#ninetiesfriday World Music Celebration 🎼🌐🎼

Thanks to @geneeverett it's #ninetiesfriday and today I'm going to share some memories from a concert I attended in Redmond, WA, a suburb of Seattle.

The concert was a three day, world music festival put on by Peter Gabriel's WOMAD organization.

The World of Music, Arts and Dance, WOMAD, is an international arts festival founded in 1980 by English rock musician Peter Gabriel, with Thomas Brooman, Bob Hooton, Mark Kidel, Stephen Pritchard, Martin Elbourne and Jonathan Arthur.

I didn't know anything about WOMAD when I bought the ticket, I just wanted to see Canadian fiddle virtuoso, Ashley MacIsaac. He released an album in 1995 called, hi™️ how are you today? that I just love. Here's the opening track.

He had a hit song from this album, a traditional tune called Sleepy Maggie, sung by Mary Jane Lamond.

Here's a real barn-burner called Devil's in the Kitchen. I feel like @geneeverett might get down with this tune.

Last one I'll share from this album is called Sophia's Pipes

When I found out he was playing at WOMAD I grabbed a ticket, and man he was good. His live shows are as full of energy as the songs sound, with him jumping around stage, bow-hairs hanging from his bow and strings breaking. Good times :D

The event was held at Marymoor Park just outside Seattle, WA. Marymoor is a 540 acre park on the banks of Lake Sammamish.

Being a festival the park had many stages of varying sizes in different areas. As I was wondering around I saw a small stage with not many people around it, as I walked over two guys were just getting on stage and sitting by their instruments. One was a Sarod player named Amjad Ali Khan and the other turned out to be one of the greatest tabla players of all time, Zakir Hussain.

I was able to walk right up to the stage and was mesmerized by this guys ability and the sound coming out of those drums. He mostly plays raga, a form of Indian classical music. A raga is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music and I found myself really enjoying it. Hard to grab just a bit as these raga can last for half hour or more!

If you want to check out more Zakir I recommend Tabla Beat Science.
The band was founded in 1999 by Zakir Hussain and Bill Laswell. Their style being a mix of Hindustani music, Asian Underground, ambient music, drum and bass and electronica.

Here's a full live album they released in 2002.

Have a GREAT weekend :D