PSQ Presents: Jane Bunnett Program Notes

Oct. 15, 2024

Almendra (Almond)

The song style is a Cuban danzón, one of the precursors to salsa.

The Real Truth

Dedicated to the late, great Cuban drummer Guillermo Barreto.

Red Dragonfly (Akatombo)

It is a nostalgic depiction of a Japanese red Dragonfly seen at sunset by an infant being carried on an older sister’s shoulder. The poem is written in the voice of someone recalling his infancy. The speaker longs for his mother, who married at 15, was moved away, and no longer sends news back.

Little dragonfly
Resting, waiting
On the end of a bamboo pole

In a 1989 nationwide survey by NHK, “Akatombo” was ranked as by far the most loved song in Japan. Yamada was one of several respected Japanese classical music composers and posts who in the 1920s sought to create songs for children that were more beautiful and emotional than the standard children's songs of the time.

Maria La O

Ernesto Lecuona was called the Cuban George Gershwin and was one of the great composers of the “Zaruela”.

“In the folklore and general music world in Cuba it has been a tradition to get inspired by personalities and characters that gave and still give color to our way of living. So maybe she existed... or not.” – Jose Luis Gomez

Odira-E

Celso Machado was born in São Paulo, Brazil and now lives in Gibsons, B.C. Machado is a multi-instrumentalist and active as a teacher, composer, and recording artist.

Witchi Tai To

Jim pepper was an internationally recognized and influential jazz musician and tenor saxophonist. He is best remembered for “Witchi Tai To”, his elaboration of a Comanche peyote chant learned from his grandfather Ralph Pepper, a ceremonial leader of the Kaw tribe in Oklahoma. It became a bit of a crossover hit.

Witchi Tai To English translation:

Enjoy the good vibes while they’re here, to be alive and present in the moment!

Black is The Color

Famed folklorist and musicologist, the late Alan Lomax attributes “Black is The Color of My True Love’s Hair” to Scottish origin sometime during the 19th century. There is a line in the original version of the song “l go to the Clyde to mourn and weep / but satisfied l could never sleep”, referring to the river Clyde in Scotland.

The folk tune most likely made its way across the Atlantic in the company of Scottish immigrants, many of whom settled in North Carolina and Appalachian America. The song was first collected by English folk music archivist Cecil Sharp, who notated and recorded it during a 1916 trip to North Carolina, which he published in his English Folk Songs of The Southern Appalachian (1917).

Lada 78

Dedicated to Hilario’s Russian blue Lada 78, whom he left in Cuba when he became a Canadian citizen.

She’s Like A Swallow

Collected from oral tradition in Newfoundland ca. 1930 by Maud Karpeles, a British collector of folk songs and dance teacher. Following Confederation, many of the “Newfoundland Songs” became well known to the rest of Canada because they appeared in publications that anthologized folksongs representing regions and ethnicities.

Rabo De Nube (Tail of the Cloud)

Cuban musician and leader of the Nueva Trova movement. He is widely considered to be Cuba’s best folk singer and arguably Latin America's greatest singer-songwriter.

Known for his intellectual, highly eloquent and symbolic lyrics, his songs are iconic elements of Latin American left-leaning popular culture. As a humanist, his songs often bespeak a secular worldview, where humanity must make the best of this world.

Heaven’s Gate

This piece is dedicated to the great musical friends who are no longer here on Earth with us.

Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika (God Bless Africa)

This piece is a Christian hymn originally composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Xhosa clergyman at a Methodist mission school near Johannesburg. For decades during the apartheid regime, it was considered by many to be the unofficial national anthem of South Africa, representing the suffering of the oppressed masses. Because of its connection to the ANC, the song was banned by the regime during the apartheid era.

Un Canadien Errant

Antoine Gerin Lajoie was inducted into The Canadian Hall of Fame in 2007. The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs notes that after rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada of 1837-38, rebels who escaped reprisal went into exile in the USA. Their plight inspired a young student, Antoine Gerin-Lajoie, to write “Un Canadien Errant”, setting it to a tune of a popular French Song “Si tu te mets Anguille”. Soon after the song appeared in 1842, French Canadians were singing it from Acadia on the east coast to the distant reaches of the Northwest Territories.

Cha Cha Cha

One of the most influential musicians of his generation in Cuba, Emiliano Salvador is revered as a giant around the world. His pianistic vision permeates and embodies Cuban music and Afro-Cuban Jazz.

Special note from Jane

l love this music, and how we and The Penderecki String Quartet created something very special... l am very excited to be with them after 20 years! Thank you for inviting me here.

I made a special repressing of this rare CD, specifically for tonight’s show. It's a limited edition, so l hope you will play it for your friends, and love it the way l do!
—Jane Bunnett O.C.