Archive | 2013

You may be right, I may be crazy…

Today I’m officially announcing THE 24 HOUR ALL AROUND THIS WORLD LIVE STREAMING GLOBAL MUSIC EXTRAVAGANZA! (December 7 to Sunday, December 8)

As I’ve been building my crowdfunding campaign — ongoing until December 21st–FUND ME, CROWD, FUND ME!–I was thinking a lot about how cool it is that All Around This World can now take us, musically, to over 100 countries on every inhabited continent. Inspired by a recent 24 hour concert of Indian Classical music in Philadelphia that celebrated the exciting fact that there are Hindustani ragas specifically intended to be performed at different times throughout the day, I’ve decided to present the All Around This World curriculum as a continuous thought in one ludicrous ’round the clock series of classes. Starting at 9am on Saturday, December 7th and going until either 8:59am on Sunday, December 8th, or until whenever I give up, I intend to teach two classes from each of the All Around This World seasons–two from Latin America, then two from Africa, then two from South and Central Asia, etc.–until I’ve introduced material from each of the 12 AATW seasons. Each class will actually be about 45 minutes, starting each hour on the hour, with fifteen minutes at the end for families attending live to come in an out, and for me to take a couple minutes to relax.

This will be both a live event that will take place in my “home studio”–you and you family can attend any of the classes in real life in my living room–and also a live Coconut streaming event that anyone anywhere around the world with an internet connection will be able to join. I know most of the time I’ll just be playing music to a lone camera, but I’m going to publicize the webstream as far and wide as I can, with the hope that while I’m singing songs from, let’s say, the Middle East at 1am in Philadelphia, some mom and their kids will be dancing around with me in Dubai. 

This is not me. But I assume Peruvian charango legend Jaime Guardia will be awake all night singing too.

24 HOUR MUSIC CLASS MARATHON TODAY [TODAY! TODAY!], SATURDAY DECEMBER 7th to SUNDAY DECEMBER 8th!! WEBSTREAM IS AVAILABLE AT

http://new.livestream.com/AllAroundThisWorld

Please spread the word by Facebook, Twitter, e-mail or by screaming it out the window. AATW’s Twitter handle is @AATWMusic. We will be using

#JayWillKeepSinging

For details about the event, including an hour by hour schedule of what I’ll be singing, visit http://allaroundthisworld.com/JayWillBeTiredButWillKeepSinging

Each class will start on the hour and go for about 45 minutes. After that I’ll take a few minutes off to grab some foot, reply to some of your messages and reset the webstream broadcaster. If you stop by and I’m not in front of the camera or there’s no stream, wait a couple minutes until the top of the next hour and I should be back.

Classes work best for grown-up/child teams together. These grown-up/child classes are designed for infants to five or six-year-olds, but if you’re older and determined to have fun, it will happen.
If you’re in Philadelphia and you want to stop by in person please do! There will be kids in the Saturday morning classes but afterwards it may just be me, you and the camera…which means just us and the rest of the world.

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Seek and ye shall find! With the help of the kind people at Cumbancha, I was able to connect with America’s foremost vocalist from Madagascar, Razia Said, to help craft and perform All Around This World’s version of a Malagay song by salegy master, Jaojoby. Last Thursday Razia’s long-term collaborator, Malagasy multi-instrumentalist David Rajaonary, joined Amon and me in the Hook Studio to lay down several instruments on the track. Razia joined us on Tuesday and brought her warm personality and warm, welcoming vocals. Razia provided what I think was a lovely performance of “Tsy Akeo,” a song about the importance of love.

The lyrics:
Anao ‘koa ‘fa tsy akeo ô,ilay antsoiny Fitiavana,anao ‘koa ‘fa tsy akeo ô

Anao ‘koa ‘fa tsy akeo ô,ilay Fifankatiavana,

We need love and to be loved and to love each other

O mila Fitiavana,

O mila Fitia,

O mila Fifankatiavana

Meet Razia by watching her perform for xterracyprus.com Congahead.com:[wpspoiler name=”Razia Said” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

[wpspoiler name=”The original Tsy Akeo by Jaojoby” open=”true” style=”aatw-video”][/wpspoiler]

This autumn I’ve returned to Ms. Josloff’s classroom at the Philadelphia Montessori Charter School to work with her wonderful 6-8 year old students en route to creating an All Around This World “big kids'” curriculum. On Tuesday we sang songs from Latin America and learned about a Chilean dance known as “the cueca,” during which a rooster courts a chicken. The dancers portraying the roosters twirl scarves in the air part of the courtship. Here we are dancing, twirling and having a grand time:

All Around This World’s 24 Hour Marathon Goes Global!

Revving up for an exciting 24 Hour live webcast of All Around This World music classes on December 7-8, I’ve started fielding press inquiries from the international English-language press. Recently I’ve completed interviews with publications in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, South America and Asia. Come on, Africa, what are you waiting for?

UPDATE: Read a really nice article about All Around This World and the 24 Hour Music Class Marathon from the Jakarta Post.

HURRAH!

After many years of intense global musical exploration and content creation and many many months of intense computer mumbo jubmo work to get that content online in a way everyone can enjoy it, the All Around This World site, where you  currently “are,” is ready for prime time. There are still some kinks to work out, and a lot of content that will be available as soon as I proofread and fix broken links, but you and your family can now dig in.

While the All Around This World website isn’t “for kids” in the sense that it’s full of games and brightly colored ads to try to get them to buy stuff, it’s definitely a site for you to enjoy with your kids. I’ve vetted every video to make sure, to the best of my knowledge, it’s appropriate for you and your children to explore. (forgive me if I’ve missed something–and let me know.) Leap into the learning here, and quickly you and your family will find yourselves on musical expeditions to countries you may have previously never even knew existed. 

Many thanks go to the crew at Act 3, designers of this site, and especially to programming genius Tree, who has gone far above the call of duty over the last couple months to get this behemoth working,.

Even though there’s a ton of information here, we’re considering this site to be Phase 1. Next we’re going to make the site responsive so it works better on mobile devices, and simultaneously more interesting and interactive so you and your kids will have more and more fun traveling the world together. Phase 2 will include a substantial effort to make hands-on teaching materials available, like customizable lesson plans for teachers and step-by-step guides for you and your family to do much as cultural exploration as possible from your home.

Enjoy this resource. Visit again and again.

10 a.m. Philadelphia time. The 24 hour music class marathon just ended and I made it! I taught 24 straight music classes, 2 from each All Around This World season, and didn’t repeat a single song, other than “We Are Happy” as the hello and goodbye. Over the course of the day there were visitors galore, both in person and through the webstream, and there was so much wonderful tweeting and facebook posting and instagramming etc. Thank you so so so much for everything. A special shout-out to those who came by my house and sang and danced and danced and sang (and brought chocolate!). I’ll write a more reasoned evaluation of how everything went after I wake up from a long long sleep, but I want to say I’m honored to know all of you and feel privileged even more to be able to sing with you and your kids.

Now that the marathon is over I’m going to be focusing on the next two weeks of crowdfunding, trying to raise money to keep this program going and make it available to more and more and more kids. If you liked what you saw at the marathon and you haven’t already pitched in or spread the word, any boost to the campaign would be great. Here, yet again, is the link:

HTTP://WWW.ALLAROUNDTHISWORLD.COM/CROWDFUNDING

I’ve set the deadline for December 21. Thank you so much for your support.

The producer of the AATW Africa CD is Amon Drum, whose Hook Studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn, describes itself as, “Purveyors of fine sound from Brooklyn to Bamako and Beyond.” Amon is so utterly talented on so many fronts–as a producer, as an engineer, as a percussionist himself, and as an organizer of such impossible projects such as this–that to even try to provide the praise he deserves would be inadequate. Let’s just say that without Amon, kids in All Around This World’s African classes this winter would have to endure listening to thirty songs on a CD that I would have recorded into Sound Recorder on my laptop–no doubt mispronouncing and rhythmically misstepping all along the way.

Amon’s recent writing and production work with the Brooklyn-based international/African fusion collective, Analog Players Society, is a case in point; the tracks are nothing short of infectious . . . in a good way! Don’t believe me? Check out Analog Players Society’s most recent full release, “Hurricane Season in Brooklyn”:

Don’t believe yourself? Listen to this glowing review of “Hurricane Season in Brooklyn” by music critic Milo Miles on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” Then, read more about Amon in the Drum Magazine feature on him, “Amon: Fela meets The Skatalites in Brooklyn”.

I really can’t believe we’ve been lucky enough to record with both the musicians featured in the above video, Famoro Dioubate and, as of this Thursday the 26th, Cameroonian balafon player and vocalist Francois Nnang. We’re so spoiled that we didn’t even ask Francios to play balafon on the CD, but instead to add his vocals–which are truly special, as you’ll hear soon on the AATW: Africa Vol. 1 CD–to two Congolese songs, “Independence Cha Cha” and “Sai.” By the way, Francois is an old pro when it comes to entertaining kids:

More recording. More recording. More recording.

More recording.

This week Amon and I were so fortunate to be able to record some phenomenal vocals for three South African songs that will pepper the two AATW Africa CDs. For a while we didn’t think we’d be able to make it happen, but somehow the fates shone apon us and gave us the chance to schedule a session with South African and Broadway vocal star, Selloane. You’ll hear Selloane’s distinctive voice on AATW: Africa on two defiant Apartheid-era tracks, Senzenina and Thinantsha, and on our Sierra Leonean Afro-ska version of the Pete Seeger and the SongSwapper’s version of the Bantu wedding song, “He Motsoala.” Meet Selloane through this AfirPop interview and enjoy this video of her performing her own music live at Joe’s Pub: