Caribbean Voyage: Tombstone Feast, "Funerary Music Of Carriacou" - The Alan Lomax Collection

Various Artists

Released on 23/01/2001 by Rounder
Main artist: Various Artists
Genre: World

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This CD deserves a super-duper rating for the musical performances contained herein and not for the position it has been given in the Alan Lomax Collection series, an extensive new millennium project for the Rounder label. A high rating could also be awarded simply for the title of Tombstone Feast, bound to attract its fair share of zombie and horror fanatics who will not be let down. The drumming and singing captured by Lomax on his early-'60s recording trip through the Caribbean simply burn the house down. It is propulsively energetic on a level that defies description, so intense that it makes the soundtrack to the zombie film The Serpent and the Rainbow sound like fodder for The Care Bears Movie. These recordings originate from the island of Carriacou, slightly north of Grenada. Lomax taped hours of this material, much of which was never available commercially until the Rounder series began. For some reason this volume has been issued independently of Caribbean Voyage: Saraca, Funerary Music of Carriacou, another CD in the Lomax series that was taped in the same location and involves the same performers. Perhaps this decision was made for financial reasons, although a pile of money is not the image that comes to mind when mulling over the commercial prospects of ritual music from so-called "tombstone feasts," events that are held sometimes many years after the honoree has died. Assembled as a double CD, these two releases make much more sense and would have a decided edge as a serious research document. That way, the Caribbean Voyage: Saraca, Funerary Music of Carriacou program, including an instructive interview with singer Mary Fortune, provides the proper buildup to the frenzy of Tombstone Feast. On the other gravestone, separating the two discs means cheaper and quicker access to the raw, cheap thrills without as much background and mood-setting, a notion fortified by the label's use of such contrasting titles for the projects, one scholarly, the other scandalous -- although, to be fair, it was the islanders who came up with the "tombstone feast" idea, not the director of an Italian cannibal epic.
It should also not be suggested that, on its own, Tombstone Feast is lacking in liner notes to set the scene. As usual with this series, the accompanying booklet is a fatso, only barely fitting into a jewel case. Documentation of funerary music has always presented space problems because of the extended lengths of these events. In the LP era Lomax never found anyone to release these particular recordings, while other labels dealing with world music chose to release tantalizing but heavily edited excerpts from similar ceremonies. Rounder may have missed an opportunity to put out the hefty box set the Carriacou recordings really deserve, but in the long run the only thing that really matters is how fantastic these performances are. This is also said to have been a recording first, capturing on tape aspects of a Caribbean musical repertoire known as "Big Drum Nation dances." The first half of this expression has not a whiff of hyperbole. The sound of these percussion ensembles, also known as "chac-chac" bands, features instruments called cut drums and boula drums, creating a sound that combines the sonorities of both hand drumming and stick drumming. One drum is close enough to the sound of a snare drum to give the pieces an aspect of both marching band music and drum kits as opposed to the type of "primitive" hand drums associated with these cultures. The musical structure controlling how the drummers interact is a detailed subject -- there is even an illustration of how the Big Drum song's fugal form works that looks like a score from avant-garde composer George Crumb. On top of rhythmic patterns charging forward like a gathering of angry rhinos and ducks come vocalists whose proximity to the microphone is sometimes a thrill in itself. "This is what Pharoah Sanders would like to sound like," was a somewhat snide remark from one jaded listener, but hopefully points out a potential audience for this superb music, the release of which is just as exciting as the dead rising from their graves.

© Eugene Chadbourne /TiVo

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Caribbean Voyage: Tombstone Feast, "Funerary Music Of Carriacou" - The Alan Lomax Collection

Various Artists

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Tim Bwai-O

May Fortune

00:03:06

Various Artists, Percussion, AssociatedPerformer - Traditional, ComposerLyricist - ALAN LOMAX, Producer, Recording Engineer, Recording Producer, StudioPersonnel - STEVE ROSENTHAL, Producer - Phil Klum, Mastering Engineer, StudioPersonnel - Matthew Barton, Production Coordinator, StudioPersonnel - Daniel Aikens, Drum, AssociatedPerformer - Sugar Adams, Drum, AssociatedPerformer - Caddy Lazarus John, Drum, AssociatedPerformer - May Fortune, Vocals, Maracas, MainArtist, AssociatedPerformer - Anna Lomax Chairetakis, Producer, Assistant Producer, Asst. Recording Engineer, StudioPersonnel