Can anyone recommend some music that features the whistle that isn’t Irish, Scottish, Celtic or Kwela? Actually I would even be satisfied with getting the name of a reliable Kwela album just because I have no experience with the genre. I tried ordering 2 different albums from Amazon.Com and both times they couldnt get the item.
Anyway, I would like to hear the instrument used outside of the traditional context. Is there much of that kind of thing or is the whistle tied inexorably to the above-mentioned styles of music?
The whistle is often played in English folk music. Bamboo and reed whistles are played all over the world and I have collected them and Cd’s with examples of how they are played from: India, Philippines, Indonesia, Romania, Greece, Slovakia, Croatia. These are all definitely whistles.
The local performers here have started using Generation whistles since we introduced them. We went to a lecture last week on the folk music of the Pomak people in the Rhodope Mountains and a famous player pulled out a Generation - we smiled.
The player co-authored a book on local music. We were surprised to find him play traditional tunes on the whistle. After the lecture I had to go home and bring more whistles to give to other local whistlers who normally play the traditional Greek reed whistle.
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Cool. Does anybody have any explicit CD recommendations from “other” types of music that use the whistle? Specifically, I’d like to be able to just mindlessly whim-buy it on Amazon.com preferably without having to go through a 3rd party vendor via Amazon.com. Just click and go.
Adrian mentioned Romanian music. There is a Romanian Gypsy band called Taraf de Haidouks that was the focus of discussion here a while back. They feature a whistle-like instrument that they only identify as a “flute” in the CD liner notes. They have at least one CD on the Nonesuch label. I got my copy though Amazon. It’s great stuff.
Mike
I haven’t heard this, but I’ve been meaning to check it out. It’s “The Pennywhistle Tapes”, recorded by the great John Coltrane, when he was confined to a sickbed, and unable to lift a saxophone. Include lots of notable sidemen too. I bet it’s great.
If that were real, it would be the best thing ever.
I’d love to learn recognizable jazz pieces on the whistle, though the key shifting and deliberate off-note out-of-key notes for effect might throw some of them off. I love Coltrane and Miles Davis and stuff like that. That’s how I wish I could hear some whistle music.
I’ve used the whistle playing both jazz and blues in session with a fiddler and bodhran player who also does djembe. I tend to prefer the A instrument for those things because guitar A blues and jazz are easy and cool, and fit in with the fiddle there well.
I was looking through a couple of minidisks the other day and ran across one piece of such a session. I’ll hunt it down and put it up on my site in the MP3 section (not an official part of the site)
The closest you’ll get to playing Coltrane style on whistle would probably be playing Ole on an Ahava Rabba whistle and improvising on the vamp. Of course, you’ll have some trouble playing accidentals unless you are really good at half-holing.
Two people come to mind who are brilliant at playing chromatically on diatonic instruments. Larry Nugent can play in any key on a D whistle. As far as I know, he hasn’t ventured beyond Irish music. The most astonishing, though, is Howard Levy who plays chromatically on diatonic harmonica. His playing with Lebanese traditonal/jazz fusion oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil on The Sultan’s Picnic has to be heard to be believed. Perhaps you need to play diatonic harmonica yourself to fully appreciate his virtuosity. He can hit bent notes bang in tune on the fastest run. These people ought to inspire all those who would like to play chomatic musics on whistle.
It got me, too.
