In the annals of fabulous events with unfortunate names, World Music Festival Chicago will have a special place.
The third edition of this year’s festival, running from Thursday through Sept. 30, pulsates with musical brilliance. Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury opens the 11-day musical feast at the Park West (7:30 p.m. Thursday), along with Ethiopian chanteuse Gigi Shibabaw. Egyptian performers Khaled and Hakim share a closing bill at the Riviera. Sandwiched between this pair of must-hear musical bookmarks are performances from the mind-blowing Gangbe Brass Band (noon Thursday at the Daley Center) from Benin, Andalusian singer Miguel Poveda and all points in between, from Mongolia to Ireland.
Yet the very title of the festival threatens to place it in the “been there, done that” box with the world music craze that began as mid-’80s marketing hype. Besides, is there really such a thing as “world music”?
“I think music is music,” says Gigi. “As long as it comes out of this planet, it’s world music. It could be rock, pop or hip-hop. Everything is world music to me, and if it feels right or sounds right, it shouldn’t be categorized.”
“Pick any main city, and there are music trends being created within that city,” says Mike Orlove, World Music Festival organizer and the man tasked with the tough job of selling unheard-of music to Chicagoans. “Now do they consider themselves `world music’? I’m sure the answer is no. I basically look at the festival as global music.”
Streaming media and the digital music craze are threatening to obliterate the lines drawn between genres. Oud virtuoso Simon Shaheen mixes traditional Arabic music with Western jazz idioms, while Gigi’s sound reveals a funky, hip-hop influence. Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury has covered Stevie Wonder and sung a ’60s Japanese pop song. Slavek Hanzlik is a bluegrass player from Czechoslovakia.
But world music, to the ears of many Americans, is all of a type — Third World folks making jingly sorts of folk music. The challenge facing World Music Festival is how to change that misconception and to, in effect, sell sounds that people in the U.S. have never heard before.
“Because this music is unheard and unknown, it should be easier to sell to people,” says Orlove. “I think that in some respects it’s more difficult to sell music that is an imitation or hybrid of another style of music that everyone’s familiar with.”
Orlove is relying heavily on media buzz to help his festival. Also, word of mouth, spread among the city’s avant music cognoscenti who hang out at venues like HotHouse and the Empty Bottle, certainly helps the cause. At a recent HotHouse show by singer Rokia Traore, from Mali, Orlove was encouraged by the sight of new faces in the crowd.
“I was blown away by seeing new people,” he says. “It’s great when you stop recognizing people in this growing scene.”
Attendance has increased each of the previous two years for the World Music Festival, from about 40,000 its first year to 60,000 for the second year. Looking to increase numbers even further, this year the festival is expanding its neighborhood presence. Shows are being presented in 33 venues, up from 21 last year and 11 in the event’s first year.
Performance spaces for this year include the American Indian Center in Ravenswood, Humboldt Park Stables on West Division Street, the Garfield Park Conservatory and the Beverly Art Center. Many of the shows are free. Admission charges for other shows range from $7 to $15.
“If I had my way there’d be a hundred venues,” says Orlove. “Adding new ones isn’t a mandate, that’s just how it happened. But we have these great spaces and places in Chicago that people don’t take advantage of.”
The most compelling reason to check out as much of the World Music Festival as you can is the pedigree of the performers. Mercury plays to stadiums in Brazil and sells millions of CDs worldwide. She has achieved triple platinum status for her 1996 disc, “Feijao Com Arroz” (“Beans and Rice”). Her newest recording, “Sol Da Liberdade,” coupled with her personality, brings to mind a South American Madonna. A machismo courses through the recording, and in light of the Latinate tradition of macho being an exclusively male trait, that makes Mercury’s tweaking of the status quo as interesting as the music’s Brazilian samba rhythms.
Gigi’s eponymous disc was produced by Bill Laswell and includes horn arrangements by celebrated jazz-avantgardist Henry Threadgill. Simon Shaheen, on the other hand, creates a blend of traditional Arabic and Western jazz.
“Whoever does this should have a full understanding of the different musical languages they are trying to pursue,” says Shaheen. “If anyone wants to collaborate with different musicians, master musicians from other parts of the world, they must understand the music that they are dealing with, otherwise we end up with fusion music, which doesn’t really make sense. I think it’s just throwing stuff in the pot.”
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For World Music Festival information, call the hotline at 312-742-1938 or visit www.cityofchicago.org/WorldMusic