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For its final evening of the season, Summer Sessions 2008 presents a lineup of artists who are bridging the realms of DJ culture, electronica, and world music.
Operating out of the Niceto Club in Buenos Aires, DJ collective Zizek Urban Beats Club have gained an impressive following for their grimy, crunky, and tech-savvy interpretations of cumbia—the fast-rising Latin American sound being transformed by avant-garde musicians across the Americas. SF Weekly calls Zizek "the ultimate mash-up of underground Latin club sounds: reggaetón and dancehall bleeding into getto-tech and hip-hop, with traditional and electronic dance beats swirling around the whole hot boiling stew." For their second U.S. tour, the Argentinian collective will be represented by Chancha via Circuito, Oro11, G-Love, and the duo Fuana.
The Bronx-based duo of DJ Nova and Maya form the core of Pacha Massive (from Pachamama, meaning "mother earth"), a group that's been generating buzz since its first gig in 2004: opening for Aterciopelados at Madison Square Garden. Pacha Massive's rhythmic blend of funky Latin jams with Colombian cumbia, Afro-Cuban son, and Jamaican reggae-dancehall has made them a New York club favorite. Village Voice describes the bilingual group's sweet and hummable melodies as full of "warmth, whimsy, and a wide-open sense of adventurousness," and Billboard calls their sexy vocals, framed by understated fluourishes, as "a continuous reward for the ears."
With a mission to keep things as "hot and greasy" as they can, the 11-member Boogaloo Assassins get down Spanish-Harlem style with a sound heavily indebted to New York's late-'60s/early-'70s Latin explosion. Formed in Los Angeles by members of the rock-steady machine Ocean 11, Latin-funk pioneers Five Degrees of Soul, ska stalwarts See Spot, Chris Murray Combo, and even LA's favorite Vallenato/cumbia superstars Very Be Careful, the Asesinos serve up traditional Latin son/son montuno/guaguanco/cha-cha-cha/Latin boogaloo/Latin soul, blues, and descargas for your feet and ears.
Colombian cumbias meet Germanic techno dub meet British twee pop. When DJ Hoseh spins his "interpretations of radio communication," you never know what to expect. For his set at the Getty Center, Hoseh will manipulate tracks from his Latin mix CD, Poppy Sol.
Unfortunately, due to unforseen circumstances El Guincho has canceled his summer tour dates.
Hear an excerpt from Zizek Urban Beats Club's Villa Dimante's mashup "Calle 13 vs. MIA."
Hear an excerpt from "Pachangueando" from Pacha Massive's CD All Good Things (2007, Nacional Records).
Hear an excerpt from the Boogaloo Assassins' track "Hot and Greasy."
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The Getty kicks off Summer Sessions 2008 by diving headfirst into the sonic tapestries of South Asia.
World-renowned DJ and producer and self-proclaimed "musical adventurer" and "global spiritualist" Cheb i Sabbah & 1002 Nights explore the faiths, fantasies, and cultures of the Indian subcontinent through electronic beats and swirling, hypnotic melodies. More than just a musician, Cheb i Sabbah functions as a cultural ambassador whose bhakti (devotion) to the spiritual essence of music takes him, and his audiences, down several mystical and esoteric paths. His latest album, Devotion, features three distinct traditions of religious music—Hinduism, Sikhism, and Sufi Islam—which he treats reverentially and bridges together with erratic beat structures and electronica textures.
Many talented performers will join Cheb i Sabbah & 1002 Nights to transform their performance into a total celebration. Appearing on stage: the unstoppable Mitch Hyare on dohl; Chitresh Das Dance Company, a group dedicated to the preservation, promotion, and education of Kathak, a classical dance of India and one of the most dynamic theater arts in the world; Queen Harish, a Bollywood-influenced dancer whose work incorporates Flamenco, Middle Eastern dances, and contemporary concepts such as body expressionism and pantomime; and Kirti, a dancer with roots in the classical Indian dances of Kathak and Odissi, whose experimentations with fusion go hand in hand with her love of African, Latin, and hip-hop styles.
Even with a 500-year musical lineage, Pakastani classical singer Riffat Sultana & Party stands out with her spectacular voice, which she lends to everything from devotional Sufi songs to acoustic fusion. Sultana is the first woman in her family of master musicians, which stretches back 11 generations, to sing in public. Things changed dramatically when she turned a family concert tour in the United States into an extended stay. She began spreading her wings by quietly performing within South Asian communities. Things didn't stay quiet for long; Quincy Jones took note and featured Sultana in his 2004 "We Are the Future" mega-concert in Rome.
Salar Nader was only six months old when he received his first tabla, and since then he has devoted his life to mastering the North Indian instrument. Born in Hamburg, Germany, to a family of Afghani origin, Nader immigrated to America at the age of three and moved to Northern California, where he quickly became the most promising protégé of tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussain.
Homayun Sakhi is a master of the Afghan rubab, the double-chambered lute at the heart of Afghanistan's Pashtun klasik tradition. Once heir to one of his country's greatest musical dynasties, Sakhi and his family fled war-torn Afghanistan in 1992 but took with them their repository of knowledge on the origins and traditions of Afghan classical music.
In late 2006 the dublab collective's DJ frosty visited India in search of adventure and sound. He found both in Haji Ebrahim's Radio Repair & Record Shop, hidden deep in Bombay's Null Bazaar. Frosty later shared many of these spectacular gems with the world in a podcast he called "Bollywood Blast."
Music Samples
Hear an excerpt from "Jai Bhavani" from Cheb i Sabbah's CD Devotion (2008, Six Degrees Records).
Hear an excerpt from "Hosh" from Riffat Sultana's CD Sufi Folk and Love Songs(2006, Riffat Sultana).
Hear an excerpt from a tabla solo by Salar Nader from "Qalanderi" on Cheb i Sabbah's CD Devotion (2008, Six Degrees Records).
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For its kinetic middle act, Summer Sessions 2008 embarks on a spiritual journey to the musical heart of Africa.
Sporting 22 legs, three horns, and hallucinogenic venom, the 11-piece Budos Band have proclaimed themselves the "unheralded emperors of instrumental Staten Island Afro-soul." And with bass, guitar, electro organ, trumpets, baritone, saxophone, bongos, congas, tambourine, guiro, clave, shekere, and more at their disposal, who'd dare challenge their reign? On their latest album, Budos Band II, the group continues their innovative exploration of funk, Afro-beat, and soul music that has earned them fans across the nation. Including singer Lenny Kravitz, who, in a recent interview for The New York Times, raved, "[The Budos Band] sounds like Fela Kuti meets a blaxploitation soundtrack. When I listen to the opening track, 'Chicago Falcon,' I see the streets of Harlem in 1971 in beautiful grainy muted color."
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, a collective of native Angelenos dubbed Fool's Gold meld the music of African Highlife with California sunshine, Hebrew lyrics, and free-form dance moves. The group fuses its own westernized pop aesthetic with African melodies and polyrhythms into a project they describe as "the best Hebrew soul band in all of greater Echo Park." At any given performance, it's not uncommon for the band to have upwards of ten people on stage, all shaking, moving, and crunching their way through an exploration of world music designed to "enliven your quotidian soul."
For the first time as a full nine-piece ensemble, DJ Jeremy Sole presents his culture-clashing recording project "Musaics." By sampling drum loops from vintage world music records, layering original compositions, and using the mash-up approach, Jeremy Sole's Musaics juxtaposes elements of Afro-beat, cumbia, Highlife, jazz, dub, and experimental beats. For this project, Sole pulls toogether a dream team of musicians, who perform and record with Connie Price & the Keystones, the Lions, the daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra, and many more. In addition to hosting his weekly show on 89.9 FM KCRW, Sole is also the co-founder and resident DJ of Afro Funké, the "weekly Afro-boogie ritual" that draws hundreds of devotees to the Zanzibar nightclub every Thursday.
Philippines native Aurelito and Jamaican-born Shakespeare joined forces in the mid '90s to form I&I Sound, a mobile sound system with a mission to spread love by bringing music directly to the people. To help broadcast their positive message and dub rhythms, the duo outfitted a 1969 ice cream truck with turntables, amps, and speakers, and crowned it "Destiny."
Music Samples
Hear an excerpt from "Budos Rising" from The Budos Band's CD The Budos Band II 2007, Daptone Records).
"Surprise Hotel" by Fool's Gold.
Hear an excerpt from "Surprise Hotel" by Fool's Gold.
Hear an excerpt from Jeremy Sole's Musaics mix of Jose "Buyu" Mangual's "Bomba a Puerto Rico."
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Event Calendar
