Ry Cooder for Living National Treasure
The Japanese recognize certain masters of art and craft genres as Living National Treaures - - people who transmit national cultural traditions. It shouldn't be a matter of rote imitation, though. As master Japanese potter, Kaneshige Michiaki said:
Aside from being an absolute master of the slide guitar, acoustic and electric, Cooder is an untiring devotee of the many forms of American folk, blues, and popular music. His work as lead and sideman has incorporated delta and country blues, Hawaiian slack key, jazz roots, conjunto and norteno, folk ballads, gospel, and rock – to all of which he brings a deep knowledge of the workings of the traditional forms coupled with an ability to swing, rock, or two-step as the occasion warrants. This week, Ry has a new release coming out, Chavez Ravine, which I expect to pick up shortly. With that in mind, I've been listening to Ry at work the last two days.
Yesterday, it was "A Meeting By The River", on the Water Lily Acoustics label. Cooder has an active interest in world music, and has made albums focusing on African and Latin forms (for example, he produced and played on the "Buena Vista Social Club" album). On this disc, he teams with Hindustani vina master Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (who has created his own version of the instrument, called the Mohan Vina, which functions as a kind of Indian lap steel guitar), along with percussion by Sukhvindar Singh on tabla and Joachim Cooder (Ry's son) on dumbek, a north African drum. Beautiful music, including tracks like "Ganges Delta Blues". The album is dedicated to Hawaiian slack key master Gabby Pahinui, and the final track, "Isa Lei", is a lyrical slack-key piece wrapped in a blend of hawaiian-style steel and Indian microtones . Maybe Living International Treasure would be more accurate.
Today, it's Ry the sideman on the John Hiatt set, "Bring the Family". Hiatt's a fine songwriter, covered by a wide variety of artists, and this is one of his best albums, raw voice and all (but that's another post for another day). Even so, Cooder's work on slide guitar is worth the price of admission. His lines are always in support of the lead, never upstaging Hiatt – but their elegance and tastiness illuminate every track.
Tradition is sometimes confused with transmission. Copying Momoyama pieces is transmission. Producing contemporary pieces incorporating Momoyama period techniques is tradition. Tradition consists of retaining transmitted forms and techniques in one's mind when producing a contemporary piece. Tradition is always changing. A mere copy of an old piece has not changed; it is nearly the same as its prototype of four hundred years ago. Tradition consists of creating something new with what one has inheritedWith that in mind, my first nominee for an American Living National Treasure is Ryland "Ry" Cooder.
Aside from being an absolute master of the slide guitar, acoustic and electric, Cooder is an untiring devotee of the many forms of American folk, blues, and popular music. His work as lead and sideman has incorporated delta and country blues, Hawaiian slack key, jazz roots, conjunto and norteno, folk ballads, gospel, and rock – to all of which he brings a deep knowledge of the workings of the traditional forms coupled with an ability to swing, rock, or two-step as the occasion warrants. This week, Ry has a new release coming out, Chavez Ravine, which I expect to pick up shortly. With that in mind, I've been listening to Ry at work the last two days.
Yesterday, it was "A Meeting By The River", on the Water Lily Acoustics label. Cooder has an active interest in world music, and has made albums focusing on African and Latin forms (for example, he produced and played on the "Buena Vista Social Club" album). On this disc, he teams with Hindustani vina master Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (who has created his own version of the instrument, called the Mohan Vina, which functions as a kind of Indian lap steel guitar), along with percussion by Sukhvindar Singh on tabla and Joachim Cooder (Ry's son) on dumbek, a north African drum. Beautiful music, including tracks like "Ganges Delta Blues". The album is dedicated to Hawaiian slack key master Gabby Pahinui, and the final track, "Isa Lei", is a lyrical slack-key piece wrapped in a blend of hawaiian-style steel and Indian microtones . Maybe Living International Treasure would be more accurate.
Today, it's Ry the sideman on the John Hiatt set, "Bring the Family". Hiatt's a fine songwriter, covered by a wide variety of artists, and this is one of his best albums, raw voice and all (but that's another post for another day). Even so, Cooder's work on slide guitar is worth the price of admission. His lines are always in support of the lead, never upstaging Hiatt – but their elegance and tastiness illuminate every track.
posted by DJStan at 9:17 AM
7 Comments:
I think today is the first day "Chavez Ravine" is on sale.
Cooder has had a long relationship with the movies, particularly with Walter Hill's movies. There's a two-CD album "Music by Ry Cooder" made up of the songs as written for Paris, Texas, The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, Alamo Bay, The Borderline, and others. For the most part, these aren't the kind of songs that grab you the way a hit single does ("King of the Streets" is an exception) but they're great background for anything.
Yeah to all that, especially "long Riders" and "Paris, Texas". I was thinking of bringing in Cooder's "Crossroads" soundtrack tomorrow along with another Cooder set, "Chicken Skin Music". One of the funny things about the soundtrack album is that the final guitar duel (between Ralph Maccio[!] and the devil's own lead guitarist, Steve Vai) is not on it. The number was written - and recorded, both parts - by Vai, and he's got the copyrights. I actually tracked down a copy of Vai's album "The Elusive Sound & Light vol.1" on Ebay to get a copy of that cut.
I was mildly disappointed in the final duel. Maccio's character wins by playing Segovia, which struck me as cheating.
On the other hand, "See You in Hell, Blind Boy" and "Angola"...
The real problem with the movie was that, for whatever reason, Hill felt it necessary to have young, modern, white leads. A better movie would have been the story of Johnson selling his soul for the blues. There's a blues musician Guy Davis (Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee's son), who I saw in an off-off musical with that plot. His playing was eerily like Johnson's.
I have Davis' "Call Down the Thumder", a nice set of traditional-style blues with some very good slide guitar work.
I just assumed Hill (and his producers) were out to make some bucks (hey, it's called the movie business), and Macchio, the Karate Kid, was their hook for the youth audience. Not a bad movie, though - nice work by Joe Seneca as the old bluesman, and a good soundtrack.
I acutally liked the classical lines in the duel - which went back to the setup of Macchio as a classically trained guitarist; it was kind of like "I can play your game and match your lines, but you can't do the same with mine". And it's fun to listen to.
It wasn't a bad movie. It's just that when Seneca starts making fun of Maccio as a "blues-man from Long Island" I was nodding along with him.
There was a scene in the musical (the name is escaping me) where Johnson is showing off for a woman. He gives her a walkthrough of various styles of blues - Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi - with about 30 second of each. Just David and his guitar. Amazing.
Here you go, Don. From www.guydavis.com:
In 1993 he performed Off-Broadway as legendary blues player Robert Johnson in "Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil." He received rave reviews and became the 1993 winner of the Blues Foundation's "Keeping the Blues Alive Award” presented to him by Robert Cray at the W.C. Handy Awards ceremony.
That's it. A good plot, not bad dialog, good acting, great music. It's the movie Hill should have made.
It was at a little community theater so far east on Grand Street I was expecting to see Iceland.
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