Killer Opening Songs (Aziza Mustafa Zadeh - Always)

If Killer Opening Songs could give Aziza Mustafa Zadeh another middle name (assuming Mustafah is her middle name) it would be 'passion'. If she could have two surnames like us, denizens of the Spanish-speaking Americas, they would be 'intensity' and 'vim'. Because that's what K.O.S. feels everytime it plays one of Aziza's records.

K.O.S. first became acquainted with this Azerbaijani musician's oeuvre when it borrowed a CD from its local library entitled 'Women in Jazz'. Her track 'Marriage Suite' stood out immediately. A musical love affair between K.O.S. and the composer ensued from that day onwards which remains until now as fresh as ever.

From an early age Aziza was exposed to music via her two parents. Her father, Vagif, was a pianist and composer and her mother, Eliza, was a classically-trained singer from Georgia. Although Aziza was a Bach and Chopin enthusiast when she was little, she showed an inclination towards improvisation as she grew up. At 17 she won the prestigious Thelonius Monk competition in Washington DC playing the famous musician's compositions but in her own style. Around that time she moved to Germany with her mother and that's when she started to develop her distinctive musical direction.

This week Killer Opening Songs brings you the first track from her 1993 album 'Always'. This record earned Azia many accolades, amongst them: the ECHO Award and the German Phono Association's Jazz Award. This was followed in 1995 by 'Dance of Fire', another regular listen en la casa de Killer Openings Songs. A mild uproar was caused by Aziza's decision to appear with little more than long tendrils of hair on the cover of her follow-up album 'Seventh Truth'. Far from apologising and keeping a low profile, Mustafa Zadeh went on the offensive and in response to the public outcry (mainly in her native Azerbaijan) she retorted à propos de the risqué artwork: 'It means people are starting to wake up a bit. I'm so glad. Actually, I find it amusing! Why all the fuss? '

Returning to this week's offering now, the reason why K.O.S. finds this track so alluring is that on this clip the Azerbi composer has stripped the music down to just the piano. And believe K.O.S. when it tells you that although the album version is brilliant this live performance is a hundred times better. Her technique reminds K.O.S. of a river in that the notes meander around and curl their lips at our attentive ears. Just like a river, this song carries long-forgotten tales from the countries whence it originates: Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. And above all, this tune, like a copious flow, makes us feel the same sense of magnitude and awe that overpowers us when we look at a river; the pleasure of boundless freedom. Enjoy.

For earlier editions of Killer Opening Songs click on any of the links below

Killer Opening Songs (D'Angelo's Brown Sugar)

Killer Opening Songs (Sinéad O'Connor's 'Fire on Babylon')

Killer Opening Songs (Queen's Mustapha)

Killer Opening Songs (Caetano Veloso-Haiti)

Killer Opening Songs (David Bowie - Unwashed and S...

Killer Opening Songs (Massive Attack - Safe From H...

Killer Opening Songs (Bob Brozman)

Killer Opening Songs (Vanessa da Mata - Vermelho)

Killer Opening Songs (The Beatles-Help!)

Killer Opening Songs (Souad Massi-Raoui)

Killer Opening Songs (Habib Koité - Batoumambé)

Killer Opening Songs (Mary Black - No Frontiers)

Killer Opening Songs (Chico Buarque & Milton Nasci...

Killer Opening Songs (David Gilmour - Shine On You...

Killer Opening Songs (Ernesto Lecuona - 'La Compar...

Killer Opening Songs (Chopin 'Fantaisie-Impromptu ...

Killer Opening Songs (He Loves Me by Jill Scott)

Killer Opening Songs (Tracy Chapman - Talkin' 'bout A Revolution)

Killer Opening Songs (Patti Smith - Gloria)

Killer Opening Song (Silvio Rodriguez - Canción del Elegido

Killer Opening Songs (Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit)

Killer Opening Songs (Fela Kuti and Jethro Tull - Jam Session)

Killer Opening Songs (Sting - A Thousand Years)

Killer Opening Songs (Rodrigo y Gabriela - Tamacun)

Killer Opening Songs (Susheela Raman - Ganapati)

Copyright 2009

Living in a Bilingual World (Andante)

You can read the first part of this post here.

Monday 4th August, noon, Swanage Beach.

Wife and I are lying down on the sand whilst Son and Daughter are playing with the other children in the water. Nearby there’s a British woman reading. The woman is reading a book. The book is in Spanish. The title of the book is ‘Tiempo de Silencio’ (‘Time for Silence’), a novel by the Spanish writer Luis Martín Santos. The woman searches for something in her bag. She fishes out a dictionary. The dictionary is both in Spanish and English. She looks up a word in the dictionary (apparently) and goes back to reading. This same operation she repeats a few times, at regular intervals, like a dancer performing a well-known piece, which never fails to trigger her passion off. She reads. She stops. She looks up a word in the dictionary. She continues to read. I watch. Little Englander watches from a distance. I watch Little Englander watching the woman reading the book. Little Englander watches me watching him watching the woman. Little Englander wipes the sand of his feet. He puts his socks and sandals on and off he walks.

Living in a Bilingual World 1 – Little Englander 1. Game on!

(to be continued)

Copyright 2008

Road Songs (Andante)

Road Song: (n) 1 A brief composition aimed mainly at being played in a vehicle on an open, usually public way for the passage of other vehicles, people and animals. 2 A melodious utterance that serves as a companion on short, medium and long trips on such a public way.

Since I passed my driving test earlier this year (fifth time lucky!) I have discovered a new passion: listening to music whilst on the road. Now, I already had a similar leaning before, but more as a passenger than as the driver as it was my spouse behind the wheeel the whole time. But since May this year, I have been on my own a lot and whilst paying attention to what is going on before my eyes on the road, my ears have been digesting all kinds of rhythms and beats.

Thus, I discovered that there are songs meant for the house and there are others designed for the car. Mix them up and you'll end up with 'Atom Heart Mother' by Pink Floyd on a long journey to Frinton. Believe me, as much as I love the British quartet, it is not the appropriate time, nor place.

'Road Songs', then, is the name of this new section. To me road songs do not relate to the actual motorway, or street, or avenue, although some fellow poster/reader/blogger might disagree with me. They have much more in common with a particular track that makes you more alert and alive whilst roaming the roads of Britain or any other country (an experience yet to live) in your four-wheel automobile. Sometimes coincidences do happen and 'Highway Star' could be one of those occasions on which Deep Purple will be playing in the car stereo at full blast whilst I will be trying to control the urge to follow Ian Gillan's advice: 'Nobody gonna take my car/I'm gonna race it to the ground/Nobody gonna beat my car/It's gonna break the speed of sound/Oooh it's a killing machine/It's got everything/Like a driving power big fat tyres and everything. But generally the type of composition I choose to accompany me in my short jaunts to pick up or drop off my children are ear-friendly tracks that stimulate the mind as well as the body. And a big disclaimer now: I do not advocate speeding on the road.

My first choice is the result of the first part of the BBC series on the history of Brazilian music. Last week saw the beginning of a journey through that South American's country rich musical legacy and one of the performers who made up this first encounter was Tom Jobim. When I was growing up in Havana I was haunted by this melody which later on I found out was sung by the incomparable Elis Regina, one of my favourite singers ever. Enjoy.

My second track is by a natural performer who has quite rightly earned her moniker Queen of Soul. She has timeless anthems under her belt so you can imagine that picking up the one is a tough job, as it were. This is a song I first heard by that other great singer Carole King and when I 'discovered' this other version I just could not believe the emotion coming out through her voice. Meine Damen und Herren:



Salsa has a social conscience, a fact that seems to escape some people sometimes. It's not just shuffling your feet back and front, 1,2,3, 'Enchufla y castígala'. This song is a testament to that. Written on the back of the assassination of Archbishop Arnulfo Romero in El Salvador in 1980, it has since become a paean to freedom and independence in Iberoamerica.



And this is all for this week. As I gear up to go on the road once more I know which songs I'll be taking with me on my journeys. How about yours?

Copyright 2007

Living in a Bilingual World (Menuetto Allegretto)

'No te pares frente a mi,
con esa mirada tan hiriente,
puedo entender estrechez de mente,
soportar la falta de experiencia,
pero no puedo aguantar
estrechez de corazon'

Thus sang, not the 80s Southamerican pop rockers Los Prisioneros, but my two children in the car recently with perfectly rolled 'Rs'. They've taken to Latin pop and rock like fish to the water. It all started with Daughter humming and then actually saying the words to Charly García's Raros Peinados Nuevos, one of the anthems that defined my teenage years. Currently Daughter has the lyrics pinned to the walls of her bedroom and once in a while we give it a good go; Charly would be proud. Son followed suit and now we have Los Prisioneros on in the car most of the time.

Today and, according to the Times Education Supplement, it's European Day of Languages, yet, I've not heard anything about it, have you, my dear fellow bloggers/readers/posters? Wouldn't it be a wonder if we could tune in to the good ol' BBC Morning News and see a presenter telling us about recent events in French? Or how about a John Humphreys-like figure (I'm still with the Beeb) roasting a politician in German?

Because I've seen up close and personal how learning Spanish has made my two children brighter, smarter and more culturally aware, it's harder to understand why this is not a priority in the government agenda, especially in the modern and globalised world we live in today. Lest we forget, let's recall that just scarcely a few years ago, David Blunkett, whilst still Home Secretary, called upon foreign parents (yep, that's me, then!), to give up talking to their children in their own language at home and switch to English instead. Yeah, right, Dave, well, if I was to follow your advice, matey, my children wouldn't understand a word of what's being said when we travel to both Spain and Cuba. How do you think one learns a foreign language, Dave? By osmosis? But it's not just the linguistic element that one absorbs when devoted to this activity. It's the cultural one attached to it. Language and culture journey together through the annals of a nation. The mere existence of a particular phrase or word can take you back on a historical voyage to a time and context that you were unaware of to begin with. My son, who translates texts from Spanish to English at present, although reluctantly, has discovered a world of talking rats and honest elephants. Daughter, on the other hand, immerses herself in a realm populated by capricious queens and magical whales. All in all, both, with support from my wife, who speaks Spanish fluently, have found an alternative world that they can flee to and where they feel welcome. In the meantime, they have both taken to singing Chico Buarque's 'Cálice and learning the words. Portuguese, now, so soon?

Copyright 2007

Illustration courtesy of Garrincha

I've got a song in my head

I've got a song in my head and I can't stop. I've got a song in my head and I continue to bop. I've got a slender song in my head that can lift its body a third off the ground and look down onto me . I've got a song in my head that can flatten its neck sheltering me in the hood of its larynx. I've got a song in my head that slithers along, nestles in the crook of my arm and stays in, warm and uninvited. I've got a song in my head that is solitary and territorial; it prefers deep forests, but can also range in open areas. I've got a song in my head that, from the first time I heard it, has overpowered me from any angle, using its puny size to knock me off my balance.

It's a mad song, it is, my song. It talks about a phallus in pigtails and blood in my nose. It describes how my tissue is rotting/where the rats chew my bones. I love my song, because it is mine, you see. I know, I know, it was written by one David Bowie but I've appropriated it now, just like IT has got a hold on me. When I first got 'Space Oddity' years ago, it was the title track I was familiar with. But it was the second song, 'Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed' that got me hooked to the album. It starts with a simple acoustic arrangement and Bowie singing in a nonchalant manner Spy, spy, pretty girl/I see you see me through your window/Don't turn your nose up/Well, you can if you need to, you won't be the first or last/It must strain you to look down so far from your father's house/And I know what a louse like me in his house could do for you and suddenly... pandemonium.

The guitar grows muscled forelimbs with which to render the listener powerless, there's a harmonica that lets rip right into your soul, and doesn't let go until you lie on the floor, motionless, still, immobile, from having exhausted yourself through pure musical ecstasy.

I've got a song in my head, I've got a song in my head that makes me hop and bop, and I won't stop till I drop... I've got a song in my head...

Copyright 2007