Volume 23 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2018

Moroccan Sahara; DJ Lag
(South Africa), a pioneer
of the explosive dark
techno movement out of
Durban; and one of Italy’s
hottest bands, Kalàscima,
purveyors of a unique
brand of “psychedelic
trance tarantella.” Also
confirmed is the East
LA band Las Cafeteras,
which fuses spoken
word and traditional Son
Jarocho, Afro-Mexican
and zapateado dancing
into a joyous celebration
of Chicano culture.
The Malian singer and
guitarist Vieux Farka
Touré may be the bestknown
Small World
Festival headliner to
Toronto audiences. Carrying on the musical legacy of his Grammywinning
father Ali Farka Touré, Vieux’s latest album Samba (2017)
was praised in the Monolith Cocktail Blog: “This is the devotional,
earthy soul of Mali, channelled through a six-string electric guitar.”
Canadian groups include Toronto’s Surefire Sweat, a diverse and
multi-generational roster of musicians who feature the danceable
original music of drummer Larry Graves which draws on “an
amalgam of New Orleans brass band, funk, jazz, blues and Afrobeat.”
The Montreal-Moroccan outfit De Ville will also take the stage. More
Canadian and international acts will be announced during the
summer, so keep an eye out.
Ashkenaz Festival at Harbourfront Centre, August 28 to
September 3.
The 12th biennial Ashkenaz Festival happens over the final week
of the summer, wrapping on Labour Day Monday. Following the
template established in previous editions, this year kicks off with an
assortment of events at venues across the GTA before Ashkenaz segues
to Harbourfront Centre over the Labour Day weekend.
The 2018 festival features over 90 performances, with more than
250 individual artists coming from across Canada and at least a dozen
countries. Following the lead of previous iterations, the festival showcases
diversity and cross-culturalism within the Jewish music world.
This year the festival also features the enhanced participation of
women performers, “spotlighting the role of women as prominent
performers, innovators and key custodians of various Jewish musical
traditions from around the globe.”
Given the vast scope of the festival I can only provide a few picks.
On August 28, Yiddish Glory (Russia/Canada) is the festival opener
at Koerner Hall. The show is built on songs and poetry from the
Holocaust era, rediscovered in a Ukrainian archive a decade ago. The
songs and texts are presented in a concert format featuring jazz chanteuse
Sophie Milman, Psoy Korolenko and Trio Loyko.
Other acts have been confirmed, though their festival appearance
dates have not yet been released. Here’s but a taste.
Frank London, Grammy-winning group Klezmatics’ co-founder and
one of the godfathers of the new Yiddish culture scene, is this year’s
Theodore Bikel artist-in-residence. Fronted by trumpeter London,
the band Sharabi has been dubbed “a Yiddish-Punjabi bhangra-funkklezmer
party band.” (Would I kid you?)
Salomé: Woman of Valor (Canada/USA) was created by London and
Adeena Karasick. This new work is a multidisciplinary spoken word
opera incorporating the interplay of poetry, music and dance. It seeks
to refute Oscar Wilde’s “misogynist and anti-Semitic interpretation
and re-casts [Salomé] as a powerful revolutionary matriarch, translating
the renowned myth to one of female empowerment, sociopolitic,
erotic and aesthetic transgression.”
Gili Yalo, making his
North American debut, is
one of the most intriguing
new artists in Israel’s
world music scene. Yalo
mashes his Ethiopian
roots with soul, reggae,
funk, psychedelia and
jazz, forging an energetic
new sound.
Neta Elkayam, a leading
researcher and performer
of Moroccan Jewish
music, presents songs
with Andalusian, Berber
and Middle Eastern influences.
Her latest project
is a multimedia concert
tribute to the great
Vieux Farka Touré Moroccan-Jewish singer
Zohra Al Fassia, featuring
11 musicians..
Choro Das Tres (Brazil) is a virtuoso instrumental ensemble
comprised of three sisters and their father who perform choro, Brazil’s
first popular music. The group pays tribute in this concert to Brazilian-
Jewish mandolin master Jacob do Bandolim, on the 100th anniversary
of his birth.
No matter which festival or open-air concert you choose, I wish you
a pleasant global musical summer!
Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He
can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.
Harbourfront Centre presents
SUMMER
MUSIC
IN THE
GARDEN
JUNE 28 - SEPTEMBER 16, 2018
FREE
THURSDAYS AT 7PM & SUNDAYS AT 4PM
Presented by
harbourfrontcentre.com
thewholenote.com June | July | August 2018 | 25