Like all of Alan Lomax’s field recordings, this ten-disc collection from Haiti offers an unparalleled look at an otherwise undocumented culture in transition. In 1936-1937, when the song collector Lomax, his fiancée, and an assistant landed on the island, lugging cumbersome recording and film equipment they would carry with them throughout their travels, the United States had just ended a 19-year occupation of Haiti. Prior to that, Haiti, the first independent and first black-ruled nation in the Caribbean, had absorbed a mixture of global cultural elements extending from the traditions of the enslaved Africans of the 18th and 19th centuries to influences from the Spanish and French, the latter group’s language becoming one of two recognized on the island, along with Haitian Creole. Lomax’s mission was to collect the island’s traditional music before it disappeared, and he ultimately brought back 50-plus hours of it, more than 1,500 individual recordings in all, collected over a four-month period. The recordings remained in the archives of the Library of Congress until the release of this box set, for which the best representations of the larger body have been assembled onto thematically arranged discs by the ethnomusicologist Gage Averill, a specialist in Haiti. In addition to recording the indigenous music, Lomax also took extensive notes about both his work and the people he encountered, and the contents of his journals are reprinted in a 200-page softcover book included in the set. A second book, this one hardcover, contains Averill’s detailed liner notes, explaining the songs, translating the lyrics, and putting it all into historical and cultural context.
Given the nature of Lomax’s equipment and the circumstances of his journey, these recordings are often very raw sonically — Lomax, in fact, believed them to be of insufficient quality after revisiting them decades after he made them, and they sat untouched. It wasn’t until modern technology could be used to clean them up somewhat that they could be made available for purchase, and even now, despite the best efforts, some of the music is difficult to listen to, riddled with distortion, tape problems, ambient noise, etc. That should not stop any interested party from delving in, however, as the music itself is fascinating and revealing. The range of songs collected — utilizing a vast array of instrumentation from fiddles and banjos to thumb pianos and all manner of percussion — takes in music related to the local practice of Vodou (voodoo), children’s songs, drumming, a Haitian variation on jazz, “troubadour” music, work songs, religious music, chants, Mardi Gras and Carnaval party sounds, and more. One disc, entirely devoted to “the Queen of Song,” Francilia, is particularly rich (one can’t help but think how this woman would have sounded if teleported into the present and a modern recording studio). Some of Lomax’s film footage also makes its way onto the discs, including an intoxicating ten minutes of drum- and percussion-based dance music. Connections can easily be drawn between some of the styles presented within and genres that are now familiar components of Western music, but it’s best appreciated on its own merits. While this lavish collection can be considered solely for its historical and cultural value, the music itself should not be overlooked: despite the obvious non-audiophile nature of the recordings, there is much to be savored in its rich melodies and relentless rhythms. – Jeff Tamarkin