Brazilian music always gets lumped into the Latin music category when it is so completely different. I see this when I serve each year on the NARAS Grammy Screening Committee, when Latin divisions of record companies put out Brazilian albums that never get any attention from Spanish radio which (mostly) focuses on regional Mexican music, and these are just two examples.
Years ago, Caetano Veloso put out a great CD of boleros (love songs) called “Fina Estampa.”  Sure, he sang in accented Spanish that native speakers might not care …

KCRW’s resident world music guru Tom Schnabel will be traveling abroad to deliver a keynote address at the LIVE! Singapore Global Performing Arts Exchange. He’ll be talking about the origins, current status, and future of world music, both in the US, Europe, and in Asian markets.  Attendees are coming from over 20 countries for the conference June 8-11.
Check it all out here
RR

By KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel:
Today, May 26, would have been Miles Davis 84th birthday.   But Miles Davis never really gets old.  I recently found these pictures, taken in 1955 by Tom Palumbo, an Italian fashion photographer no longer with us, with Miles doing decorating and organizing on his first gym.  He is smiling and guileless in these photos, which I’d never seen before.

Miles was like Picasso. He was restless, never stayed in the same stylistic place for too long, and constantly reinvented his music.  He rarely stood still.  He …

Everybody knows who Philip Glass is.  He’s famous for his big productions with Robert Wilson (Einstein on the Beach, Akhnaten, etc).  He’s scored many films too, such as Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, Bent, Mishima, and many others.
Few, however, have ever heard of Jóhann Jóhannsson, who has also written soundtracks for feature films, documentaries, works for theatre, and several large-scale compositions out on CD.
Although he is virtually unknown outside of his native Iceland, Jóhannsson’s conceptual scope and creativity certainly rivals Glass’.  While the latter is known for his amazing soundtracks for Godfrey Reggio’s …

Ned who??
He’s probably not a household name for most, but Ned Sublette is an amazing human being as far as I’m concerned.
I met him when he ran a fantastic label for Cuban music, Qbadisc, in the late 80s.  He produced CD’s by Cuban rumba groups like Los Munequitos, Cuban rock by Carlos Varela (currently on a US tour, after years of getting his visa refused by the Bush government), crooner Issac Delgado, and fantastic compilations of Cuban classics with Harry Sepulveda, the guy who ran the legendary Record Mart under …

Last Thursday I attended a big photo opening at the Fahey/Klein Gallery for the reigning triumvirate of jazz photographers:  Herman Leonard (still thriving at 86), the late Bill Claxton, and the late William Gottlieb.   All three are known for their iconic photographs of Chet Baker, Tony Bennett, Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, and Billie Holiday.  All three lead (Herman still does) amazing lives, and were able to portray both the heat and the coolness of modern jazz in their images.  Herman Leonard shot Lady Day cooking a steak for her boxer …

Tom Schnabel will host Mahssa Taghinia, the producer of a compilation called “Pomegranates: Persian Pop, Funk, Folk and Psych of the 60s and 70s” for a quick chat on his show this Sunday, April 4 at 1pm. The compilation revisits the vitality and variety of pre-revolutionary pop before the ax fell in 1979. It is music that is influenced by UK and American pop, funk, and blues, as well as Arabic and Bollywood sounds.
RR

The Brazilian artist joined Tom for an interview this weekend and you can hear it in the archives here:
Brazilian superstar Gilberto Gil formed the Tropicalia movement back in the late 60s along with Caetano Veloso and others, and paid dearly for it—he was exiled for years by the dictatorship.  He returned to Brazil from his exile in London, and went on to record some of the most memorable albums in Brazilian music.   Current Brazilian President Lula da Silva appointed him Minister of Culture, a position he held for five years.
Upon …

Ludovico Einaudi is a scion of a great Italian wine producing family. In fact, his great great grandfather invented dolcetto wine. As a musician, Ludovico burst upon the scene in America after conquering Europe. His first CD stateside was an album of duets with a West African kora player. Later, came his gorgeous record with strings, Divenire (“to become”) which brought him fame here in the US.
I was the first KCRW champion of his music and, when I passed on a CD of his to Anne Litt, I didn’t know …

Tom really enjoyed the piece in Sunday’s LA Times on Afrobeat king Fela Kuti and sent this Letter to the Editor, describing some of his interactions with the artist.
From Tom to journalist Chris Barton:
Thanks for the piece on Fela. As Music Director at KCRW, I started playing Fela around 1980, and we’ve been playing him ever since.  We presented Fela at the Olympic Auditorium in 1986, and I interviewed him at that time.  KCRW was supposed to present a concert of his at the Hollywood Bowl earlier, in 1984, but Fela …