David Dalle
Thursday March 14th, 2024 with David Dalle
30 for 30 with the double-reeds of Ustad Bismillah Khan and The Master Musicians of Jajouka! Also, just released Utsav Lal!

Continuing my year-long celebration of 30 years on-air at the mighty 93.1 with a look at 30 of the most significant albums in my musical evolution. Today two albums which introduced me to my deep and abiding love of double-reeded instruments. Of course Western music has double-reeded instruments, most well known are most commonly orchestral instruments--oboe, bassoon, English horn etc. There are a number of more obscure double-reeded instruments in archaic folk European traditions, and of course there are the Highland bagpipes of Scotland. The orchestral instruments I knew and loved as part of the larger orchestra, I was unfamiliar with the more obscure folk instruments, and sure I love the bagpipes, but they are definitely niche. At CKCU there is a small studio adjacent to the on-air studio--guests and live music are sometimes in that studio. Back in the mid-90s it was also set up with a CD player and turntable and headphones, where volunteers could listen to the huge library at CKCU. As a Carleton student, I would spend hours listening to music from that library, and that is where I first listened to the Master Musicians of Jajouka's famous 1992 album "Apocalypse Across the Sky" on Bill Laswell's label "Axiom". The back of the album had the group sitting down at the entrance of a cave, with half the group playing drums and half playing the double-reeded ghaitas. The group has three different styles, either the ghaitas, or the lira flute, or singing and the stringed gimbris, all with the dense, powerful drums. There is also a women's group with women singing with drums. But the album opens up with the ghaitas, and what a revelation it was! These piercing, incessant, wailing instruments reach deep into your core and grab your spirit and bring you wherever they go. Musicians use a circular breathing technique which allows them to play the instrument continuously, forever it seems! Their endurance can be incredible. It is no accident that the ghaitas form the foundation of the most intense and powerful Sufi music in Morocco. They open the door to the divine and take you there! Just a few years after I first heard this album, I would make the first of two trips to Morocco, where I heard so much music, including the ghaitas. The ghaitas were like the pied piper to me, I would follow processions through the winding Medinas of Fes late at night helpless before them! I also got a chance to see the Master Musicians of Jajouka here in Ottawa at the Bluesfest, when it used to be much more adventurous. The other double-reeded album was another surprise for me. In the mid-90s I was already listening to Indian classical music and familiar with many instruments, listening to Ravi Shankar and Shivkumar Sharma and others. I would go to Vaishali's Super Store on Wylie Ave., an Indian grocery store just off Carling (it's still there, across from the Cineplex). Back then, they had hundreds of inexpensive Indian cds in no discernable order, and I would scoop up many of them. One album just had a headshot of an handsome Indian man wearing a Karakul hat, Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party "Shehnai Recital". I did not know what the shenai was (no smartphones back then!). There were no liner notes or pictures or descriptions of a shehnai. I took it home and started listening to it. The drones start with this double-reeded instrument, then the solo shehnai comes in with a long, sustained note. Such a beautiful, rich sound, I was mesmerized! The tabla join and this raga unfolds with interplay between the solo shehnai of Bismillah Khan and the accompanying shehnais of his party. The shehnai instantly became my favourite Hindustani instrument and I picked up every album of his I could. Bismillah Khan was the first to introduce the folk instrument shehnai into classical music, and he lived a long life (1916-2006), but I never had the chance to see him perform, and the shehnai remains an uncommon instrument in classical music. I have yet to hear one live in concert. But I listen to the shehnai all the time, and this first album I heard remains one of my favourites. These two albums are very significant. In the following decades I always sought out double-reeded instruments, from China, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran, Armenia, Spain, Italy, wherever I can find them. Let them pierce your heart too! The 30 for 30 albums we've heard so far (in order of appearance): 1. Lustmord "The Monstrous Soul" Side Effects 2. Ludwig Van Beethoven/Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Von Karajan et al. "Symphony No. 9" Deutsche Grammophon 3. Doudou N'Diaye Rose "Djabote" Realworld 4. Julius Eastman/Lutoslawski Piano Duo with Joanna Duda, Mischa Kozlowski "Unchained" Dux 5. The Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar "Apocalypse Across The Sky" Axiom 6. Ustad Bismillah Khan & Party "Shehnai Recital" EMI India