Tag Archives: steve feld

Honkout!

The La Drivers Union Por Por Group, with Steve Feld: Oko Sai, Nii Amarh Amartey, Victoria Mensah, Feld, Nii Ashai Ollennu (seated at Por Por engine), Adwoa Kyere, Mabel Odoi, Nii Tetteh Boye La, Adjetey Sowah

Award-winning ethnomusicologist, anthropologist, linguist, documentarian, sound artist and ecologist, musician, and UNM professor Steven Feld encountered Por Por (pronounced paaw paaw), Ghana’s honk horn music, 20-some years ago and has continued to work with the musicians, documenting this unique genre. The exclusive players of this squeeze-bulb klaxon horn music are the drivers in the La branch of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (La is a district of Accra). In his most recent effort on their behalf, Feld combines them with the Texas Horns, a preeminent U.S. soul, blues, and roots trio. The result is an astonishingly strange and familiar hybrid.

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Four Jazz Reviews

Just about every jazz fan should be able to find something they like among these four very different recordings from the Ted Brown Quartet, Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan, the Anyaa Arts Quartet, and Fabian Almazan and Rhizome. Continue reading