World Music

World Music was a term used by certain jazz musicians in the 60s & 70s - the AACM people used it a lot, particularly The Art Ensemble of Chicago, whose Ancient to the Future philosophy was an acknowledgement of their explorations of their Great Black Music cultural continuty and their encouragement to others to do likewise. Scottish jazz drummer Ken Hyder cites the Art Ensemble as a crucial inspiration in his formation of Talisker, who explored various Scottish traditional idioms from a free-jazz perspective - diddling, waulking songs, folk songs, dance music, piobaireachd - in a series of very fine albums. Don Cherry spoke of both World Music and Folk Music, embodying a sense of both in his music which remained firmly rooted in the free-jazz ethic; Johnny Mbizo Dyani likewise regarded what he did as Folk, though I doubt many Folkies would appreciate his various renderings of his native Xhosa folk songs. Duke Ellington embodied a similar sense in his Cotton Club jungle-music which was always more than just random exotica for his white audiences; in later years it found expression on the masterpieces of The Far-East Suite (1966) and Afro-Eurasian Eclipse (1971).

I remember well the World Music / Roots ethos of the 80s, one noxious upshot of which was the aberration of Paul Simon's Graceland dominating the Folk Roots charts for what seemed like an eternity, yet never a mention of Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani, Abdullah Ibrahim etc. whose truly World Music in exile was revolutionary in more ways than one.

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