listening to his recordings, seeing him at his concerts, and sharing a few backstage handshakes. But then, just a few years later, my magical moment came.
I had read that Pete Seeger was going to give a free evening concert in Central Park with Arlo Guthrie. I marked that day on my calendar and waited for the big day to arrive. Little did I know that, earlier that same day, my mother would take my two young sisters to the park to visit a few museums. After finishing their museum tour, they all went over to Central Park for a picnic and to play with the other children.
As they were setting down their blankets, a huge crowd gathered. Curious, my mother asked one of the young girls sitting nearby what was going on. The girl replied that there was a free concert with Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. When my sister, Lisa, heard that Pete was playing, she remembered that I also planned to be at this show and, for some strange reason, she thought that I would be performing too. My sisters told my mother they wanted to go look for me and headed for the stage area.
They were both only tiny tots at the time, about nine and six years old, so when they met one of the stage hands and told him they were looking for their brother, who was a friend of Pete Seeger, the stage hand brought them to the trailer where Pete and his wife, Toshi, were preparing for the evening show.
Lisa remembers walking into the trailer. “It was so strange. We were only two little girls and did not realize where we were, but as soon as the door opened, I recognized the big tall fellow with a gray bushy beard, holding a banjo. I knew it was none other than Pete Seeger.” After a few moments of stunned silence, Lisa blurted out, “I know you. You're Pete Seeger.”
Pete replied, “Where do you know me from?”
Lisa said, “From watching Sesame Street. Do you know if my brother is here?”
Pete, a little perplexed, asked, “Your brother?”
Lisa continued, “My brother is a big fan of yours, and he plays the banjo too. And he is really good. I thought he said he was coming to see your show. Is he here?” Lisa went on about her brother till Pete asked, “Who is he?”
Lisa said, “His name is Rik Palieri and, you know, he has some of your records too.”
Pete laughed. “No, he is not here.” Then he asked his wife, Toshi, to make the girls some sandwiches, gave them water, then sent them back out to play.
My sisters left the trailer and told my mother what had happened. My mother really did not believe them but said, “That's nice.”
A few hours later, I arrived with my girlfriend and sat down to enjoy the show. That night at the concert, Pete said, “Tomorrow I will be performing at a riverfront festival in Hoboken, New Jersey, to benefit the Clearwater. Everyone’s invited.” (The Sloop Clearwater is the environmental sailboat that Pete helped build in 1969.)
As Hoboken was just a stone’s throw away from my parents’ house, I knew I had to go.
The next morning at breakfast, before I left for the concert, my sister told me, “I met Pete Seeger yesterday.”
I looked at her like she was crazy.
“He was filing his nails,” she snapped back.
Unaware of my sister’s little promotional campaign, I just shook my head and walked out the door with my banjo slung over my back. When I arrived, a few musicians had already begun playing together in a little circle, so I pulled out my banjo and joined right in. We played for while and then some one called out, “Hey Pete's here!”
First concert with Pete in Hoboken
Pete was dressed in a bright yellow t-shirt and a black Greek fisherman's cap. He joined our circle, unzipped his leather guitar case and took out his big 12-string guitar, and played along. After a few songs he introduced himself then asked us about ourselves.
When he came to me he said, “And who are you?”
“Hi, I'm Rik Palieri,” I managed to stammer.
Pete looked at me, cocked his head, and said, “You know Rik, I met your sisters yesterday, and they told me you are a good banjo player. Why don't you come up on stage with me, and we'll sing a few songs together with the rest of the group?”
I stood in shock, thinking: You met my sisters? You want me to join you on stage?
Pete smiled and welcomed me up on the high waterfront stage.
Within a week, my life changed. A photographer from the Asbury Park Press snapped a photo of me and Pete on stage, a photo that appeared in the paper’s next edition, and now the reporter wanted a follow-up story. Later, Pete himself called me on the phone, asking me to help him put on a concert and start building a chapter of the Clearwater in my community.
As the years passed, Pete became my mentor, sending me letters, giving me advice, and helping me get involved in concerts, festivals, recordings, and books. He also appeared as a guest on my cable TV show, “The Song Writer’s Notebook.” Whenever Pete thought something I was doing was worthwhile, he was always there with his warm smile and helping hand.
Sometimes I wonder if I hadn’t gone to that little festival in Hoboken, would my life still be the same? But my sister Lisa takes a whole different view. “Remember, Rik, it was me who introduced you to Pete Seeger. You still owe me, big time!”
Here is a short video clip of me and Pete singing "John Henry." It's from the Song Writer's Notebook:
Musicians and singers have been performing on the streets since before the roads were paved. Yet, modern urban artists get harassed for anything from panhandling to violating traffic laws. The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority approached the problem of the pesky artiste from a different angle. Tired of shooing classical violinists and African drummers off the subway steps and platforms, the MTA created Music Under New York, an officially endorsed program that lets artists perform on subways stations. The program supplies them with an MTA banner and schedule. However, it’s very competitive and not easy to get into.
Every year Music Under New York holds auditions in Grand Central Station for new performers, looking for musicians who reflect the New York City culture and diversity.Auditions last a day and are open to public, but the applicants’ faith is decided by a panel of professionals from the music industry, cultural institutions, and MTA station operators.
The MUNY artists play everything from Beethoven to doo wop and from Spanish guitar to Russian harmonica. Many of them play unique instruments such as Chinese dulcimer, Senegalese kora, Andean pipes, and Aboriginal didjeridoo. Two or three musicians play a saw - yes, a large metal saw, which sounds like a cross between a violin and a flute.But, even in this eclectic collection of creative minds, some stand out. Like The Opera Collective.
I could write about it, but instead I decided to post my radio interview with one of the Opera Collective members, Vaughn Lindquist, taken in the Times Square Subway stop to the accompaniment of the passing trains and rushing commuters.
The spicy pepper mixture known as chutney in India has a second
meaning in the Caribbean, where it’s also a type of Indo-Caribbean music with deep
roots but a short history. It's also as diverse as the people who created it.
Chutney music goes back to the late 1950s, when a dance
album called TheKing of Suriname released in the tiny South American nation of the
same name. The music made a splash among East Indians across the region, and
the singer, Ramew Chaitoe, became known as the father of chutney music.
Chaitoe sang primarily Indian religious songs known as bhajans in a Creolized Hindi. One song
in particular, Raat Ke Sapne, became
a dance hit that was popular for decades. The song is about separation, an apt
subject for Chaitoe’s primary audience whose ancestors were brought by the
British to the Caribbean sugar belt as indentured laborers to replace the freed
slaves.
A
decade after Chaitoe’s historic recordings, another Surinamese, Dropati,
released an album (Let’s Sing and Dance)
of traditional wedding songs that became another hit and earned her the title
of the mother of chutney music. The King
of Suriname and Let’s Sing and Dance
remain two of the bestselling East Indian albums, though the genre itself has
changed dramatically.
In
1970, a Trinidadian named Sundar Popo had a #1 hit song in Guyana and Trinidad
with his song Nana Nani (which
means “grandfather" and "grandmother”). Sung in Creolized Hindi and English, with
lyrics like “Nana drinkin' white rum and
Nani drinkin' wine,” the song was heard all over the islands in the ‘70s,
and gave way to the term chutney for
this form of music. Sundar Popo sang folk songs with influences of West
Indian calypso sounds on topics that reflected life of the Indo-Caribbeans, touching
on themes of emigration, repression, and discrimination in his songs. Other
chutney music artists emerged, singing about everything from female oppression
to life on a sugar plantation.
Today
chutney music has gone mainstream, an amalgam of calypso and Trinidadian soca, usingelectric guitars and synthesizers,and Indian popular music and traditional instruments, such as the dholak (a double-headed hand drum played
horizontally), the dhantal (a long steel
rod played with a metal horseshoe-type piece), and the harmonium (something like a small keyboard similar to a
reed organ). And it’s not just East Indians creating this music; Afro West
Indians have gotten in on the act, and the genre has spread to a wider, mainstream
Caribbean audience. A musician named Atiya all the way over in Holland shot to fame performing
her own Indian soca music.
And
as Afro-Caribbeans and Indo-Caribbeans migrated north, to the United States and
Canada, so did the music. Record companies and nightclubs promoting this popular
party music emerged, especially in Toronto and New York, spreading the Caribbean music scene further. Often, recordings done in the north
make their way back to the islands.
Earlier, some Caribbean governments banned
or repressed chutney music because of ethnic discrimination. But by the early
to mid-‘90s, both Trinidad and Guyana had East Indian political leaders, which
helped lead to a renaissance of this type of music. In Guyana, Terry Gajraj had a top hit
with an album called “Guyana Baboo” (Child of Guyana) that evokes nostalgia for
Guyanese immigrants everywhere.
In
fact, the music has splintered into a dozen other subgenres – dance, folk, hip
hop, rap, even appearing in Bollywood films – but even as it moves from the
islands onto the international stage, the music remains popular throughout the
region and the Caribbean diaspora as the music of their roots, for East and West
Indians alike.
Here
are just a few popular chutney songs, old and new:
One of my favorite soundtracks of summer is the Buena Vista Social Club. Whenever I hear the distinctive Cuban beat and soulful lyrics, I’m transported back to the days when I lazed on pristine beaches and swam in turquoise oceans. That’s my past, but the Buena Vista Social Club’s history is much more fascinating.
During the 1930 and 1940s, the Buena Vista Social Club in Havana, Cuba, held dances and live music just about every night. The Afro-Cuban music played in the club grew so popular that the Buena Vista Social Club became the place to be for the hip and cool in Havana, especially for Cubans with African roots. Musicians who performed at the club included bassist Cachao López, band leader Arsenio Rodríguez, and pianist Rubén González, who went on to become members of the musical group that adopted the name of the club. López, Rodríguez, and González have described the 1940s as “an era of real musical life in Cuba, where there was very little money to earn, but everyone played because they really wanted to.”
Many musical styles sprung up from this period including the mambo, and the charanga, as well as dances such as the pachanga, and cha-cha-cha. Afro-Cuban music, the rumba and son, developed, and with the band leader Arsenio Rodríguez increasing the role of trumpets, congas, and piano, son morphed into the son montuno. Since then, son has influenced musicians all over the Americas, both north and south.
After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, President Manuel Urrutia Lleó aspired to obtain a “classless and colorblind society.” This meant that Afro-Cuban cultural and music centres, like the Buena Vista Social Club, closed because they almost exclusively catered to the Afro-Cuban population. The government supported local music but gave preference to nueva trova and the salsa, while son slid in popularity. Cuban music took on more of a pop feel, as did its dance styles, and the son and its traditional variants were no longer desired by the young people of Cuba.
In 1996, a music producer invited American guitarist Ry Cooder to Havana to record a session with two African musicians from Mali. After Cooder arrived (via Mexico), he found out the Mali musicians hadn’t received Cuban visas and couldn’t make the recording. The music producer and Cooder changed their plans and set out to record a son album instead, enlisting the expertise of local musicians.
Amongst the group was musical director, Juan de Marcos, who had worked with the Afro-Cuban All Stars. He helped track down Cuba’s best son musicians, including Compay Segundo, a singer then in his eighties. In three days, Cooder, the producer, and de Marcos had a large group of enthusiastic musicians ready to record. They laid down the tracks at Havana’s EGREM Studios, which RCA Records once owned. Not much of the equipment had changed since the 1950s, and even though Cooder’s Spanish was minimal, he and the other men managed to communicate through other means than speaking – namely through their music.
It took six days to record 14 tracks, resulting in an album that has since gone on to become an international sensation. In 1998, German director Wim Wenders filmed the performance of the Buena Vista Social Club in Amsterdam, followed by a concert at Carnegie Hall. He interviewed the musicians and compiled footage to create the documentary, Buena Vista Social Club. This documentary won many accolades, including an Academy Award and Best Documentary at the European Film Awards.
The success of the film and album ignited a newfound international interest in traditional Cuban music, which flowed on to Latin American music also. Some of the Club’s performers released successful solo albums, and they have gone on to perform collaborations with other international artists from different musical genres.
Years ago, I was fortunate enough to catch the Buena Vista Social Club playing a live performance in Melbourne, Australia. Even better, a friend, who had some amazing musical connections, managed to get me back stage to meet members of the group. I chatted in Spanish with these warm and friendly musicians, the whole experience feeling surreal. That is one of my best memories, and I wish I could have captured it in a photo. Too bad there were no camera phones back then.
As time slowly ticks by, the world is sadly losing the original members of the Buena Vista Social Club. Compay Segundo, who wrote Buena Vista’s flagship song, Chan Chan, passed away in 2003, at a very respectable age of 96. When asked about his longevity, Segundo’s reply was “mutton, consommé, and rum.” Forever the optimist, Segundo predicted he’d live to be 115, but unfortunately passed away much earlier. On the hundredth anniversary of his birth, Havana held a concert in his honor. His closest friends made up the orchestra, and no doubt, it would have been a very moving experience for both the musicians and the audience.
There are several surviving original members who now tour under the name of the Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club. Even though many are in their late 80s and early 90s, these musicians still delight audiences of all ages, and introduce new fans to their music with every concert.
It’s incredible to think how a couple of men not obtaining a travel visa to Cuba kicked-off what has to be one of history’s most impressive musical projects. Although it would have been disappointing to the men from Mali to miss out on their trip to Cuba, the world is a much better place now that we can share in the musical delights of the Buena Vista Social Club. Funny how serendipity works.
