The 9th annual Small World Music Festival --
always one of the year's highlights -- begins Sep. 23, and
features 21 performances over 11 days.
This weekend is the last chance to buy a
festival pass for $50, providing admission to all shows (except the
Oct. 1 K'naan concert). This might be the music bargain of the
year.
Click image on the right for details of the
festival and pass.
As noted in the last two newsletters (117 &
116), Malian singer Khaira Arby is making her first North
American tour, and she seems to be
tearing things up in the U.S.
She will be playing the 15th annual
Ashkenaz Festival at Harbourfront tomorrow (Sunday,
Sep. 5), but without her band (what a shame!); instead she'll be a
"guest star"
with the New York band
Sway Machinery, a group whose music
begins with traditional Yiddish, Aramaic and Hebrew songs, but
takes off from there. They have connected with African music,
playing Mali's Festival in the Desert, recording with both Khaira Arby and Vieux Farka Touré. They are touring with some of
the horn section of the Afrobeat group, Antibalas.
See more of Sway Machinery at the Festival in the Desert
here, and you can also watch some nice informal footage of Khaira in Mali
here.
Here's a clip of Khaira performing with Ali Farka Touré
(a cousin) at the Grammy
Awards in 1995. Note the commenter enquiring about the clip:
Jeremiah Lockwood -- he's the founder of Sway Machinery.
NOTE: You can also catch Khaira and Sway
Machinery
performing live on CIUT FM
on Sunday, at about 5pm on "Global Rhythms". Tune
in to 89.5, listen online, or come down to the studio in the Map
Room, on the ground floor of Hart House, University of Toronto.
And for much more background about
Khaira Arby, see
this page
b) Odessa/Havana & Balkan Beat Box
A couple of other shows of note at Harbourfront on Sunday
Odessa-Havana,
a Toronto collaboration mixing Jewish and Cuban music's led
by David Buchbinder and Hilario Duran. 7pm, Brigantine
Room. $15adv/$18. Info
here
Balkan Beat Box,
a New York-based group, who describes its sound as
"globalized urban mash-ups"; some of its members came out of
Gogol Bordello, It promises to be a unique, and high-energy
show -- see video at right. For some background and audio, see
this NPR page. 9:30pm, Sirius Stage. Free. Concert info
here.
Khaira Arby with Sway Machinery at the 2010 Festival in the Desert.
(full YouTube link
here)
Balkan Beat Box, performing "War Again", live in Israel, Aug.
2010. (full
YouTube link)
NOTE: the links below are to the TIFF page
for each film. These include a video trailer or teaser, but they are
sometimes slow to buffer.. and sometimes never seem to start. For
more about the films, usually with video, you can also check out
TOFilmFest. Anyone who has
tried buying festival tickets online on the first day of sales knows
that TIFF's website can leave a lot to be desired.
Marimbas From Hell One of the best titles of the festival, it's encouraging enough that I'll be
catching the film.
The story involves a marimba player at a hotel in Guatemala City, whose
traditional music now has such little interest for the local residents that
he's fired. He then joins up with one of the leaders of the local heavy metal
scene, and together they form the group, Marimbas From Hell.
Passion
(Passione) The directorial debut of actor John Turturro, the film focuses on the
musical roots and traditions of Naples ("one of the biggest jukeboxes in the
world")
The Piano in a Factory A Chinese film, the story concerns a factory worker who builds a piano
from scratch to reconnect with his daughter who loves playing the instrument
Microphone An Egyptian returns to Alexandria after living in the U.S. for several
years, and becomes captivated by the underground arts & music scene in the
city.
Chico y Rita An animated feature by Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba, centred
around a love story at the time of the Revolution, switching between Havana
and New York
The Sound of Mumbai: A Musical
A documentary about a gorup of children living in a Mumbai
slum who get the chance to sing in a choir, performing The
Sound of Music with a classical orchestra
Mother of
Rock: Lillian Roxon A documentary on the prominent New York city writer (she wrote The Rock
Encyclopedia in 1969) who was a big part of the New York rock scene of the
60's and 70's and died at 41 in 1973. The trailer on the TIFF site (linked)
includes one memorable description of her, "She looked like a Boticelli
angel who'd just finished giving King Kong a blowjob".
In addition, TIFF will be hosting
a
block party on Sunday Sep. 12 to mark the official opening
of its new Lightbox building. There are a number of live music
performances, although the "headliner" won't be announced until
the day before.
This fall, TIFF will be presenting
the "Essential
100" -- the 100 greatest films selected by a panel of
critics. While some of these will be musically oriented (e.g,
Altman's Nashville), there will also be
several silent films which will be accompanied by a number
of distinctive popular and classical musicians
This weekend
also features the 2nd annual
Brazilian Canadian
Day festival. Last year's was huge. Next week, Dave Alvin &
The Guilty Women promise to be an interesting show at
Hugh's Room.
Next weekend,
Ethiopian New Year's will be marked as usual by the annual
Ethiopian Canadian Day
festivities in Christie Pits Park at Bloor & Christie,
10-11pm.
That weekend
also features the
Southside Shuffle: Port Credit Blues & Jazz Festival which
this year also includes a number of world and roots musicians
including Jay Douglas, Elmer Ferrer, Domininc Mancuso, Hilario
Duran, along with more traditional performers like Johnny
Winter, Downchild, Elvin Bishop and others.
Check out the listings
on my events page for
much more
