Walter Goldschmidt's Blog

I recently found out about an interesting blog. Walter Goldschmidt is a fellow anthropologist, 96 years young, who writes a blog called Paradigms Regained. He includes passages from his memoirs in progress, which I've only started reading, but already are quite informative.
Check it out:

http://waltergoldschmidt.wordpress.com/

A Night in Rio Revisited

Here are two videos and a blog entry from Crossroads Charlotte about the Brazilian Carnival event from last Thursday. Enjoy!





http://www.crossroadscharlotte.org/bulletins/

Woody Sez-This Machine Kills Fascists

Concluding four consecutive days of going to hear live music, on Sunday afternoon I went to see "Woody Sez" a musical about Woody Guthrie. Four actors performed scenes from his life and sung songs that Guthrie and other musicians, such as Leadbelly, wrote or recorded. After the show, the theater hosted a hootenanny in the lobby where several local musicians joined the cast and we all sang folk songs.

Not Latin music, you say. Well, perhaps, but Guthrie was a key figure in the US ballad tradition, recording folk ballads that had survived in rural America and composing his own songs that followed in the centuries-old tradition of orally-transmitted music. For better or worse, popular recordings and radio transformed many of the unique and highly-localized musical styles present in the US at the turn of the century, and Guthrie was present during most of this transition, during which he tapped into and kept alive the older ways of singing and playing. At the same time, Guthrie negotiated the dramatic economic turmoil and political transformations of the 1930s and 1940s, always on the side of the common man, the worker, the unemployed.

And while the Anglo-American ballad tradition mainly died out in the US during the 20th century, in Mexico and the US Southwest, a similar ballad tradition, the corrido, thrived. Corridos, sung in one form or another since the Spanish conquest and deriving from the medieval "romance," chronicled the struggles of the 1910s Mexican Revolution, but, rather than dying out with modernization and urbanization, have continued to document current events in the Mexican popular imagination. Since the 1970s, narcocorridos, or ballads about the drug trade, have detailed the illicit drug trade, the rise and fall of cartels, and government collusion and corruption. Other corridos have told the stories of undocumented immigrants trapped in a 'golden cell' of life in the US, where things don't always turn out like they dreamed. As Elijah Wald documents, in Mexico one can still find balladeers who wander from town to town singing the people's music.

Guthrie represents the sort of on-the-ground knowledge and engagement with a popular consciousness that anthropology should strive for. Who will tell the story of today's unemployed, homeless, uprooted wanderers that continue to grow in number?

http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/I_Aint_Got_No_Home.htm

Furia Tropical and Bachata Flow

On Saturday I went to see two more bands I was unfamiliar with: Furia Tropical and Bachata Flow. They both played at a club, The Blvd, which was also new to me.

Furia Tropical plays mostly salsa and cumbia. They might be good, but who knows? I couldn't tell because the sound man had turned up the keyboards so high it overwhelmed the vocals and even the timbale. Note to The Blvd owners- hire a new sound person! Nevertheless, a few people decided to dance.





Bachata Flow plays bachata and merengue, and they are the back-up band for Leydy Bonilla. Plus they bring Washington Heights fashions straight to Charlotte, I felt like I was on 181st Street. And they are not bad as musicians either. Unfortunately, they didn't go on until 1:30 in the morning and by 2:15 I was ready for bed, even though they were still going strong.

Johnny Mortera and Los Blue

On Friday night, I went to a local club to hear two groups I'd never heard before: Johnny Mortera and Los Blue.

Los Blue is a relatively new band from nearby Winston-Salem and they play instrumental rock. The guitar player really gets into it, at one point he lay down flat on his back while continuing to play a guitar solo (I wasn't able to get a picture).



Johnny Mortera and his band play classic rock songs in Spanish and English. While the band is talented, especially the lead guitarist, Mortera's singing needs some improvement.




In the next to last song, Mortera's connection to regional mexicano came through as he had his band don giant sombreros and led them in a rock rendition of Jose Alfredo Jimenez's "El Rey."

A Night in Rio: Brazilian Carnaval in Charlotte

On Thursday, the Latin American Coalition put on A Night in Rio: the Brazilian Carnival Experience, an event I've been working on with Tony for the past few months. We weren't sure what to expect, since an event like this had not been tried before in Charlotte. But tons of people showed up, maybe 700 or 800 people. We envisioned the show as a way to bring the gap between the Latino and Brazilian community in Charlotte; also it was a way to showcase some of the great Brazilian immigrant musicians and dancers here. Brazil is sort of like the stepchild of Latin America, there are both similarities and differences in the cultures of Brazil and the rest of Latin America, in language, music, political history, etc. I am debating whether to include Brazilian music as part of an ethnography of the Latin music scene in Charlotte.
Wherever you position yourself in this debate, A Night in Rio showed that Brazilians have arrived in Charlotte BIG TIME!
Here are some pictures of SoulBrazil, Paulo & Ezio, and Movimentos de Samba.

Asheville Trip

This weekend Daliz and I went to Asheville, North Carolina. As we were walking around downtown after eating a vegetarian meal at the Laughing Seed Cafe, we chanced upon a Mardi Gras/Valentine's Day parade. If you happen to be in Asheville, I highly recommend the chocolate creations at the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, started by an Oberlin alum and his wife (get the liquid truffle!). In Asheville, I found a statue celebrating Appalachian music and dance, which I pondered for its anthropological significance. Also, there is a hamlet called Bat Cave we drove through on our way to Lake Lure/Chimney Rock, nearby towns famous for haunting mist, moonshine, and Christian revivalism. Hence the images here...

Singing My Way

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/world/asia/07karaoke.html?em

If you hold strong opinions about Frank Sinatra or about people singing Sinatra songs, you might want to check out this article.

Ultima Nota at Luna Lounge

On Saturday night, Ultima Nota, one of the bands I've been following, played at a lounge downtown (Uptown in Charlotte-speak). Here are some photos.

Band Videos-See Below

Enjoy these videos of some of the local Latino artists performing in Charlotte. Some of the videos are edited music videos, others were recorded live in concert. Let me know what you think about the music and the bands. I'll try to post other videos as I come across them.

Band Videos-Elio Carvajal

Here's Elio Carvajal, a local mariachi-ranchera singer and his band.

"Las Mujeres"

Band Videos- Banda Techno Caliente

Here's Banda Techno Caliente. They're heavy on the synthesizer/keyboards.

"Porque me enamore de ti"



"Asi te amo"

Band Videos-Leydy Bonilla

This is Leydy Bonilla (singing) and her band.

Live at Latin American Festival 2009

Band Videos-Tropic Culture

Here's another local band, Tropic Culture.

Live at Latin American Festival 2009

Band Videos- Sin Recursos

Here is another band, Sin Recursos.

"Contra Reloj"



Live at the Latin American Festival 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrxv7cNgVDM

Band Videos- Bakalao Stars

Here's a couple of videos from another band, Bakalao Stars.

"Pinocho"



"Momentos Kodak"

Band Videos-La Rua

I thought I might post some youtube videos of some of the local Latino bands playing music in Charlotte. First up, La Rua. These guys have moved on to other projects, but they influenced a lot of the other rock bands singing in Spanish here.

"El Chanchito"




"La Jeva"