Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
just amazing, January 22, 2004
This is one of the most extraordinary collections of vintage world music that I have run across. It is somewhat along the lines of the "Secret Museum of Mankind" series from a few years back, but compiler R.Crumb outdid himself in the selections and the sequencing, making it a big pleasure to listen to casually as well as to study with attention. The variety, the charm, the deep emotion, the strangeness and familiarity mixed together.... It's really impossible to recommend highly enough. The packaging is fun, too, by the way, with great Crumb artwork and his own notes to the music, hand-lettered in his distinctive style.By the way, I want to take respectful exception to the previous reviewer's observation about sound quality. Yes, these are extremely old (in most cases 1920s & 1930s) and often primitively recorded performances, but I actually thought that the engineer, Tony Baldwin, did a very fine job with the old 78s, squeezing much character and sonic presence out of them. On the basis of this disc I'd put him in a class with Rich Nevins, who does the transfers of old blues and country discs for Yazoo Records. In any case, these certainly aren't hi-fi performances..... Congrats to Crumb for making such great music available and enriching us in this special way.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Tropical Ladies from the Global South, July 5, 2008
I actually bought this CD over a year ago, and I still can't get over how cool (or perhaps I should say hot) this collection is. And baffling. Compiled by R. Crumb, its a collection of old recordings (between the '20s and '50s) from around the world. The title is a brilliant play on words, referring to the fact that all these women come from the warmer parts of the globe - South America, Africa, the Mediterranean, South and Southeast Asia, etc. All of it was culled from old 78 RPM records, almost all of which are no longer widely available.
The music itself is beautiful and very well preserved considering the era from which it came, so its very nice to have this released on CD. Given the great variety of regions, there are many diverse styles and instruments represented here. From the classical Hindustani singing of Miss Nilam Bai and Turkish ghazal sung by Ayda Sonmez to a Spanish Flamenco by La Nina de Los Peines and the Swahili singer Hadija binti Abdulla, this CD represents a wide ranging slice of world music. Theres Greek rembetika, a couple of Algerian singers, Italian folkloric music, an ethnographic recording from the Congo, Polynesian chants, old Norteno and Cajun songs, Vietnamese art music, and more.
The only downside are the uneven liner notes. Crumb must be applauded for his efforts, and he provides a great deal of information about the recordings and their world. However, on the other hand, there are a few places where he himself admits to not knowing anything about the singers, or even being able to read the Hindi and Burmese titles! Nonetheless, even without detailed ethnographic data, this is still a wonderful archive of world music from the earliest days of recording. If nothing else, the music should be enjoyed on it's own merits. Incidentally, Amazon doesn't have the complete liner notes, so here is what the CD says:
1. Blues Negres - Cleoma Breaux Falcon (Lousiana Cajun, 1934)
2. Mexico en Una Laguna - Lidya Mendoza y Familia (Mexican, mid-1930s)
3. El Cacahuatero - Tona la Negre (Mexican, early 1930s)
4. Tambor de la Alegria - Grupo de laa Alegria (Cuban, 1928)
5. Liva - Leona Gabriel-Soime with A. Kindou Orchestra (French Caribbean, 1932)
6. Quero Sossego - Araci Cortes with Brunswick Orcherstra (Brazilian, 1931)
7. Papa Araucana - Las Cuatro Huasas (Chilean, early 1930s)
8. Sevillanas No. 2 - La Nina de Los Peines acomp. by Nino Ricardo (Spanish, 1927)
9. Lu Fistinu Di Palermo - Rosina Trubia Gioiosa (Sicilian, 1927)
10. Mime Stelis Mana Anastin Ameriki - Rita Abadzi (Greek, mid-1930s)
11. Arostisa Manoula Mou - Maria Vasileiathou (Greek, late 1930s)
12. Guenene Tini - Cheikha Tetma (Algerian, 1930)
13. Khraïfi - Aicha Relizania (Algerian, 1936)
14. Yama N'Chauf Haja Tegennen - Julie Marsellaise (Tunisian, 1929)
15. Neva Hicaz Gazel - Ayda Sonmez (Turkish, 1946)
16. Ballali Madja - Hamsa Khalafe and Alia Atia (African, circa 1950)
17. Bina Adamu - Hadija Binti Abdulla (East African/Swahili, early 1930s)
18. Chant d'Invitation a la Dance - Badolo, Maboudana (Middle Congo, 1933)
19. Miverena Rahavana - Hirain-Drazaivelo, Noforonin-Dratsiambakaina, Christine Zanany (Madagascar, 1931)
20. Title in Hindustani - Miss Nilam Bai (Hindustani Indian, 1928)
21. Title in Burmese - Yadana Myit (Burmese, early 1930s)
22. Hat Du - Co Ba-Thinh, Kham-Thien (Vietnamese, 1930)
23. Lei E - Emma Bush with Johnny Noble and his Hawaiian Music (Hawaiian, late 1920s)
24. Chant D'Amour - Chants Populaires Tahitens (Tahitians, 1931)
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
MARVELOUS, October 30, 2006
THIS CD FEATURES OBSCURE RECORDINGS OF FEMALE SINGERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD, RECORDED DURING THE 20'S & 30'S, FROM PLACES LIKE AFRICA, INDIA, MEXICO, SPAIN, GREECE, SOUTH AMERICA, ET AL. I HAVE NEVER HEARD ANY OF THESE SONGS BEFORE, AND I HAVE QUITE AN EXTENSIVE MUSIC COLLECTION. THE SOUND QUALITY IS NOT GREAT, BUT WHO CARES? ADMITTEDLY, IT TAKES A FEW LISTENS TO REALLY APPRECIATE, BUT THEN YOU REALIZE THAT THIS IS NOT ONLY GREAT MUSIC, BUT IT'S HISTORY AS WELL. OH, AND BY THE WAY, THE ARTWORK BY R. CRUMB IS GREAT, WORTH THE PRICE OF THE CD ALL BY ITSELF.
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