Smithsonian Folkways' Global Beat of the Boroughs Is Plain, Simple and Refreshing

Global Beat of the Boroughs Various Artists (Smithsonian Folkways) Not a collection of field recordings, most selections are either live concert or studio recordings of varying quality from fairly homespun stuff to very polished licensed tracks by higher-profile groups like the Klezmatics. All the artists are one way or another associated with the group's mission to document and bolster local immigrant music scenes, or, as the official manifesto at www.ctmd.org states, "to celebrate and strengthen the practice of traditional performing arts, affirming the value of diversity as an essential component of our national identity."

And "traditional" means what, you say? That's where things get tricky because by traditional we don't mean just purely traditional folk or village music anymore. Quite a bit on this CD set reflects popular music traditions of the 20th century born elsewhere but now manifested in New York. Most of these styles do arguably have traditional roots or elements but have already been highly morphed, if you will. Manding electric music from West Africa; cumbia and vallenato from Colombia; electric folk-jazz wedding music from Bulgaria and so on. At the same time, there's nothing too far out or experimental here; no ethno-electronica, no Balkan-informed free jazz. And the tracks still mainly represent individual cultures; what that unfortunately leaves out are the many intriguing cross-cultural hybrids that are emerging in New York and elsewhere.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this collection is its representation of new developments in world musics here in New York in recent years. Some examples: Malian Abdoulaye Diabate and his group Super Manden are an excellent band working in the Manding electric roots-rock style, based in postindependence Francophone West Africa, something completely new to New York. Besim Muriqi and also Merita Halili and Raif Hyseni represent the huge influx of Albanians to the Bronx and elsewhere with examples of the haunting and powerful traditional music of that troubled nation. Dickson Guillaume and the New York State Haitian Interdenominational Mass Choir put a Haitian spin on the African-American gospel choir tradition. There's a track here of Indo-Caribbean light classical music by Sampat Dino Boodram; this stuff is now commonplace in the U.S. but still relatively unknown outside of the community. Ensemble Teresa from Azerbaijan arrived with the influx of Jews to New York after the Soviet breakup, bringing with them the Middle Eastern tinged Sephardic music of Central Asia's Jewish populations. And Los Macondos show that Colombians have arrived in New York with some solid old-school cumbia, that uptempo yet somewhat dark accordion-driven dance style.

Esthetics can be secondary to documentation in a collection of this sort, artifact taking precedence over art, and at times that still seems to be the case?track sequencing doesn't always flow, some of the live mixes are a bit uneven?but unlike, say, the homespun Folkways LPs of yore, all the recordings are crisp and clean. Overall this does seem to be a step up on the esthetic side for CTMD and this sort of music documentation in general, paralleling the way latter-day Smithsonian Folkways has developed an esthetically informed sensibility that the original label often lacked. There's also something nice about the fact that this is a straightforward production, well produced with thorough yet accessible notes and without the graphic overload or gimmicky exoticism of many world music packages. Words and music, plain and simple, and quite refreshing.