Melanesia Bamboo Boogie-Woogie
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Melanesia bamboo boogie-woogie xxx xxx The island chains known as Melanesia include Fiji, New Caledonia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Musical diversity is a highlight of the region, from traditional instrumental and vocal music to contemporary rock and reggae. Steven Feld and Denis Crowdy untangle this skein of sounds. 63 COUNTRY bands like the Paramana Strangers had become New Guinea well-known. In the mid-1970s, the boogie-woogie bamboo Musically, the best-known part of Melanesia is band style spread to PNG from the Solomon the island of New Guinea. This is divided in two: Islands, featuring open bamboo tubes played by | Papua New Guinea (PNG), the independent, east- Genre hitting them with flip-flop sandals. This began ern half of the island, and Papua, the western half, among villages around Madang, and spread from a often called “West Papua” by indigenous inhabit- band at the Teachers College there to other colleg- ants seeking independence from Indonesia. Prior es and high schools. The Wagi Brothers, complete to 1962, Papua was a Dutch colony, while PNG, with bamboo tubes and fuzzy rock’n’roll electric until its independence in 1975, was divided into guitar (played through transistor radios), are one two Australian trust territories (British and Ger- of the highlights of David Fanshawe’s Pacific com- man colonies before World War I). These colonial pilations. histories have strongly influenced the music heard A local recording industry began to develop today in New Guinea, as has the strong impact of in PNG after independence. Musical exchanges missionaries. were promoted by the National Arts School and There is considerably more documented and other national institutions, as well as regional and recorded material from the Papua New Guinea international festivals. Sanguma were the first side, particularly since independence. This is part- PNG group to actively mix traditional songs and ly a result of foreign interest in the country’s stun- instruments with rock and jazz-derived styles. ning cultural and geographical diversity – more In the early 1980s, Sanguma toured the Pacific than eight hundred languages are spoken by just region, Europe and the US. Around the same time, over five million people – but also Indonesia’s hos- recording studios became established in Rabaul tility to the celebration or promotion of indigenous and Port Moresby, the capital, and radio pro- Melanesian culture in Papua. grammes featuring PNG pop styles, both in Tok There are clear continuities between traditional Pisin (pidgin), the lingua franca, and in Tok Ples, music from West Papua and PNG – from similari- (other local languages), spread widely. TV and ties in dance, song and instrumental characteristics radio stations, however, tend to play local rock, in the highlands to bamboo flutes and wooden and reggae and string-band music, also the focus of bamboo end-blown trumpets closer to the coast. the cassette industry. Contemporary popular music includes string- George Telek has made international waves band music, reggae, gospel and influences from through his work with musician and producer PNG music and Indonesian pop. David Bridie, first appearing with Bridie’s band Not Drowning, Waving on the album Tabaran. PNG’s Popular Music Telek hails from the village of Raluana near the town of Rabaul (destroyed by a volcanic eruption Papua New Guinea’s exposure to Western sounds in 1994) and his songs reflect everyday village and began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, spiritual life. He tours internationally, so keep up with the part harmony of church hymns sung in with his schedule at telek.com. local languages. By the turn of the century, mission songs, colonial songs and gold-rush songs had also made their mark. From the 1920s, 78s of Western Traditional PNG Music popular songs were played around plantations and In 1898, some of the world’s first field-recordings colonial towns and broadcasting began in the late were made along PNG’s south coast. However, 1930s. A further foreign influence arrived dur- music research did not begin seriously until the ing the war, when foreign servicemen played and 1970s, with independence and the establishment of taught songs locally. the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies music Guitars and ukuleles became popular. String department and recording series. Traditional PNG bands – groups of acoustic guitars and ukuleles music also received a huge boost in 1991 when playing a hard-strummed and lightly swinging the Grateful Dead’s drummer Mickey Hart pro- style already in broad Pacific circulation – were duced anthropologist (and chapter co-author) first recorded in the early 1950s, and were com- Steven Feld’s Voices of the Rainforest, the first monplace ten years later. By the late 1960s, widely available CD of traditional PNG music. It rock’n’roll cover bands like the Kopikats were per- shows a rich traditional musical culture, although forming at hotels in PNG’s main cities, and string its diversity has doubtless been greatly diminished 64 by colonization, missionaries, and industrial devel- Although the Republic of the Fiji Islands is official- COUNTRY opment. Certain types of traditional songs, sing- ly part of Melanesia, and the indigenous Fijians are ing styles, instruments and their performance were physically similar to other Melanesians, Fijian cul- targeted for eradication by missionaries, who dis- ture shares a number of features with the culture approved of the spiritual or erotic power of the of Polynesia: hereditary chiefs, patrilineal descent | music. Length of contact with missionaries – just and a love of elaborate rituals, while music and Genre over a hundred years on the coasts and under sixty dance are closely related to the western Polynesian in the central highlands – has played a part in how varieties. well local or regional indigenous musical tradi- Meke is the generic term for dance, and the tions have survived, as did the church involved: most important types are: meke wesi (spear dance the Catholics and Lutherans were generally quite for men) meke i wau (club dance for men), meke tolerant, while the Baptists and Evangelicals were iri (fan dance), vakamalolo (sitting dance) and sea- more hostile and restrictive. sea (standing dance for women). The dances are Singsing is the general Tok Pisin name for vil- accompanied by a choir singing in parts, as well lage ceremonies which involve feasting, elabo- as lali ni meke (slit drums) and derua (bamboo rately costumed song and dance, and exchanges stamping tubes). Another popular style is sere ni of objects and food within and between com- cumu (literally “bumping songs”), which frequent- munities. Singsings often involve entire clans or ly accompanies kava-drinking sessions (the basis communities performing together. Songs are often for a controversial herbal remedy in the West, the sung with a leader and chorus, in unison or with kava plant is used to make an intoxicating liquor an overlapping and staggered approach to the of the same name). same text and melody, producing something like One currently prominent traditional perform- an echo effect. Performers exuberantly decorated ing arts troupe which occasionally tours abroad in paints and plumes often accompany the singing is Veivueti Ni Medrau Sucu. In the 1980s, Laisa with regular hand-drum pulses, while bouncing Vularoko enjoyed popularity with her vude pop and swaying in dance lines, clustered groups or style, which incorporated meke rhythms, and more semicircles. recently the popular group Black Rose have used Some singsings associated with preparing for traditional songs in modern pop contexts. Giant warfare or secret initiations have been abolished lali drums were traditionally used to announce or were banned by colonial government officers a wide variety of important events, and are still or missionaries; others were abandoned by the used to summon churchgoers. There is a rich vocal communities themselves because of social and tradition of church music as well as styles such as economic change. In some areas they have dis- same and polotu. appeared completely, or have been modified or With albums difficult to obtain, the best way to replaced by newer forms, often held only in con- hear Fijian music is to go there. Although there has junction with national events like Independence been some political unrest in Fiji recently, this is Day, school holidays or Christian festivals. Sings- largely confined to the capital, Suva. Since a series ings are the public and celebratory side of PNG of coups beginning in 1987, the proportion of the culture most likely to be seen by foreign visitors. population made up of Indo-Fijians has fallen Large competitive shows with costume and dance below forty percent as a result of ongoing dis- contests attract regular audiences, and have been crimination, although locally produced bhajan held regularly in Port Moresby and in the High- and qawwali music can still be heard. lands towns of Goroka and Mt. Hagen since the 1950s. Alongside these powerful displays, the more The Solomon private, sometimes mystical music based on vocal poetry doesn’t easily cross linguistic and cultural boundaries. Many song texts in PNG evoke the Islands power of place, describing the local landscape, Independent from Britain only since 1978, the flora and fauna. These are often full of metaphors Solomon Islands are sparsely inhabited. About about spirits, and their meanings can be extremely four hundred thousand people, mostly Melane- difficult to grasp and translate. sians, live on almost a thousand islands, most on the principal half dozen. Musical life in the Solomons reveals a variety Fiji of solo and group vocal styles. Large slit-drum 65 COUNTRY ensembles (like those in PNG on the islands of groove and percussive, syncopated ukulele play- Manus or Bougainville) are found, but the most ing. Fes Napuan is a large annual music festival distinctive sounds are the solo and group panpipe in the capital Port Vila, featuring rock, reggae, ensembles, particularly those from Guadalcanal traditional and stringband groups.