After our tour with Alan Lomax’s “World Library of Folk and Primitive Music”, I propose you another tour of the world’s traditional music, this time with another important collector and researcher, Deben Bhattacharya. Born in Benares, India in 1921, Deben spent most of his life on the roads of the world, recording in small villages and cities the music of the world’s people, taking pictures and making films to help others understand better the diverse cultures he encountered. When he was not travelling, he made his home in diverse cities of Europe like London, Vienna or Paris, where he ended his well-spent life in 2001, in the Montmartre village-like neighbourhood he loved so well.
I’ll start this first foray into Deben Bhattacharya’s works with recordings he made in Israel in the summer of 1957 among diverse jewish communities. Let’s hear his first impressions of the young Hebrew state:
…The first thing that struck me on my arrival in Israel was the extraordinary variety of faces and the overwhelming diversity of sounds. people have poured into the country from all parts of the world- from East and West, North and South- bringing with them the habits, languages and music of their previous homelands. On the face of it, it seemed a confusion of old and new, struggling to integrate the Orient with the Occident, to intertwine the ancient and the sacred with contemporary scepticism. As i consulted my diary while preparing this text, I found my appointements with musicians varied in irregular succession with people from different part of the world. Today it would be with a Spanish group, and tomorrow with the Yemenites; and then the day after, I would probably be recording with the Bukharis who came from Central Asia…
At this time, 1957, not a decenny yet after the State of Israel was established, many jewish immigrants from all parts of the world were starting there a completely new life, with the difficult task of building their new home as well as participating to the edification of the new State. From diasporic jews, they had to become Israeli citizens, learn a new/old language, hebrew, and felt torn between their old ways and the new ways that surrounded them. People with very different backgrounds, reunited only by their own appartenance to a people and religion that was disseminated all over the world, had to work, fight and struggle hand in hand in a small piece of land that had a legendary past but an uncertain and fragile future.
For someone like Deben Bhattacharya who was passionate and curious about the world’s cultures and traditions, Israel may really have felt like the “Promised Land”. Where else in the world at this time, could he have encountered in one place such a diversity of sounds? The long Spanish ballads sung with the oud, the arabic luth, a Yemenite singing a song in hebrew to the rhythm of a kerosene tin, the cantorial songs of east-european rabbis, music from Central Asia played by a bukharian ensemble on traditional instruments like Chang, Santur, Kamancha and Doiras, a Police band playing old and new european jewish tunes, a morrocan singer singing love songs in Arabic, again with the oud, religious songs of the jews from Cochin, India, etc…
-From the many hours of recordings he made in June and July 1957, Deben selected some material that was issued first on 4 lps by Westminster under the generic title “In Israel Today”.
–A beautiful booklet with texts and photographs by D. Bhattacharya was included with the records. Click here to see it in pdf format
-Here are the 4 lps (vinyl rip cut in mp3 tracks). Click on the title to download the file
–Vol.1: Songs and Dances of the Jews from Bukhara, Uzbekistan and Cochin
–Vol.2: Music of the Jews from Morocco
–Vol.3: Songs of the Jews from Yemen, the Atlas Mountains, Tunisia and Spain
–Vol.4: Music of the Jews from Eastern-Europe
-In 1998, to celebrate the 50 years of Israel, the french label Fremaux & Associés issued a 2cd set of D. Bhattacharya’s 1957 recordings under the title “World Music From Israel”. Deben himself participated in the elaboration of the project and selected new performances as well as some already included on the Westminster lps. The Moroccan and the Eastern-European selections in particular are almost all new performances not included on the lps.
–“World Music From Israel” CD 1: Music of the Oriental Jews
–“World Music From Israel” CD 2: Music of the Europeans
Very nice post!
I think you will be happy to hear tat I have made prepared many of his old LP’s especially the ones on Musidisc, Boite a Musique the Ocoras and the Riks LP Rajastan Bangladesh and other parts of India to be posted soon at my blog Anthems of Luobaniya. Good luck with your project. I certainly enjoyed the previous one
gadaya –
I’m very grateful for your efforts, but I think there might be a problem with vol. 1. It appears to be protected and access is denied to the download.
Steven
Hi Steven, i just tried the download link on two different computers and it works fine. Don’t know what’s the problem… Keep trying and tell me ok….
Works fine – my bad.
Dear Gadaya,
I have enjoyed this post very much and I want to thank you for undertaking such a project. It is a most commendable task to bring these recordings again to light! I know how much work it is with taking all photos scanning tagging etc. (take a look at my blog and hopefully you will know that I know the labour of love behind such a post) Still, having said this I want to implore yu to include all the “metainformation” connected with the media. I would be overjoyed if you could consider including photos of the labels to each record as well as the backsides to the sleeves and the six seven? page inlay folder to the volumes. Not just the photos or a selection but the full pages. I hope I do not come a cross as dissatisfied or ungrateful, I hope you will consider it in the opposite vein. I think it is such a valuable post that it merits just that little extra so we can see it in its complete grandeur. Thank you for considering. Also I understand very well if you don’t have the time right now to satisfy what might to some people look like a whim, but really, any time is fine. I am very good at waiting! 😉
Best wishes and good luck with your blog!
bolingo
Anthems for the Nation of Luobaniya • 罗巴尼亚国歌
http://bolingo69.blogspot.com/
Hi Bolingo,
I took a look at your blog and it’s very impressive… Such a treasury of ethnic musics of all sorts…. About the inclusion of the “metainformation” as you call it, i always make my best to include a bit of those, like booklets, backsides of covers, etc…. Concerning the “In Israel Today” lps, the backsides of cover were just plain white, but i did put a link to download the full booklet in pdf format…As a lover of music who cares about the context in which it was produced, i’m never satisfied with just downloading a record on the internet whithout any information concerning it and many times i prefered to buy the disc itself if it was possible…
I’ll to do my best in the future to improve but i try to make so many things all at once…
All the best
Gadaya
oops ! I forgot to say that I downloaded all files and they posed no problem to me! They all came down fine!
Hm, since I am suggesting so many things I might as well suggest that you include not only the mp3’s, but the jpegs as well in the zip files! Makes it easier at least for me to keep track of the relevant connected material for each of your posts!
best
Mäster Oecanthus
(aka bolingo, aka a bunch of other names 😉
I’m still enjoying the Lomax series and am also very grateful for this new project.
Thanks a lot!
I came back after several hours, restarted my browser, and successfully downloaded volume 2.
I don’t know if you needed to intervene in someway. If you did, thank you. If you did, then the problem resolved itself.
Thank you again for this marvelous collection.
nice site. only just come across it. really looking forward to hearing those westminster LPs. thanks
thank you very much for every think you do! in all your blogs! it’s amazing especially this post for me as an Israeli
my question is there a blog of *modern* recording or issues of ethnic music
[…] In Israel Today Vol 1 […]
wow i also have problem with vol 1
but the others are ok thank you very much
ill be back over here…