Featured release: One One & One

ONE ONE & ONE

Humming Bird CDs 2 & 3

ONE: CIRCLE-CYCLE (CD 2) | Henry Kuntz / solo tenor saxophone | Recorded January 27 1998 & June 9, 1997

listen to Henry Kuntz | C. Dimension 9. Moon Stripe Tiger | from the CD One Circle-Cycle

ONE & ONE: 12 PATHS TO KNOWLEDGE (CD 3) | Don Marvel / time machine, prophet sampler, old turntable, live signal processing and mixing; Henry Kuntz / tenor saxophone, Chinese musette and Nepalese bamboo flute. | Recorded April 18, 1998

listen to Henry Kuntz and Don Marvel | Who Knows What Is Known? | from the CD One & One 12 Paths To Knowledge

Buy One One & One – Henry Kuntz – HB CDs 2 & 3 (CD or MP3) here…

Click here to Download the complete album as MP3. This download contains the complete tracklist in 192kbps MP3 format along with high resolution cover art and leaflet pages in JPG format.

The solo saxophone music on One One & One (1997-98) is the dimensional opposite of that which appears on Wayang Saxophony Shadow Saxophone (2006). To use a shadow play analogy, the solo music on One One & One is like the movement of the brightly painted puppets (brightly lit by flickering flame) on the puppet master’s side of the screen while the solo music on Wayang Saxophony Shadow Saxophone is like the etheric trails of those movements as they appear in “negative” space.

The music with the amazing Don Marvel straddles multiple dimensions.

The following “Notes” for One One & One were originally sent only to reviewers.

ONE (HB CD 2)

In September 1996 at Beanbender’s in Berkeley, I gave the first performance of solo tenor saxophone I had given in some 15 years. The response was overwhelmingly positive, encouraging me to continue working in this format.

Henry Kuntz | Photo by Martha Winneker

From 1979 to 1981, I did a number of solo saxophone performances. The musical areas I was working in at that time are documented on the first two Humming Bird LPs, Cross-Eyed Priest (HB 1001) and Ancient of Days, Light of Glory (HB 1002), and by a single piece on the Humming Bird cassette, Atitlan/Luna Negra (HBT 004).

Key to my playing in this period were harmonic, sonic, and textural explorations and the dimensional use of space both for formal definition and as an implicit propulsive component in its own right. This playing was mainly rooted in the extreme upper range of the saxophone. From this position, I also attempted to put forth what I called a “new melodicism” which was based on the concept of working in this range for its own sake rather than simply using it as a place to land through emotional catharsis.

While I was happy with the results of these explorations, the physical demands of continuing to play in this way coupled with, to some extent, running out of room to maneuver at the horn’s high end forced me to put the saxophone aside for awhile. I was also finding many other possible instruments to play and explore, on each one of which a different “voice” of mine seemed to emerge. (The expressive results of playing many of these instruments, in various formats and to various ends, are documented on the different Humming Bird cassette releases and on Moss’Comes Silk, Humming Bird CD 1.)

Although I have never actually stopped playing the saxophone, I have only recently (since 1994) begun practicing it regularly again. This time, aesthetically speaking, I decided to make a fresh start with the instrument, drawing on all the different ways I had once played and explored, and remembering the influences of many different players who had inspired me to want to play in the first place.

At the same time, I have been drawing on the influences of electronic music and the particular ways it is possible to approach, create, and manipulate sound electronically. These are ways of playing which, while growing out of electronics, need not be restricted to that domain alone but may also be applied to playing traditional instruments. I include in my reference to electronics turntable artists, samplers, “noise” artists, signal processors, and those in still indefinable “categories” of sound in addition to persons engaged in so-called “pure” electronic music.

Technically speaking, I have sought to bring both a sense of “tradition” (or at least of my own tradition) along with a sense of exploration (of the unknown and barely-known edges of sound) to my current playing.

All of my playing, however, is based in improvisation. So the technical aspects of music-making are still only the groundwork for what is to follow — and that, of course, is always unknown.

Spiritually speaking, improvisation is to me — as I have alluded to elsewhere — akin to a form of shamanic art. Clarity of mind, psychic freshness, pleasure in playing: these are the core of true creation. These are the qualities I have sought to keep constant in all of my music.

ONE & ONE (HB CD 3)

With my expanded interest in electronics, the collaboration between Don Marvel and myself was a natural.

Don Marvel (1998)

Don is a deeply aesthetically-sensitive player who not only took the raw sonic material I provided him and uniquely re-shaped it but used it to create entirely new formal dimensions, sounds, textures, and structures that were likewise firmly rooted in the extended contours of my own playing.

Additionally, as part of the raw material of his turntable, he took the LPs I had made years ago and gave them new life, using them as formal, clipped, and distorted counterpoint to the “actual” new music — to the extent that even I am not always aware of what is the “current” playing of mine and what is not. This is not to mention the way in which he processed and mixed all of the music in the moment, creating layers of textural soundings, loops, and inter-loops, seamlessly inseparable from the original material from which they sprang.

I hope this record will serve to introduce Don’s genius to the many who I know will want to hear how he works.

I am grateful to him for helping to bring all of my music full-circle and into complete contemporaneity. Henry Kuntz, July 1998

REVIEWS:

JAZZ JOURNAL INTERNATIONAL | Kuntz … has never shunned the challenge of solo performance on tenor. ONE …shows that it remains one of his strengths. It contains 10 well-balanced improvisations, shuns lengthy, technical displays and rewards newcomers who might sample Song Bat and Thatched Circuits. Kuntz uses technique as a means to a creative end. He is well in control of multi-phonics but his one man counterpoint is used more as “parent line and decoration” than as a series of parallel melodic statements. Barry McRae (March 1999)

CADENCE | Kuntz pulls no punches when it comes to the direction that his music takes. There is only one road for him, and it leads to universes unknown…

His approach is to explore all the sound elements possible from the tenor, ranging across the frequency bandwidth from the lowest earthy tones to the highest banshee screeches. Your spectrum analyzer will touch all the bases. Kuntz takes a thread of an idea, toys with its possibilities at various degrees of the tonal register, and then launches into a massive attack of the sound form. His blowing technique consists of lightening fast alteration of the hertz level within the note clusters. Both his tenor and your ears get a full workout. Frank Rubolino (January 1999)

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN | Few other musicians so completely defy description. Kuntz not only colors outside the lines, he erases them and starts from scratch every time out.

And “out” this music is. The solo saxophone disc, subtitled “Circle-Cycle,” is a tour de force of sonic alchemy, produced by working breath and tongue against reed, fingers against valves. Then, with the North Carolina-based Marvel (a.k.a. Flappy), the results sound like radio static smooches and make startling dynamic leaps, from crackling whispers to white noise explosions. Derk Richardson (October 28, 1998)

OUTSIDE # 7 | This is a 2-CD package issued on Kuntz’ label – Humming Bird Records. The sixty-one and one-half minute ONE (the gold disc) is solo tenor saxophone by Henry recorded in 1997 and early ’98. It is entitled Circle-Cycle. It consists of 10 pieces in 3 separate sections, and explores sonic territory in which few, if any, have dared to venture …at least not alone, and for such an extended period.

From 1979 to 1981 Henry’s solo saxophone performances concentrated on the upper register of the instrument. He then went on to other instruments, only returning to performance on the tenor with a September 1996 solo concert at Beanbenders in Berkeley. In this concert, Henry states, “This time, aesthetically speaking, I decided to make a fresh start with the instrument, drawing on all the different ways I had once played and explored, and remembering the influences of many different players who had inspired me to want to play in the first place.”

The result is a highly original and masterful approach to the tenor saxophone. This is not familiar territory. It is like a lonely walk on a distant planet. Not those comfy close-to-home planets like Mars, Jupiter, Saturn or Venus but rather ONE man walking out there digging and turning the solidified materials with a carefully polished axe. Yes, a mineral world, full of sharp edges, deep vibrations, and short cries and exclamations of discovery. That ONE man taking this lonely creative trip may interest only a few but like most truly creative work it’s not for everybody, just those who want it. For those, a wonderful music has been made available.

The second disc ONE & ONE is Henry in duo with the electronics of Don Marvel who lives secluded in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Henry plays tenor, Chinese musette, and Nepalese bamboo flute. Don plays time machine, prophet sampler, old turntable, signal processors and does the mixing. The 73 minute CD (the blue disc) is an intense package of further searches into the unknown.

In a universe where everyone is forced to consume “product” from completely known and mapped sources; where taking a trip means looking out the window of standard conveyance, eating in distant Macs, and sleeping in musical Hiltons & Holiday Inns, it’s good that one can get off the beaten track. It can be difficult too. Jimzeen & Wizard (February 1999)

December 16, 2009February 4, 2024

Michael Tenzer | Let Others Name You

Michael Tenzer

Let Others Name You (New World Records 80697)

Genta Buana Sari and Sanggar Çudamani Gamelan Collectives; Vancouver Players (Nonet); Naoko Christ-Kato, piano; OSSIA Ensemble, David Jacobs: conductor. Recorded: Unstable Center June 19, 2003 Pengosekan, Bali; Underleaf July 9, 2006 Pengosekan, Bali; Resolution October 25, 2008 Rochester, New York; Invention and Etude February 22, 2005 Lubeck, Germany.

In June 2003, I was fortunate to be in Denpasar, Bali for the premiere of American composer Michael Tenzer’s piece Unstable Center for two gamelan samaradana orchestras. I wrote of the performance in my Report from Bali 2003.

But Unstable Center was only the first part of a triptych. Now it, along with the triptych’s second and third parts – Underleaf (from 2006) and Resolution (from 2007) – can be heard in beautifully detailed recordings on Michael Tenzer’s new CD, Let Others Name You.

Unstable Center (whose Indonesian title Puser Belah translates as “split navel”) was written as a response to the Bali bombings of October 12, 2002. It asks whether it is possible to bridge the gaps between inherently different cultures and values.

The genius of Unstable Center is that it is a programmatic work rooted in purely musical advances which serve in turn to further its programmatic ends.

The samaradana orchestra which the piece employs is a relatively new type of gamelan that was developed in the 1980s by I Wayan Berata. With seven tones instead of the usual five – most Balinese music is pentatonic in nature – it can be adapted to play a variety of Balinese music. Recently, new pieces have been composed specifically for the semaradana gamelan that propose a more structurally open, multi-pentatonic, multi-modal music.

Unstable Center takes these new concepts as a given and adds another orchestra. Somewhere in the middle of the piece (and in Underleaf and Resolution as well), complex South Indian rhythmic figures and patterns are woven into the mix.

Programmatically, Unstable Center has to do with a first-time meeting between two isolated cultures, each one represented by one of the two gamelan orchestras. In performance, the orchestras faced each other across an open air stage.

The piece begins primordially, as if at the beginning of time. Each orchestra plays in its own musical universe. One plays more quietly, the other more demonstrably loud and assertive. With gradual awareness of the other, there are points of musical conflict and cooperation. There are any number of textural twists, marvelous sudden rhythmic interjections and shifts in dynamics until, at the piece’s center, a powerful yet slightly uneasy unanimity is achieved between the two bodies. It lasts only briefly. Gradually, the heady communion comes apart, each orchestra retreating into its own parameters, then finally retiring to musical spaces that mirror the opening.

In performance, there were some subtle, yet important, visual components to the work as well. In the middle of the piece, one of the two drummers from each orchestra exchanged drums, symbolic of creating a cultural bridge between the groups. And at the work’s conclusion, each of the players of the large gongs from each orchestra abandoned their posts at the rear of the stage and walked to the front. As the large gong is more or less the anchor of any gamelan ensemble, I took the musicians leaving their instruments to indicate that while the piece was finished, the process itself was unfinished; unfinished because it is an ongoing one and must be continually, freshly re-engaged in.

This leads us to Underleaf, the title of which is taken from a Balinese children’s song which suggests that one can’t simply sweep away cultural differences. They remain where they are, “underleaf.”

For Underleaf , we again have two orchestras. One is a Balinese gamelan semardana, but the other is a jazz-infused nonet with 2 clarinets, 2 saxophones, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, and electric piano. For this piece, however, the two orchestras do not face each other; each is embedded as a complete and separate entity within the other ensemble.

Underleaf seems to be asking how two fully developed, dynamically self-contained cultural bodies can get along in close proximity.

Musically, the answer seems to be for them to each go their separate but equal ways, interacting for only an occasional gratuitous amenity. What’s interesting, however, is that Underleaf provides an additional if perhaps unintended answer to the question it poses. For as one becomes accustomed to hearing the piece, its built-in harmonic and rhythmic clashes begin to dissolve and fade. The ear begins to perceive a new musical/cultural unity. This, in a sense, is how real cultures evolve, shift, and form new wholes. People subconsciously begin to incorporate and eventually build upon new (if at times contradictory) cultural input.

Resolution, which follows, suggests even more. The piece employs a full classical orchestra and two Balinese drummers. While at first glance, the balance between the two cultural entities would seem to be unequal, we realize on reflection that each represents the essence of musical expression of the two cultures. In the west, it is the classical orchestra which carries cultural weight, whereas in Bali it is the drummers who are the leaders of the gamelan, the ones who direct and dynamically shape the music as it goes along.

Michael Tenzer describes Resolution as a “recessional,” a piece that would ordinarily be played as an audience exits a performance. As such, it both summarizes and re-capitulates what the audience has experienced, moving it out of performance time and space into real world time and space.

Building on the strength of an extensive string section, Resolution has a dreamlike, near fantasia quality to it that rises above its own inner drama to virtually hover over the first parts of the triptych. The ease of interaction between the western orchestra and the Balinese drummers suggests to us that real world problems of cultural interaction are best solved by each of us recalling the spiritual essence of who we are as human beings. While no music can solve hardcore problems of a geo-political or economic nature – most often the basis of broader cultural disputes – it can offer us, as Resolution does, the spiritual strength to confront and solve those problems.

As a recessional, Resolution suggests as well that this is an ongoing process. There can be no final resolution, only an ongoing will to resolve that must be continually refreshed and renewed in our own psyches.

Let Others Name You also contains two short solo piano pieces by Michael Tenzer, Etude and Invention (from 2004) which are rhythmic-harmonic “studies” for the final parts of the triptych. They are stunningly and passionately played by Japanese pianist Naoko Christ-Kato.

Henry Kuntz (October 2009)

More on Let Others Name You can be found on the New World Records web page by clicking here… and on Michael Tenzer’s web page here…

August 20, 2009August 5, 2017

Henry Kuntz & Paul V. Kuntz | YEAR OF THE OX – Humming Bird CDR 2

listen to Henry & Paul V. Kuntz | Year Of The OX | Track One

listen to Henry & Paul V. Kuntz | Year Of The OX | Track Two

listen to Henry & Paul V. Kuntz | Year Of The OX | Track Three

listen to Henry & Paul V. Kuntz | Year Of The OX | Track Four

Buy Henry & Paul V. Kuntz – Year Of The OX – Hummingbird CDR 2 (CD or MP3) here…

“These are the first recordings Paul and I have made together in 25 years. We had fun improvising and spontaneously shaping the music; each piece grew out of its own organic logic.” —Henry Kuntz

Paul V. Kuntz (b. 1961) began playing piano as a teenager. His fascination with jazz and free improvisation led him on an intense journey of musical discovery and self study. He delights in having a blank canvas and being able to create on the spot. Among his piano influences are Dave Brubeck, Alice Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett and Cecil Taylor.

Paul V. Kuntz is a professional photographer whose work has been exhibited in fine art galleries internationally. His photographs are in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, Texas), Museet for Fotokunst (Odense, Denmark), and in various private collections including that of the late Helmut Gernsheim (Lugano, Switzerland). Most recently, his work appeared in a retrospective book of Mr. Gernsheim’s photography collection, Helmut Gernsheim: Pioneer of Photo History.

Vincent Frank playing accordion inside his home, Houston, Texas 2-26-1986 – Photo by Paul V. Kuntz

VITAL WEEKLY | number 698 | week 40

HENRY KUNTZ & PAUL V.KUNTZ – YEAR OF THE OX (CDR by Hummingbird)

Paul is a professional photographer, but plays piano since his youth with a love for jazz and improvisation. With Henry Kuntz we are in the company of a veteran improvisor. We first hear him on a very early record of Henry Kaiser, “Ice Death” (1977). And two years later Kuntz started Hummingbird and released his first solo-album “Cross-Eyed Priest”. Releases over the years were not many. Concerning this new release Kuntz says: “These are the first recordings Paul and I have made together in 25 years. We had fun improvising and spontaneously shaping the music, each piece grew out of its own organic logic.” The reason for this long gap remains is not given. Also whether we are are talking here of two brothers, father and son, or another (family-)relation is not made explicit, but of course of secondary importance. But let’s come to this meeting. Henry Kuntz plays chinese musette, angel soprano recorder, bells ,voice. Paul Kuntz embellished piano, bell wreath. We find them in nine concentrated improvisations, each one starting from a different angle. The music comes to you very direct. It is of great purity and rawness, unpolished. This makes that the music has an immediate emotional impact, although it are very abstract improvisations. Like in ‘Ox 1’ Kuntz produces often very penetrating sounds from his instruments, whereas Paul attracts attention with his self-made prepared piano turning it into an almost percussive instrument. In ‘Ox 2’ Henry excels in (fake) japanese vocals. Virtuosity is not their thing. The music lacks ego and pretensions. It springs from a meeting between two very personal and dedicated players. Authentic music! (DM)

Massimo Ricci | Touching Extremes

The simpler instrumentation (Chinese musette, Korean soprano recorder, bells and voice against “embellished” piano and bell wreath) makes for a straightforward path to the immediate understanding of the music, which grabs the attention via the obvious contrast between the respective approaches. We’re told that Paul Kuntz’s pianism has been partially influenced by people such as Cecil Taylor and Alice Coltrane besides “regulars” as Dave Brubeck and McCoy Tyner, but you won’t find no eruptions or cascades here. The structure of the large part of the pieces sees the piano underlining – typically quite calmly and evocatively – single strained notes and cried-out overtones halfway through forest calls and liberation of inner tensions. If, at times, this might generate the impression of a chance meeting with an overall sense of unglued parts and bizarre intrusions, one also clearly detects the feel of non-constriction by stylistic necessities, and appreciates the honesty that appears to drive the brotherly quest for unusual communication. — Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes

August 5, 2009August 5, 2017

Bolivia 86 | Native Ritual Music from Italaque: Panpipes, Flutes, Drums

BOLIVIA (1986)

Native Ritual Music from Italaque: Panpipes, Flutes, Drums

Humming Bird Earth Series CDR 2 (Previously Earth Series Cassette 300)

Note: All of this music was recorded outdoors on basic equipment in “real life” circumstances, under conditions far from optimal for recording. Yet the ambience, excitement, and electricity of the music shine through in ways that fully reflect its cultural authenticity. It is to provide a small cultural looking glass into a world or worlds barely known to most of us that these recordings are presented. I hope they will encourage you to want to know more, to open your world up more to the many fascinating and diverse worlds around us.

Music from the Fiesta de la Invención de la Santa Cruz May 3, 1986

1. Group One (2:41) 2. Group One (2:25) 3. Group Two (3:22) | 4. Group Three (2:33) 5. Groups One & Three (10:09) | 6. Group Four (1:43) 7. Group One (5:20) | 8. Groups Two, Three & Four (8:30) 9. Groups Three & Four (8:50)

listen to Boliva | Group One

listen to Bolivia | Group Two – Alto Bamboo Flutes

Buy BOLIVIA (1986) Native Ritual Music from Italaque: Panpipes, Flutes, Drums Humming Bird Earth Series CDR 2 here…

Group One plays large single-row panpipes of seven different-length tubes each. Pieces 1 and 2 were recorded on the group’s arrival and departure from the small courtyard. Group Two plays 5-hole straight flutes, each some 2 feet long. Piece 3 was recorded on their arrival in the small courtyard. Group Three plays two sizes of 4-hole straight flutes, one approximately 2 feet long and the other closer to 3 feet. Piece 4 was recorded on their arrival in the small courtyard. Group Four plays relatively small single-row panpipes of different sizes with different-length tubes in groups of 6, 9, and 12. Piece 6 was recorded on the hill overlooking the town, as were all of the remaining pieces featuring all of the different groups.

Various types of drums and snare drums of all shapes and sizes can be heard prominently featured on all of these recordings.

The village of Italaque is set alongside a river in a high Andean valley some two to three thousand feet below the Bolivian altiplano (or “high plane”), itself some 12,500 feet above sea level. It is 25 kilometers northeast of Puerto Acosta, not far from the Peruvian border, on the eastern (and less-visited) side of Lake Titicaca. It is reached via an occasional (all day) truck ride from La Paz or by a seven to eight-hour foot path from Puerto Acosta, which is the way I and an Australian friend of mine, Patrick Hanson, arrived.

The native people of the region are Aymara-speaking, and for the feast of the “Discovery of the Holy Cross,” May 3, groups of musicians came to Italaque from several area villages to take part in religious and ritual observances. In Lynn Meisch’s Guide to El Dorado and the Inca Empire, where I first learned of this festival, she refers to the goings-on as a contest of sorts among groups of sikuri (zampona or panpipe) players previously trained in Italaque, but this seems to no longer be the case. At least in 1986, there were only two groups of sikuris— one played quite large panpipes and the other from Italaque played smaller ones— and there were three other groups which played straight wood (bamboo) flutes of varying types and sizes. Although the several groups frequently played their own music at the same time right next to each other, there was no apparent competition between them, at least none that was apparent to an un-acculturated outside observer. Rather, there was only a dizzying and outrageous mix of sound, of varying sorts and in varying chance combinations, never the same twice!

The festival took place on a high hill and precipice that overlooks the town. The hill, known as Calvario, was the site of a very small chapel and courtyard. Early in the day, each of five musical groups (except for the one from Italaque, the event’s organizers) took a place somewhere on the hillside below, performing their own ritual observances (including the drinking of an overpoweringly strong white grape brandy which they continued drinking intermittently throughout the day) and preparing themselves for the hours of playing to come. One by one, they moved rapidly up the hill, playing their panpipes, flutes and drums. Ritual prayers and playing took place in the small courtyard and chapel, the groups forming circularly and moving circularly, first this way and then that, as they played. They then filed out onto the precipice of the hill where they continued to play, with only short breaks, the remainder of the day.

Each of the groups was composed of some fifteen to twenty-five male musicians. They were dressed in different, though similar, costumes, presenting an array of colors. Some wore hats decorated with numbers of tall multi-hued feathers. One group used only flamingo feathers, making for a sea of soft pink. Two of the groups wore as well a type of “woman’s” wig, straight black hair pulled back with a single thick braid behind! The group with the flamingo feathers wore a type of open-front, thin white cassock, nearly dress-like at the bottom, on top of which they wore dark blue suit coats. By way of difference, the group from Italaque wore suits (or coats) and occasionally ties, and dress hats (!), while still another group wore the white cassocks, but without the coats, almost “oriental” looking.

Indeed, some of the music itself (tracks 3 and 4 e.g.) had a quality, an elegance even, not unlike a type of Japanese or Korean court music — highly stylized, insistent, and nearly trance-like in nature — music, like all of the music heard here, from a dimension far removed from itself as music alone. For here, unlike most native festivals, the music was the main event, it was not an accompaniment to anything other than itself. Its only connection to any ritual outside of itself was that it was this day of ritual that had brought it into being and it was responsible to it, but the music was played and entered into on its own terms. In the first instance, this was a musician’s festival.

The groups were, however, accompanied by various mythological and ritual characters. There were two men costumed in huge black-and-white condor feathers wearing a type of hood over the face with a small, rectangular mirror in the center, representing perhaps Inti, the sun, and also perhaps to ward off evil influences. There were other characters, more like “ritual humorists” (I borrow the term from Victoria Bricker who used it in Ritual Humor in Highland Chiapas, University of Texas Press): a couple of masked and hooded personages with a type of ski-mask over their faces, devilish sorts with short rope whips and small bells (heard at various points in the recordings). The function of the “ritual humorist” is to add a certain levity, to poke fun at participants and bystanders, to alleviate or contradict the serious nature or thrust of any event and, frequently, to reinforce (by contrast) accepted community values. These types of characters are common at native festivals throughout the Americas.

When the groups had all paid their respects in the courtyard and chapel and had all finally moved out onto the small precipice, the music really took off. There were hours of interactions of sound, mixes and movements of color (from the musicians’ costumes and feather headpieces and the circular turning of the groups). It was like the wildest dream of sound, a perfect mix of the earthy and the ethereal, the tops of rugged Andean peaks and wisps of high altitude clouds readily visible in the distance. (Henry Kuntz, 1986)

(Note: Although I’ve mentioned that five groups took part in this event, two of the groups appeared to be from the same village and were similarly costumed and played the same music. So only “four” groups are represented on the recording. A sixth group, not represented on tape, appeared somewhat late in the day, playing in a style similar to Group Four, the group from Italaque.)

For more photos and to read the complete story of Henry’s Journey to Italaque (Parts 1-4), go to Sax & Stories by clicking here…

The complete Humming Bird Records catalogue is available via Metropolis | The Shop here…