Gilberto Gil, open source, and a (legal) link to lots of free music

Gilberto Gil,Tropicalia-legend-turned-Brazilian-Cultural-Minister, has for a long time been calling for an international overhaul in intellectual property/copy rights. Here’s a post from Martin LaMonica at CNet (via Wired) on a speech Gil gave at the MIT EmTech conference last month. Gil’s theory is that an “open-source” model of digital music/technology/software licensing will “give more people the freedom to use and republish digital forms of content as a way of encouraging personal expression, culture and political participation.” Gil points to success in the creation of 650 “tech centers” throughout Brazil, which have for the first time given some Brazilians access to computers, internet access, and audio/video technology at no cost. And just in case the cynics out there were wondering, the Tropicalisto put his money where his mouth is and reissued some of his music to encourage sharing and remixing. Free music after the jump.

What is this “world music” you speak of?

Here’s an interesting post by Everett True over at the Village Voice on the politics/origin of “world music” as a term and a genre. It’s a pretty important conversation in the music community that began at some point in the ’80’s when the term was first used to create a niche genre in the American/UK record industries.

True points out the phrase was used even before that for the French “World Music Day”, although the debate ultimately is an offshoot of Edward Said’s concepts of “othering” and Orientalism. For further reading, take a look at the 1999 editorial “I Hate World Music” here by some guy named David Byrne, and Gilberto Gil’s piece “The Music of the World is Bigger than World Music” here.

Sara Tavares at the Blender

Sara Tavares and her band took to the stage on 9/26 at the Blender Theater (formerly the Gramercy), presented by S.O.B.’s. Although Tavares’ performance and charisma were stunning, she spent a good part of the show trying to get the audience as pumped about the music as she was. The very real culture clash in the room was made apparent when Sara took a poll of Portuguese speakers (who cheered and sang in response) and English speakers (who politely raised their hands). Awkward. It was almost more awkward when everyone clapped along to the music. Again, while the Portuguese-speaking segment of the audience clapped along with the music’s very precise (though not very difficult) drum patterns, the English-speaking segment couldn’t keep up and reverted to the very normal 4-to-the-bar pattern.

Sheila Chandra

Caught Sheila Chandra’s New York debut the other night at the lovely Joe’s Pub. Love that room. Anyway, there’s been a lot of speculation about whether she’d fried her voice singing in the way she does (both quiet and intense), which put undue stress on the vocal chords. I’m no doctor but the results were typically steller regardless of how it worked. So she drops out for a while and then I noticed she was doing a WOMAD a while ago and I began to hope that I’d finally get my chance after interviewing her back in 2000. In that interview she talked of different vocal traditions beyond her Indian music and that talk now bears itself out in songs that will be her next record. (Yep, she said from stage there would be a record soon.) Interestingly, she mixed European folk songs, European choral traditions (one song was in partially in Latin) and I believe there was an Irish jig thrown in for good measure. Not what I expected, but her worldclass voice transcended the root material to make it seem very natural. Irish and Chinese music can sound alike at times, and now I’m hearing a connection between Irish and Indian styles. All this and she was up there alone singing a capella or accompanied by prerecorded drones. Very cool stuff. TH

A brief introduction

Welcome to the official music blog of Global Rhythm magazine. GR has reported on music, film and art throughout the world for more than 15 years and is proud to extend its presence to the blogosphere. WE WANT to create a constantly updated online space that will keep our long-time Global Rhythm readers plugged into the our scene and hopefully HIP SOME NEWBIES TO ARTISTS WHO HAIL FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD. We hope you’ll join us as we comment AND discuss the artist, shows, and other relevant current events with the “world music” community.