Eclectic Music Fridays

Years ago, a friend came over to my house for the first time. He went over to the stereo to check out my record collection (I told you it was years ago). Some time later he came over with two albums and two cassettes: A Lynyrd Skynyrd Album, a Pavarotti album, a cassette of a classical Spanish guitar virtuoso, and a cassette with a bizarre drawing and “Painim Wok” written on the top (a popular rock band from Papua New Guinea in the 1980’s). “I thought I had a varied music collection, but I have never seen such an eclectic collection.”

The albums are long gone; the cassettes too. Today its just piles of CDs in a closet and the ever growing list of artists and songs on my iTunes screen. There are noticeable holes in the list as not all the albums made it to cassette and not all of the cassettes made it to CD. And there are always surprising omissions like this week when I realized that I don’t have Tom Petty’s “Free Falling.” Of course just a few songs down from where it would be if I had it, I see that I have two versions of Frere Jacques…so I feel my eclectic status remains intact.

Fridays are my favorite day of the week. On Friday’s Sachan and I go to the library. While Sachan debates how many English and how many Japanese books she will check out, I head for the CD’s. My local library sets a new standard for eclecticism. For starters, there are only three music genre divisions: Classical, Popular and J-pop. The Popular section is the largest and the one where I spend the most time. Popular, by their definition, means a bizarre combination of jazz, country, hip hop, rock, rap, soul, blues, instrumental, soundtracks, reggae, and random world music selections. Adding to the confusion is that the names are written out in katakana, the Japanese language alphabet reserved for writing out a semi-close approximation of a word from its original language. According to Japanese categorization rules, groups and solo acts are arranged by whatever word is first. Thus Bon Jovi is next to Bruce Hornsby and Willie Nelson is immediately followed by some French Jazz chick I have never hear of and next to  that is Johnny Cash. Further more, this is Japanese alphabetical order, so Bon Jovi and Bruce Hornsby are very nearly at the end of the collection, while Willie and Johnny are in the first third. Adding to the confusion is that the librarians clearly aren’t all that knowledgeable about music, or the alphabet for that matter. For example, I recently found Thelonious Monk’s CD “Underground” with the other “U’s” because Thelonious Monk’s name wasn’t on the album cover. And, with continued disregard to their own alphabetical system, I found T-bone Walker next to Albert King last week. Albert was on the top row at the start of the alphabet where it belonged, but T-bone wasn’t anywhere close to where he belonged. Of course, since I checked both of them out last week, some lucky soul will get a second chance to put them where they belong. In case you are interested, last week I also picked up two CD’s of Tchaikovsky for Sachan and a compilation of J-pop hits from the 80’s for Pam…nothing like a little Kome Kome Club to make you want to snap your fingers! The T-bone Walker CD was way better than the stuff I got for Pam and Sachan. But the jewel last week was the Albert King CD, a jam session recording with Stevie Ray Vaughan that is so emotional, one moment it will have your heart racing with sheer joy and the next moment you realize your dog is crying the music is so deeply moving. One of the beauties of really good music is that is provides a platform for people to bound. Pam came home last Friday, walked up stairs and in a loud voice asked, “What is that?” Sachan replied, loudly (so as to be heard over the music), “Mom, it’s the blues, ain’t it great!”

While I wait for Sachan to get home so we can head up the hill to the library, I am listening to some new CDs that arrived yesterday. Yesterday in the mail was a card and four CDs from a friend that I regularly exchange music with. In fact, John has provided me with marvelous mixes and CDs since we met in Hawaii 20 years ago. This package came with a letter that began: “…I am hoping there is something new for you here, or something you don’t already have. But with a guy with eclectic tastes like yours, I never know.” John has done it again, and this morning I have struggled to get anything done other than get lost in my four newest CDs: “Grandes Mana” by Mana – a fabulous Mexican band; a haunting and moving “Raising Sand” by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – whoever decided to put these two together needs to be paid a bunch of money; a fabulous live album by Townes Van Zandt recorded in Houston TX that I was so captivated by I had to turn it off to get paperwork done this morning; only to rush back to it after I had finished. The last CD is the one that ties it all together. The kind of CD that lands in your lap and transports you to another place. The last CD is one that makes me sip my coffee a little more slowly, as it takes me away. George Telek’s CD “Serious Tam” is an incredible collection of songs by a World Music artist. Telek sings in his mother tongue of Tolai and in Tok Pisin. Tolai is the primary language spoken on the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea; Tok Pisin is the lingua franca used in Papua New Guinea. I immediately recognized Telek’s voice. It has a purity and depth that reaches soothingly inside you. It has an easy pureness now with the simpler back up and reduced string band accompaniment. Simpler I say, when compared to his work in the 80’s as a member of “Painim Wok.”

I have always felt that music is there to take us places. It goes with a mood or leads us into one. And when it is really good it does it effortlessly. Can’t wait to see what I uncover this afternoon, but I doubt it will take me the way Telek’s music did last night and this morning to the point where I close my eyes and for a moment, I am back down there.