Global Sound
The Smithsonian Institute is working on a web site to highlight archival recordings of indigenous music from around the world. One of their partners is the International Library of African Music, headquartered in South Africa, holders of the recordings made throughout Africa by legendary ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey from the 1920s to the 1970s. These recordings are invaluable; very few other people were interested in recording this music at the time, and it’s largely disappeared today. A few ILAM recordings have been sporadically available over the years, notably on a few releases put out by the now-defunct Original Music label, and more recently on the Dutch SWP Records label, but they haven’t been easy to find. I’ve got most of the Original Music CDs, and they’re absolutely wonderful. The ILAM has been trying to digitize their holdings for a while; it’s nice to see an organization like the Smithsonian get behind the effort. It appears that one of the things the new site is going to do is make the recordings available in MP3 format. The Smithsonian’s Global Sound site isn’t quite open yet, but I’m positively salivating over the prospect.
Posted at 8:24 AM
You may already be aware of this, but their site is now live at www.smithsonianglobalsound.org
Posted by Case at 6:40 PM, May 20, 2005 [Link]