Coltrane Village Vanguard sessions

[mikeweil]

The 4-CD box set edition of John Coltrane's Village Vanguard sessions includes two tracks with bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik playing an oud, the Arabian lute - at least that's what the ession credits say. To these ears, this instrument definitely does NOT sound like an oud, but like a tamboura or sitar. Track 4 on disc 4 has this instrument alone at the beginning of the track. Anybody here on the board with a knowledge of middle eastern instruments with the same observations?

----- This wouldn't be the first time an "exotic" instrument was miscredited; the misattributions of bongos vs. congas go into the hundreds. Way back I wrote David Wild and Michael Cuscuna that the Calypso Boys on one of Dizzy Gillespie's DeeGee sessions did not play bongos as in the album credits but congas, maracas and claves. They corrected and admitted they had based their info on the original session credits, which were wrong.

A similar story is on some thread here on the board with Herbie Hancock playing not a celeste on Freddie Hubbard's last 1960's Blue Note studio session, but a harpsichord. Some care with non-familiar instruments please!

[Guy Berger]

The 4-CD box set edition of John Coltrane's Village Vanguard sessions includes two tracks with bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik playing an oud, the Arabian lute - at least that's what the ession credits say. To these ears, this instrument definitely does NOT sound like an oud, but like a tamboura or sitar. Track 4 on disc 4 has this instrument alone at the beginning of the track. Anybody here on the board with a knowledge of middle eastern instruments with the same observations?

Mike,

David Wild's website has a correction to his liner notes -- it is, in fact, a tamboura.

An Oud is not an Oud

Guy

[mikeweil]

Guy, many thanks for the input. Of course, I should have looked there first ... ... but I simply like to converse with you all here .

The link doesn't work with me, perhaps because it links to a specific line on the page; perhaps this one will work:

David Wild Website

Go the FAQs page.

Edited September 3, 2003 by mikeweil

[Shrdlu]

Then there's the Eb contrabass clarinet described as an alto - and they argue when you point it out. (That was played by Frank Foster on some late BN sessions with Duke Pearson and Elvin.) It took a link to a French instrument website to convince a well-known reissue producer of that.