Dissonance and Harmony
Nov. 12th, 2008 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alonewiththemoonI have gone through an entire box of tissues in the last 20 hours. I have really had enough of this being sick. It's putting a serious cramp on my plans to do, you know, actual preparation for the Descent show :-( I did drag myself to dance class last night because I couldn't stand lying around the house any longer; I think some sweat was a good idea but I can't do it again tonight.
Watched Miles Copeland's America at a Crossroads show on Arabic music, Dissonance and Harmony: Arabic Music Goes West, last Friday. It was a very flawed production full of fascinating information and personalities. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Arabic music, with the caveat that you will find it frustrating. It started out shakily enough, with the idea that Miles and his crew were looking for Arabic musicians who had something to say to the Western world. I'm pretty sure that most Arabs residing in the Middle East, whether they are musicians or not, have something to say to the Western world. Political freedom of expression in the musicians' native countries was largely glossed over, and I'm sure Saad lied outright to Miles when he said he never discussed anything political in his songs. I thought Saad loved his donkey. Anyway, the musicians for the most part seemed like an interesting bunch and any of them could have been the subject of an hour long documentary, or a part of a collection of portraits of musicians, discussing their lives as artists in the Middle East (or driven out of the Middle East, as in the case of the Iraqi guitarist). The experience of the Lebanese musicians in the group during the Israeli invasion was briefly touched upon, but really only given token consideration.
The point of the documentary seemed to be that these Arabic musicians could collaborate with Western musicians, as though this was supposed to validate them in Western eyes in some way. It's a somewhat offensive premise in the first place, and in the second place, the documentary barely touched upon the end product of that collaboration, a concert at the Roxy in Hollywood performed by the Arabic and Western artists, so it wasn't effective in showing us what this collaboration could produce. From what I could discern, the songs produced by two days of strangers from widely disparate musical traditions were not that great (with the notable exception of the Jordanian composer Tareq Al Nassar and the Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolalla--I liked what they were doing), so perhaps that's one reason why little attention was paid to the end product of the process. That would have been okay if the process had been stronger, or if the exploration of the process had been stronger. The Western musicians were a pretty motley bunch as well--they looked like a random grab bag of Miles calling in favors from people. Musicians like Nile Rogers and RZA, okay, but dude from Night Train? not famous girl from Go-Go's? Seriously, that was the best he could do? Nobody exciting and fresh? It made the proceedings seem rather stale.
One amusing thread that ran throughout was the interaction between Miles and Saad. I don't know if there is genuine antipathy there or if they have that kind of joking insulting relationship, but I got a sense of no love lost between them. The scene where Saad explains to Miles that yes, Anab is about this fruit seller right here outside his house, he wrote it about this guy and it's all about his fruit, is pretty funny (for those who don't know, it's an old song, and the fruits mentioned are metaphors for female body parts that the singer admires greatly in all sizes and shapes and colors). I'm sure Saad rolls his eyes as they walk away. Once Saad arrives in the US, he sweeps into the recording booth, ignores the Western musicians, tells the Lebanese rapper to add some raps in between the verses of his Bellydance song, then sweeps back out to go play tourist for the rest of the trip. Sensible man. The brief concert clips that were shown of him looked like riotous fun, I could have watched an hour of that and been quite happy.
I'd give the show a C+, which is entirely too bad because it could have been so much better.
Watched Miles Copeland's America at a Crossroads show on Arabic music, Dissonance and Harmony: Arabic Music Goes West, last Friday. It was a very flawed production full of fascinating information and personalities. I would recommend it to anyone interested in Arabic music, with the caveat that you will find it frustrating. It started out shakily enough, with the idea that Miles and his crew were looking for Arabic musicians who had something to say to the Western world. I'm pretty sure that most Arabs residing in the Middle East, whether they are musicians or not, have something to say to the Western world. Political freedom of expression in the musicians' native countries was largely glossed over, and I'm sure Saad lied outright to Miles when he said he never discussed anything political in his songs. I thought Saad loved his donkey. Anyway, the musicians for the most part seemed like an interesting bunch and any of them could have been the subject of an hour long documentary, or a part of a collection of portraits of musicians, discussing their lives as artists in the Middle East (or driven out of the Middle East, as in the case of the Iraqi guitarist). The experience of the Lebanese musicians in the group during the Israeli invasion was briefly touched upon, but really only given token consideration.
The point of the documentary seemed to be that these Arabic musicians could collaborate with Western musicians, as though this was supposed to validate them in Western eyes in some way. It's a somewhat offensive premise in the first place, and in the second place, the documentary barely touched upon the end product of that collaboration, a concert at the Roxy in Hollywood performed by the Arabic and Western artists, so it wasn't effective in showing us what this collaboration could produce. From what I could discern, the songs produced by two days of strangers from widely disparate musical traditions were not that great (with the notable exception of the Jordanian composer Tareq Al Nassar and the Argentinian composer Gustavo Santaolalla--I liked what they were doing), so perhaps that's one reason why little attention was paid to the end product of the process. That would have been okay if the process had been stronger, or if the exploration of the process had been stronger. The Western musicians were a pretty motley bunch as well--they looked like a random grab bag of Miles calling in favors from people. Musicians like Nile Rogers and RZA, okay, but dude from Night Train? not famous girl from Go-Go's? Seriously, that was the best he could do? Nobody exciting and fresh? It made the proceedings seem rather stale.
One amusing thread that ran throughout was the interaction between Miles and Saad. I don't know if there is genuine antipathy there or if they have that kind of joking insulting relationship, but I got a sense of no love lost between them. The scene where Saad explains to Miles that yes, Anab is about this fruit seller right here outside his house, he wrote it about this guy and it's all about his fruit, is pretty funny (for those who don't know, it's an old song, and the fruits mentioned are metaphors for female body parts that the singer admires greatly in all sizes and shapes and colors). I'm sure Saad rolls his eyes as they walk away. Once Saad arrives in the US, he sweeps into the recording booth, ignores the Western musicians, tells the Lebanese rapper to add some raps in between the verses of his Bellydance song, then sweeps back out to go play tourist for the rest of the trip. Sensible man. The brief concert clips that were shown of him looked like riotous fun, I could have watched an hour of that and been quite happy.
I'd give the show a C+, which is entirely too bad because it could have been so much better.
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no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 10:38 pm (UTC)You would enjoy the premise of the book Heavy Metal Islam - much more interesting treatment of a similar subject (western music -> eastern culture)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 11:14 pm (UTC)