Music – Don't hold your breath

Brass Band

Hitting the right notes with metronomic precision for jazz and pop standards, the police band attracted a small crowd in front of Hamburg’s town hall. I’ve been subjected before to such rigorous treatment of tunes which are often used for joyous improvisation. So I walked up close to the band to take photos of the instruments.

The Family had never heard Teutonic Jazz before, so she was willing to give it a fair hearing. Fair is not a word I’ll use happily under these circumstances, so I concentrated on the lovely brass instruments that the band used. On this nice and sunny day, there were reflections of the square, the town hall, and the people nearby. The band ended the performance with a medley of tunes by Paul McCartney. That’s joyful enough even if played with the unnatural precision of a marching band.

This is for Egidio’s Lens Artists challenge.

Bags’ groove

We haven’t been sufficiently plugged into the music scene in Pune to make the most of the winter. So it was quite by chance that we found out about a jazz performance on Sunday and found tickets for it on Saturday. This would have been unthinkable in Mumbai. We reached a little early and mingled with a cup of chai in hand. It turned out that a significant number of people in the audience were like us, old Mumbaikars trying to settle into Pune. Expats settled two hundred kilometers from home love to exchange notes about the idiosyncracies of a new place. We were in our groove long before the music started.

The evening started with a Dutch band, the Femke Mooren group, playing a mix of standards and their own compositions. The wonderful vocalist, Carolina Brusse joined them for a couple of numbers. The Family has only recently, maybe in the last decade, started to listen to jazz. I saw her settle into the evening by the second composition. The group played a sound that I think of as cool and post-cool, smooth sounds from a piano, a sax, and a trumpet with a bass and drums providing the rhythm.

Permutations were the order of the evening. The group was joined by the versatile Brazilian wind-man Lucas Santana and later the South African trumpeter Darren English. We might not have been in Tunisia but the night was beginning to shine. The first half of the evening ended with the jazz players in a fun jam with a trio of Indian classical musicians: a vocalist, a flautist, and a tabla player. I love the mellow sound of the bamboo flute, and I was initially a little sceptical about its combination with the more metallic notes of the western flute. But it worked very well. The piano and vocalist responded to each other well, and the tabla and drums had their showy little duels. I wonder who enjoyed this more, the audience or the musicians.

The second half started with a big band sound and vocals by the Surinamese-Dutch singer Graziëlla Hunsel Rivero. The big band sound is not my favourite, except when it is joined by a wonderful vocalist. That’s what happened this time around. After she left the group was joined by the Thai saxophonist with the interesting stage name of Pang Saxpackgirl. Decades ago I’d heard a few south-east Asian jazz players in the early days of the legendary Mumbai festival called the Jazz Yatra. But after that this was my first exposure to jazz from Thailand. Pang played sounds which reminded me of jazz-funk, but it was done with traditional non-electronic instruments.

The finale was a version of Duke Ellington’s “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got the swing.” All the musicians who’d appeared on stage through the evening got back together for this number. Everyone expected that a big band sound would drown out Indian classical music, so it started with the quieter section and ended with the ~~bang~~ band. And that is what happened on my last, what should I say, inning?

Mo Shan in the East Lake of Wuhan

Half a day was all we had to explore the enormous East Lake area of Wuhan. Our target was the Mo Shan scenic area. The fancy entrance gate that you see above was not for us. In China these gates are opened only for VIPs. We entered from a side gate, looked at a bunch of school children in uniform being photographed in front of the stele, and boarded an electric bus which took us quickly to the top of the hill.

Steps led up to a pavilion at the top. This structure dates from the 1950s and is a reconstruction of an old temple which stood there earlier until it was abandoned. We climbed up and found wonderful views of Wuhan across the lake which surrounds this area. The pavilion has been turned into a museum of the Chu state which was an expansionist empire in the first millenium BCE whose heartland was Hubei, the modern day administrative district that includes Wuhan.

Two levels up was a small auditorium. Its stage was set up with musical instruments which were reconstructions of what the Chu culture used. Since the culture lasted 800 years, and absorbed the influences of the states it conquered, I wondered which particular slice in time these instruments came from. We were treated to a short concert, and some of the pieces were accompanied by a dance. This long-sleeved dance is said to be a Chu form absorbed from the Xia kingdom which it conquered.

The Chu state existed during a time that the Chinese call the period of warring states. It ended with the victory of the Qin over the remaining states. The name China takes its name from the conquering Qin. It is interesting that the first Indian empire was established about a hundred years before this. India has split and reunited several times in history, with an overarching notion of being a single civilization but with multiple sub-nationalities. I had the impression that Chinese sub-nationalism was strongly suppressed, but in Hubei the Chu history is celebrated. Even the ceremonial gate that you see above, on the route to Mo Shan, is built in the Chu style. Perhaps the fact that the Chinese republic was born out of an uprising in Wuhan’s Wuchang district gives it some slack. This is an aspect of China that I had not consciously noticed earlier. I must watch for it in future.

Dombra

Just a simple two-stringed instrument, I thought when I first saw the Kazakh dombra. Why all the fuss? It was a while before I found that Kazakhstan’s most famous poet, Abai Qunanbaiuly, had re-popularized the instrument. The earliest mention of the dombra was perhaps from the 12th century CE, which justified my first impression that this was such a simple instrument that it was probably used by wandering poets and minstrels, something like the bauls of eastern India, who used an ektara (a single stringed instrument). The wikipedia article on the dombra points to similar instruments across central and west Asia, and conflates it with the Persian dutar. An article I found from Pakistan conflates it with tambura, and relates it to the modern tanpura, a four stringed drone used in Indian classical music. All of this could not possibly be true.

My curiosity was piqued again when I found that modern Kazakh nationalism, still in the process of building, has incorporated the instrument as a symbol of its culture. In fact, talent-spotting programs on TV now feature acts with this instrument, so it is fast becoming part of the pop landscape here. A show at a fancy restaurant at dinner featured the dombra (see above) apart from other Kazakh props like a steppe eagle. I think an act like that is kinder on the dombra than on the eagle.

One major difference between the dutar and the dombra is that the latter has frets. The body is round at the back and flat in front, with a round and rather small soundhole. The neck is made of staves joined together, and has a flat tuning head which is turned back a little. The two strings are a single piece which loops around a little peg at the bottom of the body. I saw that mostly one string is plucked with the fingers, and the thumb is usually used for the second second. It is neither the ektara, nor the dutar, and certainly not the tanpura. With so many stringed instruments spread across Asia, it is useful to note their differences before trying to make amateur judgements of their historical evolution and connection to each other.

Saturday song

One morning in January I went for a performance by a singer in the classical tradition whom I’d not heard before. Indrani Mukherjee is far from unknown, but she hasn’t performed much in Mumbai. She sang two khyals in her usual Kirana-Rampur style and finished the performance with a shorter thumri. The auditorium had wonderful acoustics and it was small enough that I could take a decent photo with my phone.

Voices

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.
Nicholas Hornby

Sound plays as much of a role in my world as sight. I’m sure you can pick up a phone and recognize the voice of the person on the other side, if you’ve heard them before. I do. I can listen to a snatch of music which I’ve heard before and then continue it in my mind. I’m sure some of you do better, and you can hum the rest of it, or maybe sing it too. But does the sight of a person bring to your mind their voice?

Hell is full of musical amateurs.
George Bernard Shaw

Until the pandemic lockdowns I’d not bothered to identify birds by their calls. Of course, the cooing of doves, the cawing of crows, the pure notes of a koel piercing the Indian summer’s heat, or the fever inducing calls of the brain-fever bird are things I grew up with and knew. The featured photo shows a juvenile Himalayan rubythroat (Calliope pectoralis). Can you imagine its trills? Or the massed choir of the trio of Koklass pheasants (Pucrasia macrolopha)? Perhaps you have no trouble recalling the drumming of a woodpecker. But what is the call of a Rufous-bellied woodpecker (Dendrocopos hyperythrus)? And can you imagine the percussive call of a Stork-billed kingfisher (Pelargopsis capensis)? If you want to find out, click on the links above and listen to the audio in the linked pages.

Some people have lives, some people have music.
John Green in Will Grayson, will grayson

On the other hand, human voices are much more familiar. If I say blues, or jazz, or classical, you are likely to have a very good idea of what it sounds like. Of course, your recognition, or not, of the music depends on culture. Unfortunately I can’t help you out by linking to the music by these artistes, in case you don’t recognize the music expressed in the photos above. They don’t seem to have free music that I could link to. But I hope the photos tell you something about the differences in these styles of music.

Mystic music, divine dance

Kagura (神楽 literally god entertainment) is a Japanese art form with ritual music and dance which was originally a form of Shinto worship. It spread through the imperial court, becoming a popular form of entertainment, which eventually gave rise to the Noh theatre. But Kagura thrives, though it may be harder for tourists to see a performance. Our hosts in Japan very thoughtfully gave us a short glimpse of this ancient form one evening.

The story was easy to follow even without understanding the words spoken. Some dragons terrorized people by swallowing maidens. A god appeared to help. He left some potent sake for the dragons to drink, and when they were drunk he fought and killed them. I learnt later that this story is called Orochi after the dragons. The masks (gasso) are made of molded layers of washi. The making of this paper is itself is considered to be an intangible world heritage, and the making of the costumes is another. The dance is a third cultural heritage on top of this pyramid. The dragon costumes were dazzling. I found later that the 15 meters long bodies can weigh 12 kilos. They are made by stretching washi over bamboo scaffolding and making one can take more than a year. A mask also takes about a month to make.

There are two groups of performers. The maikata dance wearing the elaborate costumes and gasso. The hayashikata play the four musical instruments: a large and a small drum (odaiko and kodaiko), cymbals (chochigane), and flutes (yokobue). The skills which were once passed down through families are now learnt by enthusiasts. Hiroshima is said to be a place where you could get to see performances.

The performance lasted about an hour. The music and the movements kept me fully engaged with the performance. I had the impression that the show may have lasted about half an hour, and only many days later, looking at the time stamps on my photos, I figured that it was actually longer than it seemed. Ritual dances occur throughout the world, but you have to make an effort to see them. It was a very pleasant surprise to get a taste of Kagura so unexpectedly.

Year 403 in ten pictures

The first photo of 403 ME, the featured photo, is of a female and male black buck at the height of the breeding season. This was taken in February at the Tal Chhapar sanctuary in Rajasthan, not far from Bikaner. Both Bikaner and Tal Chhapar are worth a visit.

The second photo shows a Greater Flamingo at the lake created by the Ujani dam on the Bhima river near the town of Bhigwan in Maharashtra. This is a wonderful place for birds, and March, when we went there is perhaps almost at the end of the season.

We did not travel much in April. This photo was taken in the garden of a bungalow in Lonavala, where we spent a nice relaxed weekend with friends.

In May we visited Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand. In the Dhikala range we had a tremendous number of tiger sightings: perhaps the maximum number of sightings that I’ve ever had in a three day period. Sometimes luck is with you.

In July we travelled through Ladakh. This photo is of the dance at the Hemis monastery which is always held at this time. You will have to go to one of my posts with a video to listen to the music which accompanies this ritual dance.

We had heavy monsoon rains in August. That is perfect for the farmers in the parched interior of Maharashtra who depend on the rains to grow rice. The beautiful Sahyadris are home to an immense blooming of wildflowers at such times.

The rains continued in September. Tired and wet after a morning’s walk in search of wildflowers, I sat on the balcony of our hotel room and took photos of a dragonfly sheltering from rain. I was happy to have caught the glitter of tiny water droplets on its wings.

We saw this Koklass pheasant in October. It was sunning itself in a little meadow about 25 kilometers from Almora in Uttarakhand. This was a couple of meters above our heads, and the pheasant was quite aware that although we could see it, we could not climb the cliff.

In November we listened to the Mingus Dynasty play several compositions by Charles Mingus, whose birth centenary year this happens to be. Mumbai has hosted jazz festivals for long periods of my life in the town, and I’m happy that we had one after a break for the pandemic.

We made the last planned trip of the year in December. The sight of the rising sun on the snows of Kanchenjunga is unforgettable. This is the light which gives its name to the mountain. Darjeeling, and Tiger Hill, are must-visits for this sight alone.

Because

There is no road to freedom; freedom is the road.
Mahatma Gandhi

Two plastic chairs were pulled up to the mild sun on the terrace of a farmhouse. The farmhouse was surrounded by trees. Beyond them were the fields. It was autumn, just after Diwali. The rice had ripened, and some fields were already harvested. Beyond the fields was a rocky bank which held the cold stream back even in a monsoon-heavy year like this. The farmland stood in a narrow valley shaped by the stream. I stood far away, atop a hill road looking down at it. I raised my eyes to see the surrounding hills. These are only the foothills, the Sivaliks, barely as tall as a kilometer. A number of streams flow down this range to merge into the Ganga, some kilometers away.

It was nice to be able to stand there above the valley with a good camera and a lens which could zoom down to the chairs (and more, if there was more to see) or take in wide angle views of the surrounding hills. No shooting a single wide angle view with a phone and then having to crop (Digital zoom! How language can be twisted!) down to smaller images. Here was freedom, and I took the road just because I wanted to.

Winter’s tales

You don’t have to be standing in this desolate landscape at the roof of the world to be cold this winter. Bleak winter weather has had the western Himalayas in its grip since early in January. The first heavy snowfall attracted Pakistani tourists into a deathtrap in the town of Murree. Things have not been so bad in India, but trekkers reported difficulties in completing their routes. The effects can be felt in Mumbai too. Instead of being comfortable in shorts and a tee, I’m now forced to wear track pants at home. The nearby hill town of Mahabaleshwar twice reported freezing temperatures: zero Celsius. Amazing at an altitude of 1.3 kilometers in the tropics.

Instead of moaning about not being able to visit the Himalayas yet again, I looked for murder mysteries set in extreme cold. I’ve had a surfeit of Nordic noir recently. So when I saw a book which was touted as a worthy successor to Gorky Park, I picked it up. Disappointing, I thought, when I was part of the way through. But the story recalled the Leningrad premiere of Shostakovich’s Symphony 7 during the siege of Leningrad. So I finished the rest of the book with Shostakovich playing in my ear buds, and an unending supply of tea at hand. Not exactly a replacement for a walk in the mountains, but what can you do in an Omicron winter? I would have preferred a re-read of John Grimwood’s Moskva. Maybe I can still do it.

This would have been a good year to sit through long concerts of classical music. This is the music season in Mumbai, but the pandemic has put a stop to that. I’ve only heard one live performance in the last two years; that was by Ustad Rashid Khan earlier this year. It looks like Omicron will burn itself out soon, and perhaps there will be time for some music before spring sets in and I finally get to an altitude of 5 kilometers above where I sit. But one doesn’t know. The La Nina winter will shift the west Pacific typhoon nursery westwards, so the east coast of Asia will probably have more rain and storms. Will it affect the weather in the mountains?