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World Pop L.A.

by Tom Schnabel

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and over the past few decades I've been amazed at the ways in which this city has grown, changed, and matured, making it one of the most exciting global cities in the world. I don't want to age myself, but music choices back then were limited to classical, pop, and jazz, maybe a bit of folk and blues. African music was acoustic and recorded in the village; Brazilian music didn't exist here except for Stan Getz and The Girl from Ipanema. We had some tiki/cocktail brew from Les Baxter and Martin Denny, enjoyed Olvera Street, Chinatown and Little Tokyo, but that was about it.

Nowadays Los Angeles is an amazingly multicultural city, home to over three hundred languages. Huge influxes of Asians, Central Americans, Armenians, and Latinos have changed the way our city looks and hears music. The Thai restaurant music scene on Hollywood Boulevard near Western Avenue, for example, presents Thai Elvis and Madonna impersonators; the Carousel Restaurant in Glendale serves up Lebanese disco on Saturday nights, and the Brazilian strip along Venice Boulevard offers a myriad of tropical Latin clubs for the growing mambo and salsa crowd.

There are restaurants and shops in Little Ethiopia on Fairfax Avenue playing African beats and a vibrant Mariachi and Tejano scene in El Mercado of East Los Angeles. Even now, at the turn of the millennium, the English and Irish Pubs continue to strum melodies about God, love, and whiskey, following a tradition that goes well back into the 19th century. The list goes on and on. It's not exactly armchair traveling, but still… all this musical delight is just a short drive away.

Here in Los Angeles we not only find places where purist traditional music is heard, such as the Armenian church choirs in Glendale; on the club scene, we also find groups that mix deejay culture with ethnic rhythms, sampling everything under the sun into an eclectic and enticing musical concoction.

This amazing musical syncretism was not only determined by the massive migration of ethnic groups into the area, but also defined by the political and social forces that have shaped the United States in the last forty years.

The Voice of America (VOA), acting like a politicized early American version of MTV, broadcast Willis Conover's Jazz Hour behind the red curtain, influencing a generation of Soviet citizens both in Russia and in USSR member nations. Johnny Pacheco, along with the infectious Nuyorican sound, was heard - thanks to the VOA - by newly independent African nations in the early 60s.

A decade later, Armed Forces Radio beamed 60s American soul, psychedelic sounds, and Motown grooves throughout South-East Asia, influencing Thai, Cambodian, and Vietnamese music. Then came MTV in the 80's, which now broadcasts hip-hop and other new music around the globe. And now the Internet cross-pollinates music even further.

If we add to all this mix the popularity and demand of world music - the new hybrid genre that during the 50s, 60s, and 70s percolated globally, mixing local with imported sounds, usually American, but also French in francophone Africa, and Cuban, especially in Senegal, Mali and Congo - then we have music that defies geography, creating a global beat in a local setting. Now, at the turn of the millennium, the dance between what we know as local and understand as global is creating an unprecedented musical and cultural diversity in Los Angeles.

For this issue of California Stories, we have chosen a few local bands who reflect this cross-pollination and have unique stories about where they come from and what it's like for them to live and play music here in Los Angeles. These four bands will serve us both as a symbol and a microcosm of all the other groups, bands and conjuntos who together make up the musical landscape of Los Angeles.

Very Be Careful

The first band, Very Be Careful, comes from Colombia. Very Be Careful plays a traditional Colombian music called Vallenato, a musical style that - along with cumbia and salsa - represents much of the musical tapestry of this South American nation. Vallenato is a traditonal idiom, featuring German accordion, voice, bass, cajón drum and the driving, ever-present cowbell. Everyone in Colombia listens to Vallenatos: fishermen and farmers, campesinos and drug lords; it's a tasty musical brew that you'll hear played in most bars where regular folks congregate.

Lately, with the success of fusion beats from the Colombian coast - including the Vallenato Rock of Colombian superstar Carlos Vives - Vallenato music has gone through an identity crisis. Very Be Careful's Vallenato sound, on the other hand, keeps it real, taking the music back to its roots and paying tribute to legends such as Alejandro Duran.

Authentic or not, Vallenato music fuels dance floors all over Colombia and thanks to VBC - as Very Be Careful is sometimes called - here in Los Angeles as well. With their catchy groove, it's no wonder that VBC has opened for everybody from the Kronos Quartet, salsa kings Grupo Niche, the late Joe Strummer of The Clash and countless others.

As one critic said referring to the Central American parranda style of VBC: "like it or not, punker or sonidero, new-ager or new-waver, b-boy or cowboy, sober, drunk, few can elude the rump rousing radar of a VBC parranda".

Dengue Fever

For our next band, named after a tropical disease, we travel half way around the world to South East Asia.

Few people would have thought that the Armed Forces Radio would spawn new bands at the turn of the 21st century. During the Vietnam War, Cambodians were listening to Motown, psychedelic rock, surf music, soul and everything else American deejays were spinning and mixing with local idioms and rhythms. Dengue Fever reflects all these influences.

Brothers Ethan and Zac Holtzman formed the band after a visit to Cambodia in the late 90s. Much to their surprise, the music they heard there wasn't too foreign; the keyboards, the surf guitars, and other pop, soulful elements were part of a cultural stew that seemed all too familiar to them. Once home, they decided to recreate this sound, and Dengue Fever was born, playing covers of the Cambodian pop music they heard abroad. But they needed a singer to front the group. Together they scoured the Cambodian music scene in Long Beach and were elated to find their perfect lead singer, the beguiling Nimol Chhom. Miss Chhom was already a superstar in Cambodia - she had performed for the King and the Queen - and became a perfect match to bring the band to the next level.

Dengue Fever recorded their first album in 2003, followed by their new album, Escape from Dragon House, in 2005. The album's title refers to a famous Cambodian nightspot in Long Beach, where Nimol regularly performs to service the debt incurred when she was wrongly detained in 2002 by The Department of Homeland Security. Nimol didn't have her immigration papers in order and was jailed for 22 days by the INS.

Eventually, Nimol was able to pay off her debt through many hours of "public service," by performing at the Dragon House. Hence the title of their latest CD.

The eclectic music of Dengue Fever, propelled by Nimol's lilting vocals, has gotten a ton of airplay on top stations like KCRW, and their popularity is ever increasing with each gig they play.

Niyaz

Like Dengue Fever, Niyaz is a fusion made up of eclectic musical elements: it combines ancient Sufism with modern club grooves, new technology with ancient instruments and traditions. Niyaz - the Farsi word for Yearning - is the musical brainchild of three musicians: top deejay, programmer/producer and remixer Carmen Rizzo, vocalist and hammered dulcimer player Azam Ali, formerly of the group VAS, and Loga Ramin Torkian of the popular Iranian crossover group Axiom of Choice.

Azam was born in Iran but raised in India, where she started singing at an early age, absorbing the rich cultures of both countries. Her early music influences the English soprano Emily Van Evera and singing-medieval- mystic-visionary-composer and abbess, Hildegard von Bingen. Loga Ramin Torkian plays guitar, the saz, and rabab, while Carmen Rizzo does all the programming; keyboards, synthesizers and drums, as well as performing live with the group. Their new album for Six Degrees Records features Tony Levin of King Crimson on bass, along with other Indian and Armenian musical guests.

Niyaz is a mixture of old and new, of cutting edge sounds and timeless musical traditions. Their lyrics - also timeless - are drawn from Sufi mystics, such as the Persian poet Rumi, and other classic poetry sung in Urdu. Sufism reflects ancient beauty and wisdom; Niyaz claims it for our times and gives it a modern, yet reverent expression.

The Philistines

Our fourth and final group also comes - mostly - from the Middle East. The Philistines are a Palestinian-Filipino hip-hop group based in Los Angeles. The eclectic group came together when emcees Ragtop and B-Dub, Palestinian brothers raised in East Tennessee, recruited the multi-talented Filipino-American producer/singer/emcee Cookie Jar to help with the production of their first album, Self-Defined. The group chose their name to reclaim the term "Philistine," which Webster defines as referring to a "barbaric, uncultured" or "materialistic" person, but The Philistines believe "they have more culture in one microphone than Webster has in its entire dictionary".

The Philistines is made up of three guys: Nizar Wattad (a.k.a. Ragtop) who was born on a mountain in Palestine and raised in the hills of Tennessee. Wattad has been honing his rap skills - along with a social & political agenda - for more than a decade. In his role as co-captain of The Philistines, he has performed at venues from Guatemala to New York City, collaborating with talented artists from around the globe. The second member, younger brother of Ragtop, Bader Wattad (a.k.a. B-Dub) is known in his neck of the woods for his unparalleled freestyle ability. His spitfire rhyme style is the heart and soul of most The Philistines collaborations. The third and final member of the group is C.J. Pizarro (a.k.a. Cookie Jar). This Filipino from West Virginia is the producer, multi-instrumentalist and emcee of the crew.

The Philistines rap mostly in English with a smattering of Arabic. Like much hip-hop, their music is socially conscious: their lyrics express the hardships, misunderstandings, frustrations, and hopes of people - in this case, Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans.

Since releasing Self-Defined, they've performed at numerous benefits, fundraisers, and protests as well as popular venues like Los Angeles' Key Club, BB King's, and the House of Blues. Their crowning moment came with the release of Free the P, a compilation of hip-hop and spoken word dedicated to the youth of Palestine and inspired by the global struggle for peace and justice. The CD, which features notable underground hip-hoppers like Immortal Technique and the Visionaries alongside HBO Def-Poet Suheir Hammad and a slew of Arab-American artists, is being sold to raise funds for the upcoming Palestinian hip-hop documentary Slingshot Hip-Hop.

The Philistines' plethora of influences - musical, literary and philosophical - include The Roots, author Edward Said, Black Star, Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Layla Khaled, Jay-Z, Malcolm X, Madlib, Suheir Hammad… a list as eclectic as their music.

Dengue Fever, Very Be Careful, Niyaz, and The Philistines epitomize the musical diversity that exists in Los Angeles. Varied in tone and purpose, these four bands have created a bridge between the local expressions of their ancestors and the global, buzzing beat of this city.

It's an exciting time for music… it's an exciting time to live in Los Angeles.

Tom Schnabel Biography

Tom Schnabel is currently Program Director of World Music at the Hollywood Bowl. Beginning Summer 1999 and continuing since, he has directed a new series of world music concerts called World Festival, The Hollywood Bowl's first such series of World Music concerts.

Tom Schnabel has also produced radio shows for radio station KCRW since 1979. During his tenure as Music Director of KCRW (1979-1990) KCRW grew from an obscure college station to become the biggest public station in the U.S, serving as a tastemaker for new and unusual music. He pioneered the use of the eclectic alternative format, and introduced World Music to public radio. During this time KCRW twice won the College Media Journal's "Best Noncommercial Station" award (1986, 1989).

Schnabel is the author of many articles about music for the Los Angeles Times, Jazz Magazine (France), Cashbox, Down Beat, Esquire, Buzz, LA Style and two books, Stolen Moments: Conversations with Contemporary Musicians (Acrobat Books 1988), and Rhythm Planet - The Great World Music Makers (Universe/Rizzoli, l998).