HOLLY WOOD BABEL: Peruano, Africano, Colombiano, Angeleno… Novalima, guey

Did you know that Peru had Africans?  If you’ve heard (of) Susana Baca, then you did; or should, anyway.  They’ve been there since the early days of Spanish colonialism, though never in huge numbers, apparently.  Still it doesn’t exactly fit the image of an Andean nation with an Amerindian culture defined by its high degree of advancement and largely unassimilated entrance into the modern age.  That’s the point, that the races in Peru never really mixed, natives confined to the Cordillera, and whites content to stay along the coasts where they—and their African slaves—landed.

Vaud and the Villains - How Do You Spell E-C-L-E-C-T-I-C?

The last thing I had in mind when I left my apartment last Saturday was to receive some musical epiphany at LA’s MacArthur Park… yes, THAT MacArthur Park.  I really wanted to go see Alex Cuba at Levitt Pavilion in Pasadena but just couldn’t talk myself into riding the metro for an hour and a half just to see a show probably not even that long and then ride the darn thing home again.  And I really like Alex Cuba, but you know what they say: “Time is money.” 

It's That Time Again in LA: Let the Music Flow...

It’s that time again in LA—summer—and there’s so much good music for free that it almost makes the smog and traffic jams and lack of parking space worth it (BTW there’s a solution to the aforementioned problems: sell your car and ride public trans).  When I first arrived in LA five years ago from the Golden Triangle outback I went almost ape-shit crazy gorging on sights and sounds, as if you could just fill your belly like a big ol’ bear, then snooze it off for a season or two.  So that’s what I did.  But I think maybe it’s time to get back in the swing, especially since this may well be my last summer in LA, therefore time to fill up the esthetic tank. 

Here’s the best deals I can find, ALL FREE, highlights (in chronological order) looking like:

www.levittpavilionpasadena.org: Carmen Souza (tonight 6/20), Alex Cuba (6/22), Vieux Farka Toure’ (7/12), Dirty Dozen Brass Band (7/14), Bachaco (7/25), Jeffrey Broussard (8/1), Mia Doi Todd (8/21), Chicano Batman (8/10), LoCura (8/23), and Quetzal (8/24)… hijole… plus many more…

ON CD- MALI: TALE OF TWO TRAORE’S; IN FESTIVAL(S): CANADA & LA

What Ali Farka Toure’ accomplished with his Talking Timbuktu album with Ry Cooder, has been consolidated and spread like wildfire through the otherwise harsh reality that is the African country of Mali.  The fact that it is really two countries- one Saharan and Semitic, one sub-Saharan and negroid- is the creative conjunction where sparks fly and old battles die, IF (i.e. big if), you can hold it all together.  Bottom line, Mali has some of the best music in the world, bar none.  In fact, on a per capita basis, given its population of less than fifteen million, it’s arguably THE best music in the world.  Too bad it’s so hard to travel there independently, and so expensive once you get there, no small irony in a country with per capita income of less than $700 per year.  You could easily spend that on a hotel for a week.

So, have fun if you can find those legendary dimly-lit (lighted?) clubs where people with surnames like Toure’, Diabete’, and Keita show up to play.  There’s more than a few of those names, and they may not all be related- not closely anyway- though they probably all know each other, by this time at least.  Don’t be shocked when you see street signs with those same names, IF you see any street signs at all.  There isn’t much there btw.  If you want to go to that night club, you’ll probably need a guide.  Bring lots of cash.  There aren’t a lot of ATM’s.  You’ve been warned.

It’s probably easier to just buy the CD’s, since Mali is now firmly on the world music market, one of the five pillars in fact.  Within the country itself you’ve got maybe four or five distinct genres again.  Though I haven’t seen any scholarly studies on it (that’s what I’m here for, right?), it seems as though there are genres of traditional/classical/'griot'- e.g. Diabate’, Sahel folk- e.g. Ali Farka Toure’, Tuareg folk rock- e.g. Tinariwen, urban folk blues- e.g. Ali Farka’s son Vieux, and… I’m still thinking, so give me a minute, please…

Meanwhile check out two of the newest releases from a couple of Traore’s (not to be confused with Toure’), Lobi and Boubacar, not related, so far as I know, but… it’s a small country.  Lobi Traore’ may have died prematurely last year year at the age of forty-nine, but his music will live on in this group of live recordings from those same dingy night clubs that you’re wandering around the streets of Bamako looking for.  If the album starts off a bit slowly but distinctly with the folksy percussive ‘Makono’ and ‘Banan Ni’, by the time we get to songs four and five ‘Jama’ and ‘Mali Ba’ Lobi and band are kicking ass.  ‘Bi Donga Fa Ko’ shows some surprising pop hooks and may indeed be the best song on the album, despite its seventh place in the batting order.  The album is called ‘Bwati Kono’.  Check it out.

Boubacar Traore’ is something else altogether.  Firmly within the ‘Sahel Folk’ genre, this is the only person in the Mali music scene that is perhaps even as important as Ali Farka Toure’, and in fact even pre-dates him.  If Ali Farka’s music was the revelation, then this is the confirmation.  If there was any further proof needed of the close relation between US blues and Mali folk music, then look no further.  Regardless of the details in a history largely unwritten, it’s obvious that these two genres have a common source.  One branch got shipped off to Clarkdale, MS, up in Coahoma County, while the rest stayed behind in the savannahs and woodlands of Africa, eking out a living there.  Only now are they being reunited, through music.

Traore’s newest album ‘Mali Denhou’ is a wonder.  If ‘M'Badehou’ and ‘Dundobesse M'Bedouniato’ are pleasant-enough ballads to lead off with, the latter featuring a nice acoustic-guitar lead solo, ‘Mondeou’ turns up the tempo significantly, and by this time you may have a hard time sitting still.  I should probably mention the killer harmonica work by French harpster Vincent Bucher, who literally kills on this album, in effect making it a cross-cultural collaboration, some of the best blues harp I’ve ever heard, in fact, albeit of the acoustic sort.

Title song ‘Mali Denhou’ starts off with some really nice atmospheric percussion before settling into a solid blues groove, and then ‘Minuit’ takes a French-style ballad and turns it into a talking blues.  ‘Farafina Lolo Lora’ and ‘Djougouya Niagnini’ slow things down a bit, but ‘N'Dianamogo’ puts a pulse back into the beat and ‘Mali Tchebaou’ is an especially nice closer.  All in all this ranks up there with the best of Ali Farka and highly recommended.  I don’t know if he’s touring the US or Canada this summer, but I’ll be looking.

Ah, summer, it’s that time again, festival season, time to listen to music outdoors, where God intended.  Here in LA, best bets for that are the two Levitt Pavilions in MacArthur Park and Pasadena and Grand Performances downtown, featuring such acts as Sambada, Bombino, Seun Kuti, Khaira Arby and Rupa and the April Fishes.  Further afield, the Canadian Folk Festivals deserve special mention, in places like Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and even Dawson City, featuring some of the best world music around, amongst other compatible genres.  If the gods are willing, I myself will be in Calgary, which is featuring too many great acts to mention.  C U there.

WORLD MUSIC HEATS UP LA- Beat the Donkey, Wil-Dog, and Tommy Castro

Ahhh! It’s that time of year again, like it or not. Last week the temps were up to almost three figures Fahrenheit and the blood so thin that I could barely get a quorum. The windows stay open and blankets go unused. The fan follows me around the apartment- which involves frequent trips to the fridge- and I have air-conditioned dreams, if I can sleep at all. Fast forward a few days and that’s all changed, reminding me of what I like most about LA- the weather. If it’s too hot one day, it just might be too cool the next, averaging out really nicely, nothing normal mind you, ‘average’. If it’s too hot for me today, it’ll probably be too cold for my wife- she’s Thai- tomorrow. But I was lying. That’s not my favorite thing about LA. My favorite thing is the music- and lots of it- outdoors and free all summer. It’s that time of year again. The weather’s better at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala anyway BTW.

I went to Brazil a few years ago- to travel, see Carnaval… and listen to music. “Well, you must’ve heard some pretty good stuff,” a friend surmised upon my return. “Well, you know, it’s funny…,” and I’m not sure if I ever completed the sentence or not. Because, well, to be honest, Brazilian music CAN be funny. That’s part of the package, and part of the personality. The idea promoted by bossa nova and Ipanema and a Jobim or two that Brazil is all about sex, show, and suavedade is a bit misleading, or specific to maybe only a part of Rio, but hardly the whole package, or even the real package, as if Brazil were but Cannes or Nice projected in Sensurround® upon the Atlantic coast of South America as a whole. Now that might be nice, but it’s just not accurate. In Recife, they don’t even do samba, much less bossa nova. In Recife, they dance frevo, which is something like a jitterbug cucaracha. And the music, well… I was disappointed at the time, but I think I’m starting to ‘get it’…

Nobody better personifies the wackiness that Brazilian popular music is capable of than ‘Cyro Baptista and Beat the Donkey’, who played last Saturday night at California Plaza in downtown LA. They don’t beat around the bush… or maybe they do. Better described as a troupe than a group, they take the stage wearing tophats and Indian headdresses and Russian ushankas and proceed to play flip-flops and PVC pipes- in addition to the usual guitars and drums- while tap-dancing and Balinese-dancing… and prancing about the stage in general. Sound like a bit much, maybe? That’s what I was thinking, too… and then they broke into a version of ‘Immigrant Song’ by Led Zeppelin. Hmmm… I’m thinking… that’s different… still thinking… ‘Immigrant Song’? Now that’s radical! I never particularly even liked that song… until now, that is. And they played it well, too, note-perfect (lead guitarist kicks ass btw). Oh, now I get it! Cyro Baptista… beats your ass (with tongue planted firmly in cheek)! I’d listen again…

Compare and contrast with Wil-Dog (Abers, Ozomatli bassist) y su banda. Like Cyro and the ass-beaters, these guys can play, too. But once again, there’s an element of kitsch that clings to it all, too. I’m just not sure if they intend it that way. This is a large band, full of brass- including tuba- and balls, and cutting-up Ozomatli-style while playing music that I could only describe as… ‘Mexican’? True, they run around the stage less than OZO, and their music stays more within a single genre, whatever genre that is. Maraiachi, maybe? Polka? I give up. Wil-Dog himself seems to be having mucho fun, though, prancing around the stage all dressed up muy Pachuco, and his voice isn’t half-bad, but… you might want to keep that day job, Wil-Dog. It ain’t bad, either…

The other act I saw this past week was Tommy Castro’s band last night (Tues.) at Hollywood & Highland’s Wine & Jazz series. This music isn’t exactly jazz, of course, but I guess blues ‘passes’ like black for white. I’ve heard of this band for years in the Bay Area, so it’s nice to finally see- and hear- them. They’re pretty good, too, about as good as blues can be, really, considering that nothing new has been done with it for at least several decades, since Stevie Ray, if not Duane A. Blues just isn’t as revolutionary as it used to be in the 60’s, like going to the other side of town and entering a new dimension, and one that rocked, to boot. Even Cajun music has re-invented itself, fer Chrissaskes, and traditional Andean music is now Andes ‘fusion’. I’ll be the first to line up for the ‘new blues’. Bring it on!

So by now I should have launched into a bit on KCRW’s ‘World Festival’, right? Wrong, for whatever the ‘world festival’ IS, it’s NOT- in any reliable dependable way- world music, i.e. music from other countries, cultures and languages, two out of three wears the badge. Now while we intellectual cognescenti intelligentsia all know- nod nod wink wink- that ALL music is ‘world music’, that doesn’t help the poor bloke who might seriously be interested if he knew what it was. I’ll tell you what it’s NOT. It’s NOT ‘She & Him’ (or He & Her, I can’t remember, only that it was mixed nominative/accusative). Now Zooey Deschanel is not bad… pretty good, actually, so I’ll be interested to see if she is the one actor/actress who can actually accomplish something as a musician. As of yet, it’s only been the other way around, musicians finding success as actors. Money’s probably better that way.

Three gigs a week, you think that’s a lotta listening? When I’m up and running at full speed, I can do that in one evening. I’m still only half-counscious, recovering from eighty countries and two years of jet-lag! Top picks for this week include jazz greats Bill Watrous at the Farmer’s Market Thursday night and Grant Geissman at LACMA on Friday. Ciro Hurtado also shows up at LACMA on Saturday. Then there’s Colombian vallenato with VBC at Pasadena Levitt Pavillion on Friday after a night of Afro-Colombian with Palenke Soultribe at Levitt MacArthur on Thursday. Then there’s my favorite venue, the California water court downtown with shows Friday noon and Friday and Saturday evening. It doesn’t matter who’s playing. They’re always good; it comes with the turf. They’ve even got the funicular ‘Angels Flight’ up and running for the first time in years, whisk you right up to the music from Pershing Square metro station for a quarter. Try and beat that. See you there.

‘TECHNO ISSA’ KICKS OFF SKIRBALL’S SUMMER CONCERT SEASON

If you’re a world music fan then you live for creative musical combinations- Cambodian psych-pop, Celtic salsa, Swedish bluegrass, etc.- the more unlikely the better. What could be more unlikely than Mali techno music? If you’ve never been to Mali, suffice it to say that there’s no place earthier. And here I’m talking traditional Mali techno music, too, not just some DJ-types who happen to be from Mali, but a fusion of traditional Mali instruments and styles with modern computer-generated drum tracks and other effects. Issa Bagayogo’s is not an electronic trance band at all, then, but a true mix, essentially adding modern techniques to update traditional styles. That’s his musical mission, and he brought it to LA’s Skirball Cultural Center last Thursday night to kick off their season of free world music concerts. The mission is easier said than done, of course. It’s not as though you just push the ‘update’ button on some computer screen and ‘wham bam!’ it’s done. There’s much cultural and musical insinuation to be accomplished for a comfortable mesh to occur. Fortunately for music and musicians that process is largely non-verbal. Once it sounds right, it IS right. Now do it again… and again… and again… slight variations occurring along the way, toward a higher synthesis, the genetic drift of music in evolution.

Get it? That’s at least part of the beauty of world music, the musical communion with something higher, easy to agree on the harmony of octaves and beats per minute, even if we can’t always agree on a God (even when it's the same God). Issa gets it right, too, playing on his primitive banjo-like n’goni and backed up on keyboards and African drum and computer laptop (when will someone come up with a guitar-shaped version? Hmmm…). The result is something that is instantly recognizable as part of the West African griot tradition while finessing modern groove beats that make it imminently danceable. The request by the evening’s host to ‘turn off your cell phones’ was a joke. By about half way through the first song, you couldn’t have heard a cell phone if you’d had your ear phones in. The empty space in your mind would’ve been quickly filled with infectious grooves and a visual dim sum that kept coming in paired-off sweet/sour harmonies- north/south, black/white, traditional/modern, acoustic/electronic, hot musical licks in cool night air. The empty space in front of the stage quickly became a dance floor and remained that way the rest of the evening. Issa is no purveyor of sit-down soliloquies. This is boogie music.

One nice thing nice about the Skirball is that you can do that there, right up close, without blocking the stage. The Skirball is an excellent venue, nestled up in the Santa Monica Mountains, so it’s nice and cool on summer evenings, yet still connected by freeway to LA. Since it’s a Jewish cultural center by day, security for the shows is a bit stricter and more formal than other free shows in the greater LA area, but not too bad all things considered (ever see the El Al check-in counter in Warsaw? Don’t make any sudden moves…). It also serves as a museum, too, with permanent exhibits related to the Jewish diaspora, both physical and cultural, and temporary exhibits, currently featuring a retrospective on comic book heroes. All in all a trip to the Skirball is imminently worthwhile, especially in conjunction with the Thursday night summer concerts. Scheduled for next week are Vasen, with Mike Marshall and Darrol Anger, playing a hybrid mix of Swedish/American ‘newgrass,’ followed by Gadji-Gadjo, the Wild Magnolias, and Omar Faruk Tekbilek. The Skirball follows the idea, as I think we all should, that by fostering increased understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultures and traditions, others will also understand us that much better, also.

Issa Bagayogo’s Mali homeland is Muslim btw, with a rich and turbulent past, giving the lie to simplistic versions of Africa’s history. Google the word ‘jihad’ sometime, if you don’t believe me, and see what they were doing in the 1850’s while we were compromising in Missouri and explaining to Dred Scott how a slave is a slave is a slave. There’s a logic to it all somehow, however twisted and contorted, but I prefer not to get lost in the incongruities and the non sequiturs. I’d rather listen to Mali groove and Swedish bluegrass. See you at the Skirball.

TRAILS OF TWO CITIES- NOODLE WARS, BUDDHIST DESIRES, HOT SHOWERS, AND THE FREE TEMPTATIONS OF TRAVEL (part 2)

My current considerations for choice between TJ and Ensenada are more basic, like which place is more convenient, with better prices, with cable TV, and especially Internet. Two years ago finding a café with free Internet in Ensenada seemed pretty hip, harbinger of great things to come. Now it’s still the same, at a time when wi-fi is fairly standard fare in US hotel/motels, even cheap ones, and fairly easy to find world-wide, especially when you book online. But that’s not the case in Ensenada, with only a few high-end places showing up on my screen. In fact you’re lucky to find cable TV, or a movie channel at all. They must’ve cracked down on the cable guys. I’ve stayed all over town, moving on when a place renovates and raises its rates. I’ve only got one bottom line- no depression. But the blanket at my regular place is now getting holes, the water only gets hot for about three minutes, and the second-storey railings are dangerous. Cable or wi-fi wouldn’t matter much if I were still drinking y/o single, but… yeah, I’m gettin’ older 2. So it’s time to say good-bye to my trusty third home. I’ve already waved off Chiang Rai and Flagstaff this year, so it only seems fittin’. Everything’s different now.

So I get a room on the Revolucion strip in TJ with free wi-fi, scalding showers, morning sun, and plenty of room to work out, all for $22 Sun-Thurs. I’m in cheap hotel heaven. There’s no cable, but local TJ and San Diego’s okay as long as I got wi-fi. Being an Internet couch potato’s better than TV, right? The first night’s rough with the disco across the street going until 4am, but that’s fixable. I’m still nursing a tooth extraction on the #30 molar, so sleep’s not exactly a dream anyway. The doctor’s sixty-five and says it’s the toughest he’s ever done. I tell him that’s why I chose a doctor with experience. He tells me that’s why he charged me fifty extra pesos. The Thai dentist cracked it on a root job; an Arizona dentist x-rayed and diagnosed it; Mexican dentist jerked the mother. First tooth of mine’s ever had three countries and three languages. I thought he was going for the crowbar at one point. But TJ’s okay. There’s only one problem.

Last night thirty-three people were killed in TJ (including nine de-caps, and I don’t mean tire blowouts) as drug turf wars rage on. Two of the victims were children. One of the incidents occurred in a grocery store. That’s getting close to home. Weird shit’s going on everywhere, Mumbai not the least of it, as the world gets crowded. And doing things the much-touted ‘Thai way’ hardly seems enlightened, passivity as philosophy, allowing anti-democracy protesters to shut the country down. These are the same people who protested FOR democracy fifteen years ago, before they found out that idiots would elect sweet-talking ‘big men’ handing out favors every time. The conflict has spread to Thai Town in LA. Oord’s noodle shop makes the help wear red on Sunday. Those are PPP colors. Local PAD supporters say if they don’t wear yellow, or at least stay neutral, they won’t eat noodles there any more. PPP people claim that PAD ranks back home are being swelled by opportunists, reprobates, and prostitutes… but I won’t go there.

What’s a poet/blogger/traveler to do? Travel… and write. Future archeologists won’t believe it. Hopefully they can download the computers they’ll find in middens. The dollar’s stronger than in years and gas prices have been granted a reprieve. That won’t last forever. The US economy sucks… so the dollar is strong. Go figure. Recession is not so bad for us fiscal conservatives who don’t feed on credit. It’s my turn. So with one trip barely over, I plan the next, Caribbean al invierno. The Chilean gypsy’s love potions seem to have worked, so I’ll revolve around my wife in LA. The Caribbean’s still America, right, so close enough? For now I’ll just hang in TJ and listen to Tinariwen on MySpace. The sun sets at 4pm now, but temps are still mild. There’s a parallel reality, a real Mexican city, parallel to the Revolucion strip, just one block away. There’s a cultural center and an annual film festival here. Manu Chao and Lila Downs play concerts here regularly. But where do the people who make fun of TJ go when they visit? The Strip of course. Me in TJ? Or even LA? Who’d’ve ever thought? Life’s weird; you can quote me on that.

I almost feel guilty, that so many people are undergoing economic hardship right now and I’m traveling the world, but… naah. I’m just doing what I always do. Others spend denarii like it’s going out of style when times are good; now they cry when the credit’s gone. I never ask for credit, though I certainly could. It’s just not my way of life. People usually call me a tightwad when they’re not calling me a wastrel traveler. But I don’t spend that much and still manage to enjoy. The numbers are finally in from this last South American trip, $17-1800 for fifty days in four countries over thirty degrees of latitude and probably half that of longitude. That includes every thing but the flight from North America to South America, which was a freebie from points. Even for a paid flight that would have been only fifty dollars a day, not bad for some righteous travel. I don’t sleep in bunk beds either. You can’t live in LA on that, not like a human at least, and you wouldn’t see much if you did, just some pissy streets and lots of attitude. At least the food is good, and the music. Though immigrants can certainly do it for less, they’ll eventually upgrade or go home. They’ll live better later. That’s what I’m doing. We’re all immigrants here, or used to be, at least. I still am.

If the goal is to visit every single sovereign nation in the world, then I’ve still got a long way to go. I’m not a flight attendant, and doing mere airport stops wouldn’t account to much anyway. If someone’s been to them all already, then I haven’t heard about it. The guy who gets all the press and the ‘Good Morning’ gig for ‘most traveled person’ works from some list of 692 ‘significant places’ of which he’s covered maybe ninety percent. But I don’t know who compiled that list or what makes those places so significant. I’m looking at the UN list. At least maybe I’ve got as many countries as I’ve got years now. That’s a start. Europe’s got a quarter of them, of course, so that’s gravy, since you don’t even need visas for most, just the old USSR. Hopefully you won’t pass through one in the middle of the night unbeknownst to you. Europe’s got lots of cheap flights now, but flyovers don’t count. You have to stand on solid ground; that’s the rule.

For now the Caribbean Basin is the project. There are lots of little countries there and they’re scattered around. Any increase in flight fares could be disastrous. So I’ll start in Jamaica and take it from there. Barbados and Trinidad and Guyana are already booked, and some others should fall into place, Surinam at the least. That’s one of those back-water plums of international travel, a back-packer’s wet dream of cultural, linguistic, and sensory masala... or not. That’s the gamble. I’d like to go to Cuba of course, but that would be wrong. Uh huh. It’s a good time to use those frequent flyer miles. They’re cracking down on unused accounts. The trick is to work from your computer anywhere in the world. Or better yet, work from your world anywhere in the computer. The clock’s ticking.

LIVING LIFE IN 4-D: THE DOUBLE HELIX OF MUSIC AND LANGUAGE

Yes, you know the economy really sucks when you turn on the TV at 8am Sunday morning and find Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson on three different channels talking simultaneously to three different interviewers, giving the same little dog-and-pony speech to all, explaining that the $700 billion bail-out is not government spending like health care or education (i.e. BAD) but is actually something like a long-term investment, a sweetheart deal complete with parachutes for those bailing out (i.e. GOOD). No, Republicans don’t raise taxes on your wallet; they raise unholy Hell. So even if Obama gets elected he’ll never get any social programs passed anyway, since all the money’s already gone to Baghdad and Wall Street. At least the surge has pacified Iraq, you say? Not if the funding dries up, since that ‘peace’ apparently has been bought just like that of Israel and Egypt before it. Fortunately this is not a political or economic blog, so I mention all this strictly for entertainment value. No I’m not a conspiracy nut. Yes it’s a good time to be a Communist. Russia just might win this thing after all; witness new deals with Evo ‘Coca’ Morales and Hugo ‘Che’ Chavez. “Without Communism to keep it honest, capitalism no longer is.” You heard it here first.

So the Sixties may not have accomplished jack shit politically, but it certainly left musical DNA over a hugely scattered landscape, the mestizo bastard sons of which are only now coming back to face the folks here. If the first example of that was Dengue Fever with their kick-ass Cambo-rock otherwise previously only available on old B&W ‘Battambang Bandstand’-style videos, then the latest is Chicha Libre and their genetic modification of a lost-in-time Peruvian style of ‘Cumbia Amazonica’ that is as dreamy and psychedelic (under the influence of yage maybe?) as it is exotic. The sixties were about more than psychedelia too, including folk and blues and protest, which also caught fire elsewhere. A good example of this would be Thailand’s Carabao (in direct descent btw, no GMO stuff), but they’re just too freakin’ famous in Thailand to take a pay cut and come play for us Homies here in back yards and parking lots. Having lyrics at the Dylan-Lennon-Marley level of accomplishment will do that for you.

Chicha Libre was at the Japanese American Museum here in LA to open a show for Etran Finatawa, and I think they probably landed a few new fans with their quirky yet compelling music. In fact the only real concern about Chicha Libre is authenticity, the lack of a real physical link to their subject matter. None of these guys singing in Spanish is Latino, after all, and they’re apparently from Brooklyn, not Pucallpa or Iquitos. Maybe the Pistolera girls taught them; or witness Dan Zanes’ DIY ethic. Whatever’s fine with me; if it takes PhD musicologists to give world music a shot in the arm, then that’s cool with me. They could punch it up a bit though. It’s almost a little bit TOO dreamy. Of course missing a key member of the band doesn’t help, especially when it’s the vocalist and leader, so they performed admirably. I’m just trying to figure out why Joshua Camp was playing a squeezebox that he never squeezed (squoze?).

Etran Finatawa (‘stars of tradition’) themselves played at Amoeba Music on Tuesday and again at the Museum on Thursday. Whether you like their music or not, you’d have to admit that these guys from Niger have got to be the coolest-looking band in show business, what with their Tuareg desert robes and their Wodaabe tribal costumes. The music is highly listenable also, if not quite as compelling as Tinariwen’s hooks nor as musically accomplished as some others. This was as much a cultural performance as a music concert. The Wodaabe are famous for their men’s beauty pageants in which men will flash big toothy smiles and roll their eyes to impress the women, and they do some of that in concert, too. While there’s nothing especially musical about these cultural affectations, it DOES add to the overall hypnotic atmosphere, which is what Etran Finatawa does best. They’re best seen and heard in the overall context of their relation to ‘Saharan Blues’, a genre which maybe took a cue from Ali Farka Toure’, but found its voice in the rebel training camps of Moammar Kaddafi. In addition to the aforementioned groups, other members of the genre include Tidawt and Toumast.

With DNA as the metaphor we now come to its analogy to language, not music. For me the best multi-cultural confluence of the past week was the All Roads Film Festival sponsored by National Geographic at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, featuring films, photography, and music by and about the world’s endangered minority cultures. The program I saw was called a ‘Wave of Change’, about ‘new challenges and changes’ to traditional cultures, but the underlying theme was heavily about their imminent acculturation and demise of their language. The best of the lot was a film entitled ‘The Linguists’, about two linguists David and Greg in an Indiana Jones-like quest to document endangered languages before they die and their encoded way-of-life with them. This they did in four widely scattered terrains and circumstances- Arizona, Bolivia, Siberia, and northern India, united only by the essence of their timeliness. For as they say, “a language disappears every two weeks.”

I myself having spent large amounts of time in the study of language as well as in Arizona and Bolivia, not to mention world travel, all this is of enormous interest. Fortunately the narrative was as authentic as it was dramatic, the long searches down winding roads, the serendipitous encounter, the limitations of one’s own body. Gut instincts give way to gut reactions give way to gut aggravation that all must be finalized by the deadlines of circumstance. Unfortunately no distinction was made between the demands of different circumstances. Why is it so necessary to document the Sora language of Orissa in India, whose 300,000 speakers place it far out of the immediate danger of extinction? Why is it so necessary to document Kallawaya, which has long been a secret jargon of Bolivian healers, never used at home in the family, and definitely a mish-mash of Quechua, long-extinct pre-conquest Puquina, and magical incantation? Why is it so important to document any of this anyway? Obviously the metaphorical DNA at stake here holds no cure for cancer.

Its importance is a matter of debate among linguists, the psycholinguists led by Noam Chomsky long holding dominance over the sociolinguists with roots deep into the origins of anthropology and the holy triad of Boaz, Sapir, and Whorf, whose famous hypotheses were essentially that a language represented a way of life and a way of thought, a notion long eclipsed. That may be changing, due not so much to Chomsky’s foolish Einstein-like preoccupation with politics, nor to the imminent demise of his personality cult, but to genetic researchers’ discovery that for some strange reason, only He knows the details, the biological evolution of species and the cultural evolution of language function in eerily parallel ways. Those same genetic researchers have found no basis for the inheritance of some Chomskyan hypothetical ‘meta-language’ btw, notwithstanding the fact that Broca’s area is where it all goes down.

Psycholinguistics finds a better outlet in the quasi-psychotic manifestations that surround a language and its ‘acquisition’, a subject ‘The Linguists’ dealt with in a humorous and enlightening way, e.g. the fact that one of their drivers actually spoke an almost-extinct language without revealing it for fear of losing status; the fact that the few speakers of Chemehuevi rarely speak it to each other for reasons equally obscure and pathetic; that languages are frequently used as weapons of control and dominance by one social or governing class over another; that Sora speakers held up the lingo-party to negotiate payment, etc. Welcome to Thailand.

Given the average person’s lack of interest in the minutiae of linguistic science, the movie might have played up their protagonists’ potential star quality a bit. For instance, if they can speak twenty-five languages between them, as advertised, why did we hear only Russian, where they’ve done research for many years? Their lack of any Oriya, the Indian Orissa state’s dominant language, or even Hindi or Spanish for God’s sake, two of the world’s five most-spoken languages, frankly diminishes their impact on the story as protagonists, not just compilers. Louisiana ‘Lingo’ Jones would have I bet. Given that 96% of the world’s some 7000 languages are spoken by only 4% of the population, there is a lot of room for choice there for languages on the verge of extinction.

If they didn’t want to deal with languages that they actually know some of themselves, then they might at least have wanted to choose far-flung languages that not only span continents but that might actually be related to each other, such as the macro-Penutian languages on both American continents or ethnic Siberians from Russia to Greenland or ethnic Austronesians scattered from Hawai’i to Madagascar. In this way linguistic DNA truly imitates the bloodlines of its human vectors. They hardly had the time or space to deal adequately with four entirely distinct subjects anyway. The highlight of the evening came when one of the last speakers of Chemehuevi, hardly an academic or filmmaker, spoke it live for us after the show. He was the evening’s true star.

Don’t know where to go for world music or film this week? Me neither. If you want to stay in LA, then maybe check out the ‘Schooled in Song’ festival in Long Beach. Dengue Fever is headlining. Myself I’m going to SF for the ‘Hardly Strictly Bluegrass’ festival, petrol gods willing. I need to get in touch with my roots. The Global Drum Project with Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain among others will be there, then here in LA next week. That’s ‘hardly strictly’ enough for me. Then there's Gogol Bordello co-headlining downtown's 'DETOUR' festival Saturday if that's your thing. World music has got its village people, too. Catch you on the rebound.

THE NEW ECONOMIC 9-11 HITS; AND THE BAND(S) PLAY ON

9-11-08 to the day, the U$D exchange rate was at its highest in many moons, the price of oil was down below $95 (not coincidentally) after startling rises just a few months prior, and the world seemed like it just might proceed with something like an orderly process after all the recent psychological clusterf**k of high gas prices and mortgage foreclosures and oil wars. A week later that had all changed as the Twin Towers of the US economy took deadly aim and shot themselves squarely in the foot, feigning suicide for the free hospital care, rocking foundations and sending inestimable fallout to the streets below. This may be my last blog if the lights go out and the Dark Ages begin, so just let me say that I’ve enjoyed it. You’ve been great. I’ll miss you all. So Bush’s administration began with planes crashing into psyches and apparently ends that way, too, as Congress contemplates what could be called the Economic Patriot Act, i.e. think fast and toe the line or lose it all. Fortunately we have fiscally responsible Republican ‘businessmen’ in charge, not those free-spending Democrats, or we’d really be in trouble.

Yep, you know the econs really suck when I listen to Georges Will and Stephanopoulos on Sunday morning instead of Chris Morris and ‘Watusi Rodeo’, just possibly the best and most unique radio show in the greater LA area, putting the triple rrr back in roots music, encompassing the best of CBGB- that’s country, bluegrass, and blues you know, Americana around its edges- without ever repeating itself. Who else can say that? Where else are you going to hear Rodney Crowell’s ‘Sex and Gasoline’? Where else can you hear Lucinda, Smokey, B.B., Elvis Costello and Hank all in the same program? Who says the non-urban American majority can do little more than field-dress a moose? My favorite ‘world music’ is the rootsy kind also, the other being the slower more classical studied kind, better for listening than dancing. There were good examples of both this week in LA, Cava the first, Savina Yannatou the second.

But I’m sorry I missed the Ozomatli-Spearhead-Lila-Nortec show at the Bowl. I’m sure it was good. Reports from Globalquerque where Lila headlined two nights before were superb. I’d definitely like to hear her new version of ‘Black Magic Woman’, as she moves on from a Frida Kahlo heart-of-darkest-Mexico obsession to a more one American one, or at least the border. Not unsurprisingly the new album has many more songs in English, following the lead of LA’s Dengue Fever and Ozomatli themselves. This is one of the problems with ‘world music’: you can apparently only go so far in a non-English format, and Lila’s tried. Still she’s little known to the average Mexican OR American. To make the circle complete, not only does she do more songs in English, but she adapts English-language compositions to Spanish, like Lucinda Williams’ great “Yo Envidio El Viento.” But she’s the only act at the show I hadn’t seen before, so I passed. I’ll catch her somewhere. Very few acts do I see more than once. Now if Nortech were to ‘present’ Clorofilo and Hiperboreal, then that might be different. Anybody can play a QWERTY f***ing keyboard. I want to hear somebody who can play accordion like Flaco.

But I DID see Cava live at Amoeba, so that’s not a bad substitute for Lila, especially considering that front-woman Claudia Gonzales is in somewhat the same circles, having sung with Charanga Cakewalk, Lila’s frequent opening act. She’s great too, a natural born showman, totally charming and unaffected. She’s a good singer and musician too, manning a Taiko drum when she’s not otherwise banging (and sitting on) her cajon, not to be confused with my cojones. She gets strong right-arm support from whiz keyboardist Walter Miranda and other assorted percussions and… trombone? I was skeptical, but it sounded good, fit right in with Cava’s own unique blend of cumbia, son y salsa. This is not your typical Latino trombone and Taiko group. Still I couldn’t help but wonder what the group would sound like with a guitarist and now I see they’re supposed to have one, his absence at Amoeba unexplained. Power struggle? Love spat? Upset stomach? Only someone’s hairdresser would know for sure, but I imagine it could significantly alter the sound of a band accustomed to one. But for all the attention given to Cava’s use of Taiko drums, I was most captivated by the live on-stage use of the quasi-mythological theremin. For those who don’t know, this is an instrument played by hand-waving the frequencies surrounding an antenna, and famous for the eerie ‘vibe’ in the closing sequence of the Beach Boys ‘Good Vibrations.’ These guys will be at Pasadena’s Zona Rosa on Thursday. Check it out.

Savina Yannatou’s show at the Japanese-American Museum in Little Tokyo Thursday evening was something totally different, a refreshing change from the huge doses of Mexican food we get for world music here in LA. At least it’s filling. But her music is that of the Mediterranean, including her native Greece, but also including the surrounding Muslim and other Middle Eastern countries. Still her music encompasses so much more than that, not only interpreting different regions but different eras and different uses of the voice, gargling and squeaking out sounds that I didn’t even know a person was capable of, and somehow it all fit. She frequently introduces her songs with poetry, too, usually a bit romantic and wistful, setting the tone for the music to come. She stopped in LA on her way to Globalquerque! and the Chicago World Music Festival. I hope she was a hit there. She deserves it. The show here was opened by Mamak Khadem of Iran doing classical Rumi-like musical ruminations on the human condition, textured and soulful, ethereal yet down-to-earth. It was a good evening.

As the air gets a nip in it and the sun starts rising later than I do, it gets harder to find the really good stuff, the stuff from overseas and back East that you’d die to go to bed with, die to have come out of your own radio 7/24, world music par excellence. But it’s still there, even if you have to look a little bit harder for it. It goes underground and indoors for the winter, down dark alleys emblazoned with strange Chinese characters. You gotta’ start reading HOY and checking the Guatelinda website. You gotta’ start checking the local Ethiopian, Armenian, Russian, Korean, Chinese and Thai-language presses. Want to see something totally authentic and not filtered through the industry people of world music’s own private Interzone? Thai luke toong superstar Tukkataen is over here stateside and playing at the Thailand Plaza restaurant on 10-10, tickets on sale at all Dok Ya Bookstores. LA Weekly won’t tell you that.

But this week’s best bet is Etran Finatawa, Niger’s own Tinariwen and cousin to all the other Tuareg ‘Saharan Blues’ bands currently en vogue, and for good reason. Their stuff’s good, unique, and authentic. EF is different from the rest in that they combine Tuareg and Wodaabe (Fulani) riffs and traditions, no small feat in the Sahel where water is in short supply and Tuaregs want it as much for their goats as much as Fulanis do for their cows; no small feat considering that Tuaregs are Semitic Mediterraneans and Fulanis are dark sub-Saharans; no small feat considering that Wodaabes pride themselves on their rejection of Islam. They’ll be at Amoeba on Tuesday evening and again with Chicha Libre at the Japanese-American Museum on Thursday. But the big deal this week is the All Roads Film Project at the Egyptian Theatre from 9/25-28, which features third-world and ethnic filmmakers' documentaries and narrative films. Somali hip-hop star K'naan opens the show Thursday night. See you there.

SEASON’S OVER FOR OUTDOOR MUSIC (ALMOST)

I guess it was fitting to have Poncho Sanchez close out the MacArthur Park music series for the summer, today being Mexican Independence Day and all, he being a native of Laredo and long one of LA’s foremost jazz and salsa percussionists. The audience responded by turning out in force, something that cannot be said of all the shows there. He did not disappoint either, with a nice mixture of both styles, for dancing and listening too, both concrete and abstract. His band featured some especially inspired trumpeting in addition to his own poly-rhythmic conga drumming. He makes it sound easy, but it’s not. The fastest drummer is not necessarily the best, and ditto for the music. Jazz is all about phrasing and subtle nuance. Salsa is all about rhythm and danceability. These guys have both. Nothing else is needed or desired.

This is in marked contrast to the band that proceeded Poncho on Saturday, Marito Rivera y su Grupo Bravo from El Salvador, not coincidentally Central American Independence Day, notwithstanding the fact that there is no such thing as an independent Central America. But no matter, they obviously have some regional solidarity, so that’s cool. But the music’s another thing. Though their cumbia and Latin pop is certainly related to Poncho’s by genre, the extra cutesiness and quasi-choreography is something to behold, keyboardist and lead guitar and various singer/percussionists swaying and dipping to the music. It’s enough to almost make you think that Central America is hopelessly ‘small time’ in comparison to its big brothers in Mexico, South America, and the ‘mother country,’ Spain. Still it’s all good fun and definitely the ‘real thing’, if such concerns are important. There weren’t many gringos in that crowd, just me and one other group conspicuous by their presence. Turns out that was Ms. Levitt herself, sponsor of the whole schmear, alive and in the flesh. Thanks, Ms Levitt. Cutumay Camones started the evening off with some socially conscious lyrics to some folk music Latino style, a bit limited and repetitive, but still significant considering El Salvador’s tortured past and the FMLN banners in the crowd. Grupo Bravo did a rap version of ‘Juana la Cubana,’ too.

More interesting musically was the group Gongmyoung from Korea. An all-instrumental group featuring various percussions and even guitar, they were able to weave sonic landscapes that were quite compelling, creating melodies where by logic melodies don’t normally exist. With some finessing and adapting, these guys could be a hot item on the world music scene. With some ethereal vocals added to taste, they could even be the next Sao Dingding, not to be confused with the Ting Tings. They were there to celebrate Chusok, the Korean harvest festival, and were preceded by HanNuri, doing Korean dancing and drumming. The Korean community turned out for this event larger than I’ve ever seen, so it was a fitting end to the season, each week a new process of discovery. It’s a shame more people don’t take advantage of it. Okay, it ain’t Temple Bar or Largo or Safari Sam’s, but who’s posing with a mai tai? The music was generally good, so that’s the main thing.

It’s pot luck. One night you get the students, another night you get the masters. That’s the good and bad of free music, but that’s the way it’ll have to be. I have yet to pay a peso or peseta, pound or punt, libra or lira, real or riyal, dinar or dirham, ruble or rupiah, yen or yuan, kyat or kip, won, ringgit, dong, baht, or dollar to hear any of the music I’ve heard 4-5 days out of every week this summer, so I reckon that’s way cool. Every week is like a little mini-fest, roaming from stage to stage, loving some and leaving others. Sounds like romance. And I haven’t seen the half of it really, being too scattered to encompass it all. I tended to concentrate on my own little golden triangle that starts around Hollywood & Highland where I live and catch the ‘Rumble and Hum’ Tuesday evening jazz series, continuing on to randomly scattered Grand Performances at Cal Plaza just two red line stops past MacArthur Park, where I see more music than any other one place, usually wrapping the week up at LACMA with its Friday and Saturday evening jazz and Latin music series just past the Farmers’ Market with its Thursday and Friday music series. So it’s route 217 and the 720 and the Red Line, where I pick my wife up in Thai Town every evening on the way home. Don’t mess with me. I’ve got a system.

But, I guess I could’ve just pitched my bedroll at MacArthur Park, since I was there two-three nights almost every week for over two months. I probably wouldn’t be the only one, and I’m not talking about Levitt Pavilion volunteers. It’s not the classiest of music locations to be sure, but isn’t that part of the attraction? Estas’ en el barrio, hombre. So what if someone’s pissing on a tree somewhere over there? They don’t charge extra for that. Most ads don’t mention MacArthur Park any more, just the street address, as if people wouldn’t go if they knew. This is justified if you have bathroom anxiety. Check out the port-a-pooper and you’ll know why. Reminds me of the first time I went to Mexico over thirty years ago. Remember the crapper at the bus station for the bus from Oaxaca to Puerto Escondido? They are (or at least were) despicable, and I’ve got low standards. Ask my wife. Sometimes you gotta’ get down and dirty. Sometimes you don’t. A little ‘atmosphere’ is great with world music, but not that. Since they can’t figure it out, I’ll have to say it.

The water court at Cal Plaza is the exact opposite, if that’s possible, cool and abstract to the point of distraction, a pond in front of the performers and shooting fountains behind. I guess it’s a yin/yang thing and aesthetically inspiring, but almost distracting. And then there’s that yawning gap between you and the performer, as if you’d have to walk on water to get there. It’s only inches deep, but security would probably get there first, unless you hip-hopped the islands. That might be a shortcut to stardom after all. Hip-hop? Hey, wait a minute…

There are many others, many of which I have yet to fully explore, including the Santa Monica Pier, the Skirball and the Autry, but probably my favorite of the summer freebie venues to which I regularly go for world music is LACMA by the tar pits. It’s not a proper stage really, the sound system is basic, and the acoustics are non-existent, but the audience is always as good as the music. They’re warm and appreciative and most importantly, they’re there, even if this is not exactly their ‘there.’ I don’t think that many people actually live right on Museum Row and there’s no convenient subway line, but there’s always a crowd, black and white and all shades of between-ness, munching and dancing and playing with the kids. And the stage is right there in front of you on the same level. You can’t more intimate than this. If only that sun would just go on down…

It ain’t over yet. The Festival of Sacred Music still has a two-week run to go. On Thursday Savina Yannatou will be at the Japanese American National Museum with songs from the Near and Middle East; sounds like a good bet for us red-line sewer snakes. Cava and Gomez are at Amoeba in Hollywood today Tuesday as DJ and performer. The Latino Film Fest continues in Hollywood until Friday. Soon the weather will turn cool and the rains will come. What next? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This Sunday will be the latest installment of KCRW's 'world fest' in which reigning world music diva Lila Downs will play third fiddle to fusionista crowd-pleasers Ozomatli and Michael Franti's Spearhead, barely edging out TJ techno-rancheristas Nortec Collective featuring Bostich and Fussible, whoever/whatever that refers to. It sounds like a sewing machine that's a real bitch or semi-automatic or both. Es la frontera, hombre. Welcome to World Music 401.

IT’S ALWAYS SUMMER SOMEWHERE; IF SATURDAY THEN BRAZIL?

What’s the difference between a pit and a bull-hockey mom? The pit knows how to say nothing without even speaking. It’s like using change to promote your career or using your career to promote change, or using the power of example instead of examples of power. Who writes this crap? It’s like déjà vu all over again. It’s like too many cooks spoiling the broth. It’s time for that seventh-inning stretch. One-line zingers and time-worn clichés seem to dominate our YouTube MeVee MySpace FaceBook SecondLife era, giving high-def resolution and Mosly Def soundtracks to low-brow insults by high-income low-breeds in the no-concept re-runs that we collectively refer to as our national body politic. It is a headache with no resolution in sight. Fortunately I’m not a political commentator or I might have some spleen to vent. As it turns out I limit myself to this humble blog and a more Baudelairean form of spleen that looks for release in a thousand bastard poems and homeless confessions, some godly some not, most still seeking the light of day in a system that seeks fashion not form from editors who grin through gapped teeth when they say without the slightest trace of self-consciousness, “stay tortured, my friends.” One man’s spleen is another man’s bad attitude is another man’s political righteousness. Go figure.

Fortunately for this mostly-world-music phase of this mostly-world-something blog, there are only one or two clichés that apply to our current situation- i.e. it ain’t over till it’s over, and that’s usually right after the fat lady sings. In other words, summer’s almost over and so is the world music, at least the freebies. I’ll either have to start paying for it, what little can be found, or go off in search of festivals to get my rocks off. But festival season’s over, you say? Mais au contraire mon cher; it’s only just begun. If you don’t believe me, just look at the left-hand column of this blog, and that hardly includes all the little local hoe-downs. Always wanted to see the world? There’s no better time. The era of cheap flights is crashing headlong into the era of high-price gas, so the future of world travel is uncertain. For world music in the US, September is actually probably the best month, with major festivals still to come in Madison (this week) and Chicago and Albuquerque (next week). The fact that they co-ordinate somewhat ensures that some of the best-quality acts available will be there.

Even right here in LA, the Sacred Music Festival has many ‘world’ acts, probably more and better than other so-called ‘world fests’. Unfortunately it’s scattered over many days and all over the greater Metro area, thereby likely stretching one’s patience as thin as the definition of ‘festival’. Still for my money festivals are the best place to see and hear music, for not only do you get the music, but you usually get food, arts and crafts, and other aspects of the culture too. WOMADs may be on the decline, presumably due to lack of local funding, but local promoters are increasingly taking up the torch and the slack. That’s the way it should be, right? Just last Saturday here out at La Brea (‘tar’) tar pits, the Brazilian Consulate put on a nice little festival where you could listen to music while shopping for T-shirts and sipping acai. It’s not bad. I hear all the Olympians are trying it. I managed to catch a trio playing some nice smooth Brazilian ballads in the process. I didn’t manage to catch their names. Other than that Los Pinguos showed up for Grand Performances at Cal Plaza on Friday, playing their particular brand of ‘Latin/Indie/Other’ (so their MySpace site says) high-energy pop balladry that they bring with them from their native Argentina. Nice stuff.

I also managed to catch a bluegrass group called Bearfoot at MacArthur Park. Now I don’t normally consider bluegrass to be ‘world music’, not unless it’s sung by Inuits from Greenland, but there are always exceptions. Global Fest in New York had one earlier this year, so there is precedent. Nevertheless, this particular group hails from Alaska (no direct relation to you-know-who, but you never know…), so that’s ‘worldly’ enough for me I guess. Actually without a flat-picking banjoist (or any banjoist for that matter), their music might more resemble an old-fashioned string band, so instrumental (pun intended) is the Scruggs flat-picking banjo style in modern bluegrass music. Worldly or not, and notwithstanding the fact that my little brother plays dobro in a bluegrass band back home down South, bluegrass music is not usually the type of music I sit in my living room and listen to, no matter how much I might respect it. Still I found myself getting lost in it, though these are hardly trail-blazing musicians. But the three-part harmonies, the aw-shucks goofiness and small-town honesty should remind us all of something we might have quickly forgotten upon moving away from such, i.e. ‘home’. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m sorry, truly sorry. It’s nice to see a traditional-music band in LA not called ‘groovy’ or ‘psychedelic’ something. These guys and gals are so straight that it’s hip.

Maybe last but certainly not least, this week is nothing short of spectacular for world music in LA. First there’s the beginning of the World Festival of Sacred Music with perhaps the single most impressive day of the entire season at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Saturday September 13, with Tuvan throat singing, fado, samba, zouk, Sufi, Qawwali, Persian, and Javanese music played by such luminaries as Chirigilchin and Waldemar Bastos among others. In addition there will be songs and ceremonies at the Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center in La Canada all weekend and Canciones del Alma at the MOLAA in Long Beach on Sunday as part of the same program, not to mention Balinese music at the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock and Indonesian and Tibetan music at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, among others. Whew!

That’s not all. MacArthur Park celebrates its final weekend of the summer season in grand style, with a Korean ‘Chusok’ harvest moon celebration with Gongmyoung on Friday and continuing on Saturday with Central American Independence Day with bands Cutumay Camones and Marito Rivera y su Grupo Bravo on Saturday. This all culminates with Mexican Independence Day celebrations on Sunday with Mariachi Los Angeles and the legendary Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz Band. While it may be surprising that Central American nations celebrate their mutual independence from Spain rather than their individual independence from each other, it’s certainly no surprise that Mexicans celebrate the day of Hidalgo’s grito as their day of independence. No city in Mexico is without a street named 16 de Septiembre. The festivities have already started. See you there.