Bamboo Tamboo / Various Artists Bamboo Tamboo: Bongo and the Belair

• 1. Is a Burial Today
• 2. We Goin' to Cut the Wood
• 3. Calinda
• 4. Calinda
• 5. Grand Bele
• 6. Elior Eh
• 7. Mama Kilio, Kilio
• 8. Gabitan Bombe
• 9. Douma Dance
• 10. Play Young Boy, Play
• 11. Noada Bone Patatate De Lingo
• 12. Give Me My Top
• 13. The Water Too Cold

Recorded in the hills of Trinidad, here is a fascinating juxtaposition of three music and music / dance practices of non-urban dwellers derived from African roots. Bamboo-Tamboo evolved out of the ban European colonizers imposed on drumming: dry, hollow bamboo poles were cut to varying lengths to produce different pitches when thumped against the ground. These bamboo instruments are used to accompany or speak about calinda (stick fighting). Belair (bélé) is a dance of older women accompanied by drums and shakers, often danced all night long; whereas bongo, also accompanied by drums as well as bamboo sticks, is danced exclusively by men at wakes in order to guide the spirit safely into the next world. All three musics share similar chanting styles and percussive styles.