Comments on: "Global Jukebox" envisioned by folklorist, ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax comes to life

By: Anthony Lappé

Anthony Lappé — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:49:00 +0000

I traveled to Haiti w/ Anna Lomax Wood to bring his box set of lost Haitian music to Haiti after the earthquake: you can watch the piece I did for PBS here: http://www.invisiblehandmedia.net/2010/08/haitis-lost-music-pbs-need-to-know/

By: chgoliz

chgoliz — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:51:00 +0000

This is the best news I’ve heard for months!

There have been ways to hear parts of the collection, but all of it in one place will be stupendous.

By: mat catastrophe

mat catastrophe — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:16:00 +0000

Seeing as how most modern music sounds like it was generated from a template and performed by robots and is slicker than goose poop, I’d say he might have had a point.

By: EH

EH — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:51:00 +0000

There are certainly Orientalist problems with Lomax, but his work outweighs them completely.

By: SedanChair

SedanChair — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Lomax did important work, but he sometimes seemed to hold his subjects in contempt. He didn’t like the slickness and innovation of gospel, for example, preferring to keep his “peasants under glass” singing field songs so he could make a record of them.

By: sofong

sofong — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:02:00 +0000

Another ethnomusicologist emailed me back after I sent him a link:
“I met him a few times. We even got into an argument over performers’ rights on his many many recordings.”

By: EH

EH — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:32:00 +0000

I don’t think it’s so much that technology has “finally” caught up with his dream, but that they’ve decided to start work on it, which is great news.

By: msbpodcast

msbpodcast — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:08:00 +0000

I can hardly wait.

I remember when I discovered Mississippi John Hurt and Mississippi Fred McDowell back in the late sixties. Sent shivers down my spine.

Who knows what gems I’ll discover in those archives?