MUSIC OF NORTH AMERICA

The Secret Museum of Mankind series is a wonderful collection of music and musicians from around the world and across time. The notes give a lot of insight about this stage of "world" music. The music is beautiful and amazing. If you have ecclectic musical tastes - you will be very happy with any of the CD's from this series.THis CD has a lot of bellydancing rhythms and is a lot of fun. The sounds are clearly from another time. It gives you a feeling of being connected with the people whose music is captured here from long ago.

For anyone interested in North African music - this is a must. The 24 songs here are ALL interesting, and some are truly magnificent.The song are mostly from Morrocco, Algeria and Tunisia, but there are also songs from Libya, Sudan and Mali.My favorite is number 15 - by a great singer called Lili Abassi, accompanied by a violin. Other attractions are Kelbi Belha - by Kouideche from Tunisia, the instrumental by Orchestra Mimoun, The Sudanese song. The Mali war song (track 22) should strike all those familiar with American country blues as a clear cousin of Bukka White and others.Overall this is a great musical sampler of an ancient musical tradition.

I strongly recommend this CD for anyone looking to find the roots of Rai and other forms of north African music. This CD is composed of various recordings made between 1925-1948, a period of time when northern African music largely consisted of Arab and Berber folk music with little foreign influences. The vast majority comes from Morocco, but there are selections from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, the Sudan and Mali as well. I found one of the more interesting tracks was Saadaoudi, a recording of the Libyan zoukra (a reed-flute). Another track, Leila Kanat, embraces the ancient poetic traditions of the Sahara. Some of the Tunisian tracks, such as Hayarti Noumi Ouigardi and Aroubi Rasd Eddil (pts 1 and 2), impressed me. Tunisia has very strong musical traditions, easily rivalling those of Algeria, Morocco and Egypt, yet for the most part, Tunisian malouf (and other generes) has yet to become as widely heard in the west as, say Algerian rai or Egyptian al-jeel. These Tunisian tracks were extremely welcome. The Algerian songs too, were quite interesting. As I said, these songs are the very roots of rai music. If you like Khaled, Cheb Mami, Cheikha Remitti and so forth, you will love the tracks from Algeria. And finally, rounding out the CD are some other odds and ends. The most interesting being a Tuareg war chant from Timbuktu. I think that may have been the most unusual track on the entire CD. Overall, though, is an excellent selection of north African folk music. Check it out, especially if you like Rai.