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Michael Spiro & Michael Williams

Michael Spiro & Michael Williams

Michael Williams says, “I was first exposed to mbira as a graduate student in Paul Berliner’s class at Northwestern University in 1977. I remember being so moved when Paul played and sang in class, and also on the concert stage with the Paul Winter Consort. Fifteen years later, my good friend Andy Cox reintroduced me to the instrument when he brought one he had made for me to look at (Andy had figured out how to build an instrument from photos and descriptions in Paul Berliner’s Soul of Mbira). I hounded Andy until he made one for me, and I learned my first piece (Nhemamusasa) from Paul’s transcriptions in Soul of Mbira. The instrument just grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. In fact, my daughter’s first complete sentence was, ‘Daddy, put mbira down!’”

B. Michael Williams is Professor of Music and Director of Percussion Studies at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He is Associate Editor (world percussion) for Percussive Notes magazine. His publications include “Four Solos for Frame Drums,” “Three Shona Songs” for marimba ensemble, “Recital Suite for Djembe,” “Another New Riq,” “Bodhran Dance,” and “Learning Mbira: A Beginning....”

Michael Spiro is an internationally recognized percussionist, recording artist, and educator, known specifically for his work in the Latin music field. He has performed on hundreds of records, co-produced several instructional videos for Warner Bros. Publications (featuring such renowned artists as David Garibaldi, Changuito, Giovanni Hidalgo, and Ignacio Berroa), and produced seminal recordings in the Latin music genre, including Orquesta Batachanga, Grupo Bata-Ketu, and Grupo Ilu-Aņa.

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BataMbira

BataMbira

A marriage of sacred music from Cuba and Zimbabwe

Notes: 12pp.

2005

CD (579-C) $15.00 plus shipping not currently in stock

This is a brilliant performance of an crazy/inspired idea — to combine songs from the Shona and Cuban repertoires that musically and thematically match. It’s been a project of several years in the making, sparked when Spiro and Williams met in 1998 and discovered their soul connection across the geographical and musical landscape — Dr. Williams in South Carolina a self-taught mbira player and Spiro in California a musical descendant of the Cuban bata drum tradition.

Cuban music is largely outside my experience, but some of Williams’ mbira influences are familiar to me, from his heartfelt rendition of Hangaiwa, a favorite of Chartwell Dutiro’s, to his vocal lines echoing Dutiro, Chigamba, Dyoko, and Azim.

The Shona and the Cuban are not two musical traditions I’d expect to dance together easily. Cuban music surely derives from Caribbean and West African cultures, worlds away from the Shona mbira of Zimbabwe. That this album succeeds is a tribute to Williams’ & Spiro’s insight and determination to douse the deep currents that connect human music so far beneath the surface of our contemporary cultures.

A wonderful chill passes down my spine when the intertwining Shona and Cuban threads merge in these amazing songs. Lively and danceable in spirit, BataMbira also evokes something ancient and ancestral that leaves me surprised and moved.

(Caution for those on slow-speed internet connections: these audio clips are large (716 Kb) to accommodate the development of these song pairings.)

Tracks:
Instruments: (in alphabetical order)

Arara drums, Bata drums, bongo, congas, flute, karimba, mbira, shekere, timbale, triangle, voice.

Credits: (in alphabetical order)

Jesus Diaz, Sonyalsis Feldman, Sylvain Leroux, Manose, Michael Spiro, Michael Williams.