Compiled by ethnic music scholar and tenacious record collector Pat Conte, the anthology series The Secret Museum of Mankind stands amongst the very finest of deep dives into global musical recording from the first half of the 20th century. The latest edition, Atlas of Instruments: Fiddles, Vol. 1, arrives September 15 on vinyl and digital from the Jalopy label, with bowed instruments as its theme. Offering 18 tracks in distinct national and regional styles, it coheres into a listing experience that’s as fascinating as it is enjoyable.
Having commenced on the Yazoo label way back in 1996, The Secret Museum of Mankind was initially a compact disc-only affair, though the first three (of five) globe-roaming volumes have since been reissued as 2LP sets by Outernational Records, as has Central Asia Ethnic Music Classics: 1925–48, the first of the series’ three entries that tighten the focus onto specific regions (the other two cover Africa).
The thing to keep in mind here is that a record collector, no matter how passionate, does not necessarily a good compiler (or curator) make. This isn’t to imply that a percentage of collectors aren’t good listeners, but rather that only some have the sharer’s talent that also applies to inspired freeform radio disc jockeys, club DJs, and assemblers of mix tapes and playlists. At their best, they all have the communicable thrill of discovery on their side. It’s a quality Conte’s work has in spades.
In 2021, after a 23-year stretch of inactivity, a ninth volume of The Secret Museum emerged, released as a single LP and digital through Jalopy, with a new thematic shift; Guitars Vol. 1: Prologue To Modern Styles, does something miraculous, shining a fresh yet familiar light on one of the dominant musical instruments of the 20th century.
Fiddles, Vol. 1 expands the instrument theme, but with a few twists along the way. The set begins with an unnamed Cretan trio (credited as Trio Th. Picoula) playing music for the five-step Pentozali dance. Featuring a Lyra along with fiddle, the track, cut circa 1926, works up an intensity that’s pretty striking. Its old-world banger quality contrasts with the more familiar melodicism of “Le Reel Du Pendu” by Quebecois fiddler Joseph Allard.
In the notes, Conte mentions a tuning Allard favors. It lands him not far from the sounds heard yearly at fiddler’s conventions that carry forward the traditions of Appalachian old-time style, though the accompanying piano does set matters apart. Next is “Pianto Ignoto,” a waltz from the Sicilian duo of violinist Joseph Ziccone and guitarist F. Guandi, a showcase of tonal mastery and heightened interaction.
Along with the sheer range of fiddling, the addition of unusual instruments is a definite plus on this album. One such example, as the geography shifts to Madagascar, is the valiha aka tube zither in “Volana Fenomanana” by the Orchestre de M. Michel Ratsimba. That track’s accessible strangeness contrasts with the more recognizable aura of the brief “The Maid of the Mill” by English fiddler Jinkey Wells, as “Raks Jamili” brings more dance music from an unnamed Syrian-Lebanese group who cut their groover in Brooklyn, NY in the mid-1940s.
Spanning back to 1928, “El Jilguerillo” by the Mexico City-based Mariachi Coculense Rodriguez lacks the brass that became an integral part of mariachi music, and is all the more interesting for it. From there, “Sam Liang Gow” by San Chi La and Shim Yi Chu features two huqin, a two-stringed Chinese instrument that, as Conte relates, was brought to Peking in the 1920. This info helps to contextualize how, if these pieces sound “old” now, they were regularly not at the musical forefront at the time of recording, either. It’s a quality shared with Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, and Alan Lomax, naturally.
Conte further explains that the instruments played by Paul LaVault of France, a multi-instrumentalist adept at wheel-fiddles, cabrettes, accordions, and pipes, were essentially functionally unchanged in French culture since the Renaissance. His brief “Le Chibrely” certainly predates the 1920s by a whole lot, and with what hits me as Irish undercurrent.
Side two opens with “Okukomawe” by Ugandan Abadongo Abaganda Kampala, a wild rhythmic wiggler with raw singing where a tube fiddle, or endingidi, and the odi drum are the main attractions. “Bunjecacko Kolo” by Stevan Bačić-Trnda Sombor of Serbia (but recorded in Austria) is an increasingly urgent dash for a finish line that’s essence reminds me (and likely nobody else) of “Newport Blues” by the Cincinnati Jug Band. I adore it and “Thanam II” by Tiramakudalu Chowdiah Mysore of India, with its tough bowing and underlying drone, a recurring facet in the Secret Museum.
Another series regularity is cuts recorded in the USA by immigrants, documenting home country sounds in a new environment at the dawn of the recording industry, but Fiddles, Vol. 1 has a few tracks that are undeniably “American” in nature, beginning with the untamed whoop and heavy old-time bow pulling of “Brown Skin Girl” by Fiddlin’ Jabe Dillon of Mississippi. Another is the equally potent jug bang gusto of “Fattenin’ Frogs” by the Mobile Strugglers of Alabama, which gets right up there with the best of the Mississippi Sheiks and Cannon’s Jug Stompers.
The lineage of the reels in “Sligo Maid’s Lament; Trip to the Cottage” as played by Paddy Killoran is not hard to trace, and it’s also unsurprising that they were recorded in NYC in 1936 (that’s a hint). The last and most deeply rooted of the American pieces is “Danza De Matachines” by an anonymous Yaqui Indian group complete with stamping dancers, recorded in New Mexico in 1933 that documents traditions reaching back to the 1600s.
The remaining two cuts on side two are also dance numbers, with Norway’s Gunnulf Borgen playing the hardingfele as accompaniment for his country’s Igletveiten dance. Interestingly, he’s either playing alone (or possibly with an additional string player), making this one less overtly taggable as being intended for bodily celebration. On the other hand, there’s “Valsa Continental” by Abrew’s Portuguese String Trio, a Cabo Verdean waltz cut in NYC by the immigrant band in 1921; here, the musical intentions are pretty obvious.
As a recording of deep verve by a band on the move both literally and figuratively, “Valsa Continental” is a fine closer for this latest installment of The Secret Museum of Mankind. Having returned to the record store bins, long may these remarkable collections of undiluted roots brilliance continue.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
