Palghat T.S. Mani Iyer (1912-1981)
23. 1. 2012 | Categories: Articles, Lives
[by Ken Hunt, London] The mridangam virtuoso Palghat Mani Iyer, born 100 years ago in Palghat (the anglicised version of Palakkad) in Kerala, was one of the musical giants of the Twentieth Century. Prior to Palghat Mani Iyer, the mridangam had filled the subordinate time- and tempo-supporting role – the usual role of drums in both of the subcontinent’s art music systems and folk traditions. He was one of a generation of musicians that changed the complexion of South Indian music.
[by Ken Hunt, London] The batch of donuts has a great deal, on one hand, to do with current commissions; and on the other, choosing music that had nothing to do with work. The music is courtesy of Bessie Smith, The Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling, Damien Barber & Mike Wilson, Rosa Imhof, Ida Schmidig-Imhof and Frieda Imhof-Betschart, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party, Martin Hrbáč, The Notting Hillbillies, Mobarak and Molabakhsh Nuri, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt & Musicians of Rajasthan and Peter Case.
[by Ken Hunt, London] What a year for music! The number of events of 2011 on this list is greedy by most annual polls’ standards. One of the continual difficulties for me is that, because I am writing in a variety of periodicals and newspapers across a variety of musical genres for a number of territories, wonderful stuff just gets continually squeezed out. I mean, in this brave new world of world music, nobody wants ten roots-based Czech or Hungarian albums or Indian classical or English or even European folk albums…
[by Ken Hunt, London] Back in New York, Seeger enthused about what he had seen and heard. Broadside, a publication with a tiny circulation - using, as Cunningham recalled, a hand-cranked mimeo machine “we had inherited when the American Labor Party branch closed in our neighbourhood” - became a vital conduit for song. Originally published fortnightly, very soon monthly, topicality was a major goal.
[by Ken Hunt, London] The one has a lot to do with thinking about loss and renewal, life and the end of life. The music is provided by Anoushka Shankar, David Crosby, Jayanti Kumaresh, Judy Collins, Chumbawamba, Franz Josef Degenhardt, Sultan Khan and Manju Mehta, Ági Szalóki and Gergő Borlai, Davy Graham and Federico García Lorca.
[by Ken Hunt, London] It’s 2001. You open the paper at an article about the underground strike. Par for the course, the same old politicians are lip-synching the party line. Substitute the specific till the capitalist or metropolitanist becomes local to you. The London Underground is being turned into another public-private partnership. The workers are striking about compulsory redundancies, fears over safety, etc. You get incensed.
[by Ken Hunt, Prague] Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941, Rabindranath Thákur for my Czech readers) was the all-original singer-songwriter - before the term existed - with the folk poetry touch, a poet-bard who in Scots would be called a makar. He had melody purloining skills to make Woody Guthrie blush. In an era of luxury liners and Pullman trains, he travelled probably about as widely as was possible in that pre-David Attenborough era.
[by Ken Hunt, London] This month’s batch has a lot to do with thinking about rhymes, rhythms, mythologies and conversations. Bert Jansch, Hedy West, La Piva Dal Carner, Grateful Dead, Jagjit Singh & Chitra Singh, Laura Marling, Marvin Gaye, Rapunzel & Sedayne, David Lindley y Wally Ingram, and Ali Akbar Khan supply this month’s inspirations.
[by Ken Hunt, London] There are many reasons for pulling faces and putting on accents. Dudley Moore both knew and excelled in many. In this hour-long, black-and-white, Australian Broadcasting Corporation show, first shown in 1971, Moore runs through a gamut of facial contortions and thespian gazes and a range of ‘his voices’. He brings his Pete & Dud voice - reminding that even when continents separated them physically, Peter Cook was beside him in spirit - to the piano.
[by Ken Hunt, London] Let’s start metaphorical. Maybe poetical and ecological too. Counter-culture in the 1960s was like alternative now, like spring-water welling to the surface and forming rivulets. Streams and rivers form, few with fixed shapes. Currents change unpredictably. Some silt or dry up or form ox-bow lakes. Others keep on flowing and joining up. Counter-culture and alternative have something else going for them.
