Volume 27 Issue 1 - September / October 2021

MILESTONES
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and his Party
performing at the 1985 WOMAD festival
“STILL FEELS BEAUTIFUL EVERY TIME”
SMALL WORLD MUSIC @ 25 ANDREW TIMAR
ANDREW CATLIN/ REAL WORLD RECORDS
ALAN DAVIS
Twenty-five years is a respectable milestone for an
organization dealing with culturally diverse music,
and Toronto’s veteran leader in this category, Small
World Music, is celebrating in style. It has launched “25
for 25”, an ambitious yearlong festival, with the initial
September 13 to 19 event lineup consisting of eight online
and in-person concerts, plus a panel discussion, Beyond
Community, co-presented with BLOK (Eastern European
music summit). Three of the events are online, three
in-person at Lula Lounge and the rest at DROM Taberna
with its patio/parking-lot stage; the musicians being
showcased range from emerging to well-known, and
include both local and international talent.
The Founder’s Journey
When I reached Alan Davis, Small World
Music’s founder, on his cellphone he was
relaxing at a Georgian Bay cottage, BBQ-ing
and soaking in the last hot days of summer.
His comments in our wide-ranging talk on his
“baby,” Small World Music, were understandably
framed within his founder’s perspective.
He was eager to share thoughts on his music
curating career, with its roots going back to
Alan Davis his days at Toronto’s Music Gallery beginning
35 years ago.
As long as I’ve known Alan, his passionate appetite for musical
exploration and expression has been fundamental. I reminded him
that he was among the first cohort to join Gamelan Toronto in 1995
when I was invited to organize that large community music group by
the Indonesian Consulate General, Toronto. “It’s very funny that you
mention that,” he replied, “because I literally just had a conversation
about it with a new friend last evening, ... about my music practice
and how it intersects with Small World, about playing gamelan at the
Indonesian Consulate.”
Going further back, Davis grew up on rock music and came to
love jazz, appreciating its complexity and nuance as a kit drummer.
“Frankly, I was never a trained musician, but was intuitive and very
enthusiastic. In fact right now at the cottage I have my clarinet, darabuka,
cajon and glockenspiel, and a good friend is coming tomorrow
with his bass guitar, keyboard and accordion to jam. So I’m still doing
and thoroughly enjoying music all these years later!
“I think it’s not an exaggeration to say that to a certain extent I
channelled my desire and passion to be a musician into Small World. I
probably realized I didn’t have what it took to be a professional musician,
but putting music on stage gave me almost the same feeling. That
musical charge never gets old.”
Small World origins
The impetus to start Small World didn’t arise from nothing, David
tells me. “It really started well before SW, because while working at
the Music Gallery in the late 80s and 90s I had an opportunity to put
music from other cultures on its stage. Coming from a rock background,
I discovered this music through people like Brian Eno and
Peter Gabriel, especially through the latter’s WOMAD festival, which
was a huge personal influence.”
Among his pivotal memories, he says, is watching the Nusrat Fateh
Ali Khan family qawwali party at Harbourfront Centre’s WOMAD.
“I found myself watching them in performance in an intimate room
where I was no more than ten metres from the star singer himself,
being profoundly moved. I realized I may not understand what he was
saying but the spirit and energy in the room was so powerful that it
14 | September and October 2021 thewholenote.com