A remarkable and unpredicted popular response to the Playing For Change project has ignited around the world. Driven by more than twenty million video hits, countless blogs and pure viral communication between fans and followers, the global music project bubbles-up from the underground to debut at #10 on Billboard’s Pop chart. “The success of Playing For Change illustrates the world’s desire for a truly authentic connection,” stated Concord Music Group co-owner Norman Lear. “Mark and his team brilliantly tapped into the collective undercurrent of change. We’re thrilled to help his beautiful vision become reality.”
 
 Hear Music’s two-disc CD/DVD Playing For Change – Songs Around the World, a stirring call for harmony, freedom from strife and global reconciliation, stunned the music industry today selling over twenty-six thousand copies. Traveling the world for a decade, Grammy winning producer/engineer Mark Johnson and the Playing For Change team brought together diverse musicians in a heroic effort to inspire peace through the universal language of music. Their ambitious journey took them from post-apartheid South Africa, through the ancient sites and conflict regions of the Middle East, to the remote beauty of the Himalayas and beyond. Using innovative mobile technology, the PFC crew filmed and recorded more than 100 musicians, largely outdoors, in parks, plazas and promenades, in doorways, on cobblestone streets and amid hilly pueblos. Each captured performance created a kaleidoscopic new mix in which essentially the artists are all performing together, albeit hundreds or thousands of miles apart.

Watcha Clan are musical nomads on a mission in search of space and freedom, embodied in the voice of Sista K whose mixed Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Berber ancestry epitomizes the borderless roots of the clan's music manifesto. The Diaspora is in the music, the music is in the Diaspora, blown on the winds across the waters from Algeria to Agadir to Andalucia, meeting in Marseille's melting pot. On their never-ending world tour - where their multi-ethnic, multi-groove infusions regularly whip audiences into a dance frenzy - Marseille's global beat outfit Watcha Clan met many talented DJs and fellow musical travelers. Friendship and mutual inspiration blossomed, communicated in the languages of dub, ragga, reggae, drum'n'bass and electro, sung to melodies traditional or modern, spiced with Arabic and Mediterranean flavors.

Bombay Dub Orchestra is the East-West fusion project founded by composer/producers Garry Hughes and Andrew T. Mackay. Since the release of their self-titled debut, the name Bombay Dub Orchestra has built quite a reputation. From main-stage performances at the Big Chill festival and Djing across the globe, scoring feature films to remixing such world-renowned artists as Bob Marley, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Bebel Gilberto, fans and critics were eagerly awaiting their next album, '3 Cities', released recently by Six Degrees Records on 20 April.

The third in Strut’s 'Inspiration Information, Vol. 3' studio collaboration series, out now, brings together an intriguing pairing between one of Africa’s great bandleaders, Mulatu Astatke, with the UK's Heliocentrics. Known primarily through the successful ‘Ethiopiques’ album series and the film soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Broken Flowers’, Mulatu Astatke is one of Ethiopia’s foremost musical ambassadors. Informed by spells living and studying in the UK and the USA, his self-styled Ethio-jazz sound flourished during the "Swinging Addis" era of the late '60s as he successfully fused Western jazz and funk with traditional Ethiopian folk melodies, five tone scale arrangements and elements from music of the ancient Coptic church.

Nashville (Tennessee), USA - A new anthology of Grammy-winning bluegrass star Del McCoury titled Celebrating 50 Years of Del McCoury will be released May 12th on McCoury Music and distributed by Sony/RED.
 
 From the first track on the first disc to the closing chords of the collection's final tune, Celebrating 50 Years of Del McCoury is a journey through time and tradition, as expressed by a true American roots artist whose musical education begins at the side of the Father of Bluegrass Bill Monroe, matures and grows as Del influences the likes of Jerry Garcia and Alison Krauss and then comes full circle on the set's final disc as the master is in turn influenced by his students.

Folk singer Pierce Pettis has a new recording titled That Kind of Love on the Compass label. "I think this album is more song-centered," says Pierce Pettis about his ninth release. "We were far more focused on making the album about the songs rather than the other way around. Each track feels quite unique to me and stands solidly on its own."

That Kind of Love was four years in the making. Having the advantage of time on his side allowed Pettis' songs the room to grow and mature while he played them live. "I think that sets this album apart from my previous ones," he says. "I'm hoping the listeners will notice the difference."

On Musica Colombiana Andina: Music from Colombia, Niyireth paints a picture of life in Colombia's Andean region, from its crop fields and rolling hills to the indigenous people who inhabit the area. The picturesque surroundings of Colombia's Huila department are a source of inspiration for many composers and musicians from the area. This is Niyireth Alarcon particularly evident in songs such as Mi tierra del Huila: "Land of Huila, your women are as beautiful! as the flowers of your fields...".

Author: Bárbara Vasallo Vasallo
 
 Matanzas, Cuba - The recognized Cuban folk group, Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, shows up again in the list of the nominees of the 2009 Cubadisco International Festival to be held next May.
 
 The recent production of the group directed by professor Diosdado Ramos, is a tribute to indispensable figures of the percussion and rumba, who were very related to this group, such as Esteban Vega (Chachá), Victoriano Espinosa and Inés Mesa.