Scammon, Aman, Kolo, Progenitorivox
On Monday, my nephew Benjamin, his mother Mary, and I went to
Monterey, to listen to my mother (Dr Landauer) talk about Captain
Charles Scammon. It was the third installment of a series of
talks about California History.
Here's the brochure they put up about it:
It was a very interesting and informative talk, about a very
different time. She put together slides (mostly old photos and
drawings, many by Scammon himself) for the talk, but her facility
has no projector. But it does have a big screen connected to a
DVD player. So I scanned the images (and snagged one from
the Internet), sent them to Mary, who then had them put onto
a DVD ($10 at Bay Photo, though I think she managed to get a
heck of a discount), and we just brought the DVD.
I hope to make those images available when I get a bit
of time to do so.
Phil Anast, a long-time friend of my Mom's, was at
the talk, along with his wife -- they live in Pacific Grove.
Phil's association with my parents dates from the 1960's,
when they were all involved in some Balkan and Eastern
European folk singing and folk dancing, mostly with the
UCLA-based Aman Folk Ensemble.
The six of us went out
to dinner together, at El Torito on Cannery Row; we got a windowside
table with nice views of the sea lions, otters, dolphins, pelicans,
seagulls and other denizens of the Monterey Bay. It was nice
reminiscing about the Balkan music and dancing that my brothers and I
grew up with, Rastko and the skateboard,
Branko Krsmanovich,
Kolo,
and some of the other touring Yugoslavian dance troupes that
visited us when I was young.
Fun old times.
The next day, I did a web search for Aman, and found a very nicely
done set of pages about Aman and its history:
And also the somewhat related group "Westwind":
My mom said that she's in some of the photos linked from the
Aman pages.
Some of the names seem so familiar ... Tony Shay, Ruth Garber, Vince
Evanchuk ... Blasts from a long time past!
Phil also mentioned the
Tamburitzans, and some of their members that
he and my mom knew
way back when.
All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon and evening.
To add to my
auto-musico-biography: my parents' participation in Aman
and related activities means that all those exotic rhythms
and harmonies are part of the music I grew up listening to.
Many of the songs from that region are in 5, 7, or 11 beats
per measure, instead of the boring old 2, 3, 4 or 6 that almost
all western music is based on.
Almost forgot to mention -- saw the
Austin Lounge Lizards at the
Kuumbwa on Saturday night. Great show, but now I need
some
Progenitorivox.
1:21:24 AM
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