Lovey's Original Trinidad Band

[MomsMobley]

is anyone on to this recent Bear Family release yet?

"When researching aspects of the history of the Caribbean, American ethnologist Dick Spottswood unexpectedly uncovered an unknown musical treasure. From the depth of a library he fished out several flat cardboard boxes containing matrixes. The accompanying note said the recordings were made by a 12-piece jazz orchestra from Trinidad in 1912: Lovey's Trinidad String Band..."

http://www.bear-family.de/es/folk-world/world/lovey-s-original-trinidad-stri-calypso-dawn-1912-trinidad-string-band.html

I ordered this immediately but in case ya'll need a sample--

[AllenLowe]

I have the original issue - was it Rounder?

btw, one of the things I find ineresting in these early bands is the ragtime component - and chord progressions very similar to Muskrat Ramble and Sister Kate.

[seeline]

The thing is... there is a *lot* of Venezuelan influence in their music - looking at a map shows why. Same with Lionel Belasco. (As I'm sure you guys already know.) About half of the instruments mentioned in that video clip come from Venezuela.

You can hear the melding of Brazilian and N. American styles in many early choro recordings as well, though my understanding of that is more that the Brazilians adapted what they heard to their own genres/styles, rather than the other way around. (i.e., that the N. American styles somehow transformed Brazilian music.)

But then, the late 19th-early 20th c. = lots of people everywhere playing waltzes, mazurkas, polkas, etc. The Venezuelans are pretty adamant about the Venezuelan waltz being a distinct musical form, and Brazilian waltzes sound - to me, at least - distinctly Brazilian.,

anyway...

Edited December 27, 2012 by seeline