Monday, January 14, 2008


















Had a rare daytime Record Club yesterday, as always very enjoyable.

Nina opened with a wonderful piece (apparently not all that unknown), a "field recording" (if you can say that about something recorded in an office) of several Ghanaian postal workers as they rhythmically--very rhythmically---stamp cancellations on envelopes while whistling a lovely tune. You can listen to it here if you like.

Dan jogged some long-buried memories by playing "Is She Waiting?" from the first McDonald & Giles album (1971). From the first bass note, I knew I knew the piece. I could anticipate the lyrics. Knew it was a record I'd had while in high school. Took about a minute into the song to positively place it as McDonald and Giles, a recording I'm sure I haven't heard a whit of since, at the latest, 1975. Never ceases to amaze me how firmly planted in the brain are these songs heard in one's teens. Scary.

But the musical highlight of the day, for me, was Chris Cochrane's choice of a traditional bagpipe track by Jean Blanchard, from his 1988 release on Ocora:











Amazing music! Not sure what "tradition" this was from, but there were tons of Arabic overtones. I searched around briefly this morning but couldn't locate a ready source for the disc (are some Ocora's OOP?). Apparently Mssr. Blanchard remains active, as the pic at the top is a more recent one. Couldn't locate a complete Ocora catlog on-line either--a lifetime goal of mine would be a complete collection of same.

8 comments:

Richard Pinnell said...

For a minute I thought Eddie Prevost had changed his taste in jumpers....

Herb Levy said...

Unfortunately, not all of Ocora's vinyl releases have been issued on CD. I've been looking for a copy of the box set of music from Chad (Tchad, apparently in French) for a long time.

Brian Olewnick said...

Herb, this one was a CD (1988). I'm guessing a lot of their CDs are out of print as well.

Naughty naughty. Richard.

Brian Olewnick said...

Check out the review of Skrobek here

Ostensibly by Mattin, complete with a "full attention is required" proviso.

:-)

Anyway, Skrobek's Google hits have skyrocketed into the 70s.

Herb Levy said...

I don't think they had Google back in the '70s.

Is there an online list of Ocora CDs, in or out of print?

Anonymous said...

Hi all of you !

It seems hard to find a good website with Ocora CD's. In fact, if I remember correctly, Ocora is run by RadioFrance now. Not sure they have a US distributor.

So, the site is :
http://www.radiofrance.fr/radiofrance/kiosque/

You have to go on the left column and clik on "cd". Wait a long time...
Then in the pop list "FILTRER collection", choose and click on: Ocora.
Normally if it works well, you should reach the following page:
http://www.radiofrance.fr/radiofrance/kiosque/liste.php?trier=date&ac=0&support=11&theme=0&collection=21&chaine=0
Maybe you can go directly with that link.

But I am not sure if they sell to foreign countries;
Hard times.

Jacques

niwi said...

that ghana postal workers piece is fantastic

vanessa

Brian Olewnick said...

Hi Vanessa,

Still awaiting your disc! It was one of those that fell under the "previously agreed to write about before the sabbatical" rule (Article 17, amendment 24.1B) so I hope you hurl it my way!