Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Reissues Traditional Music Recordings from Greece and Ivory Coast

Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the nonprofit record label of the national museum of the United States, has recently re-released the albums Côte D’Ivoire: Baule Vocal Music and Greece: Traditional Music as part of the wide-ranging and significant UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music.

Queen Aura Poku, who sacrificed her son to allow her people to cross a river to freedom, and other legends are represented in Baule music, which is well known throughout Ivory Coast. Two or more voices are usually joined by bells, rattles, and a variety of drums.

They also use a fiddle and a harp-lute to accompany singers, creating layers of complex sounds. Even though many children begin training in vocal polyphony at a young age, the finest musicians, especially singer-instrumentalists, are thought to have been chosen by the spirits. This album was recorded in 1965 and 1966.

Greece is a land of crossroads, between West and East. Even if the origins of musical genres and systems identified with Greece are often confused, misunderstood, and mislabeled, this 1970 collection provides fourteen rich examples of vocal and instrumental music from mountain and island regions that have maintained the closest ties to ancient tradition.

Since April 29, 2014 Smithsonian Folkways has been re-releasing two albums per week from the UNESCO Collection of Traditional Music, and will continue until all 127 albums (including twelve previously unreleased) are available as on-demand CDs, digital download, streaming service, and library subscription for the first time.

Buy Côte D’Ivoire: Baule Vocal Music MP3s. The CD is available from folkways.si.edu

Buy Greece: Traditional Music MP3s. The CD is available from folkways.si.edu