I heard from a musician friend the other day that the World Fest this year was one of the best in the MidWest he’d performed at this season  (excluding the Lotus in Bloomington of course).

And no doubt about it – it’s the best edition, as among the years I have attended.  Downside to that fact:  it is has lost attendance  because people previously felt  WorldFest was not reaching out to diversity in Louisville enough, but this year’s could be the best World Fest yet in this regard – and hopefully will do a lot toward restoring some of that audience enthusiasm and attendance.

This year’s success in the staging, execution, and audience experience of World Fest was achieved in spite of the fact that the organizers had an extra day added in this year — with half their budget slashed.  This combination of having to expand the line-up while keeping costs down was a blessing in disguise – because instead of drawing in bigger, lamer acts from other cities (the coward’s way out), they had to rely on their much richer, homegrown talent.

The result, on three stages over three days, was nearly overwhelming.  But, good overwhelming – that is, so pleasurable and varied one hardly knew where to listen next — but not to the point that one felt (bad) overwhelmed.  While being a musical micro-‘world’ in itself, it was still intimate enough that it felt ‘manageable’:  in sum, a veritable just-right experience of the overwhelming.

Memorable highlights lit up all three days/nights:

One on Friday evening was Alma Gitana, with Flamenco singer & flute-player Alfonso Cid from New York.  Alma Gitana blends Flamenco and MidEastern music.  One hopes in these situations is to avoid having to fall back on words that are overused and trite – but as I review what I heard at World Fest, I find that I do have to rely to a certain extent on words like ‘wonderful’ and ‘beautiful’:  no others will really fill the bill.  That applies to Alma Gitana.  As an unexpected and exotic extra, the lead guitarist’s son, a male belly dancer from New York, got up and danced while the group was performing – his body moving to the tune, I swear, like rubber.

Not even the weather could spoil things.  (Remember, it was really wonky – over 100 degrees at 6:30pm on Friday; 106+ degrees in mid-afternoon on Saturday; and rained-out eventually Sunday evening, with temperatures lowering almost to freezing by Monday morning.)

Amidst all of this the Latin Stage almost closed Sunday afternoon; my friend Caleb Louis (whom I had to really hustle on my cell phone to get to come down to World Fest and sub at the last minute!) only had a half-hour set – but he was great.

(Note to dancers:  Flamenco Louisville – Alfonso, with his beautiful voice, sang for them – appeared on the Main Stage – but were hardly visible to the audience because they were so far away.)

There was a dance platform below the Main Stage – a great idea, as people can get up and dance as the spirit moves them – but the planners need to make it bigger because there were people who wanted to dance but couldn’t.

Performing dancers should go on the smaller, Fountain Stage, simply because it is too hard to see them up on the Main Stage, even up close!  Bad sound marred Flamenco Louisville’s performance last year – and to see them this year I had to hide under the tent due to the scorching sun – almost a mile away! (seemed like it anyway — not very practical for audience members to try to do en masse).  The Fountain Stage was more intimate; and for that reason the Camino Flamenco/Flamenco Talk dance ensemble, with Vincente Griego from New Mexico singing their accompaniment, was displayed to better advantage than was the Flamenco Louisville group.

These two Flamenco singers formed a fully complementary experience:  Alfonso, a stand-out for his elegance and technique; Vincente, for that warm, irresistibly inviting stage presence of his.  I honestly couldn’t tell you which I enjoyed more.

I think that the Latin Stage that was mounted was the best ever at World Fest.  Of course the Main Stage (which is located behind the Kentucky Arts Center) is intended to be the main stage – but I think they should make the Fountain Stage, beside the Galt House, the main stage (though if they do that, they should improve the shade that is available there).  The Latin Stage – the one down by the River – had a certain party vibe going and actually outdrew crowds for the Fountain Stage this year.  A lot of people were crammed onto the boardwalk by the River, just to listen.

Friday night’s Latin Stage ended with a great Cumbia band from Los Angeles.

I really do think there is enough fine talent in Louisville to fill up all three stages, all three days.  The last performance every night (I am just giving you Your Humble Servant’s opinion) should be a group from out of town, new to the City – really good ones.

There was no India Day at the Belvedere this year, so it was nice to see some Indian representation here, from Vindhya Katta and her Nachale Bollywood dance group; as well as Akila Iyer, dancing under the name Guru Vandana – in the Indian dance-form of Bharatanatyam (you know, you’ve seen it — the women dancers dress elaborately, very ornately, wearing facial jewelry, and foregrounding a lot of arm and body movements that are Egyptian-like:  side-to-side head and neck movements and eyebrow involvement – stunning ornate beauty).

I thought one of the rarest, most exciting performances was the one early Saturday afternoon at the Fountain Stage by the Bhutanese Society of Kentucky.  They had a variety of dancers, singers, harmonium- and tabla-players, and other types of musicians, who gave insight into a genre of music most people probably don’t know too much about.  This is the heart of what World Fest, at its best, is all about.  Apropos that very thing, Louisville’s Peruvian Cultural Group/Flute Quartet, headed by Penelope Quesada – I never knew these guys existed! — and incorporating dance in traditional costumes, was for me the sort of exciting discovery that World Fest can offer.

As among the closing acts of Saturday night, it was a killer deciding who to see, all were so good.  First was Comparsa, a Latin fusion band from Charleston, WV, that really rocked the Fountain Stage.  Their bandleader, Eduardo Canelón, recorded the music from their performance and posted it on their Reverbnation page:

http://www.reverbnation.com/;comparsa

Second – local salsa band Cosa Seria – mucho popular — had their loyal following dancing from heel to toe (on the Latin Stage, of course).  The third not-to-be-missed act, on the Main Stage, was Funkadesi, from Chicago, with their World Fusion hybrid(s) – what can I say?  Just check them out online, they’re a real fusion band – any style you can think of, they probably play.

My only complaint with World Fest, musically, this year is that they’re still relying too heavily on tired (no, let’s just say ‘crappy’) Celtic acts from outside of Louisville, instead of on much better, local, real Celtic bands from Louisville & outside.  What I’m trying to discourage here is not Celtic, but that sort of mediocre Celtic knock-off music that’s sort of like the Worldbeat Top 40 (you know, ‘Me Boys’ stuff; Rovers, carned beef n’ cabbage, all that maudlin, homespun stuff) — when, locally (or even not locally), the real thing is available.  Does anybody really truly enjoy that shit?

Sunday afternoon’s weather started out promising.  And that was great because Sunday’s line-up was really, really good:  things like, opera soprano Lydia Cepeda and local Bosnian pianist Muhamed Braco Skopljak, aka ‘The Professor’; Appalatin!; the Palma Project, in one of their best performances I’ve yet seen; and the Sudanese Rebaba Project, comprised of former South Sudanese Lost Boys, who’ve been here of course now for a decade.  (I’ve heard that the Mayor especially enjoyed their performance.)

Louisville has not one, but two Vietnamese pop bands – and it’s a real treat to see one of them performing at World Fest.  Never tried it?  It’s quirky, eccentric, schmaltzy(! – bet you weren’t expecting that one), and hypnotic.  Local South End Vietnamese pop band The Nguyen Brothers closed World Fest – until the rain drove everyone away.

But I’ve saved what I thought was one of the very best performances of the entire weekend till last:  that from Gypsy guitarist Misha Feigin – once justly famed in the Soviet Union.  This was his first performance at WorldFest since 2004 – and it’s great to have him back onstage there, where he belongs.

Overall, World Fest, in terms o the mix of food vendors, local cultural stalls, and the music, made for a very relaxed, relaxing vibe.  The culture stalls were very interestingly informative about the various world organizations.  My one complaint here is that, with regard to the lineup of crafts, they appeared (with some notable exceptions like my friend Fernando Moya’s of Appalatin) to be largely out-of-towners selling the substandard.

My friend Jonathan, on his volition, for his love of Louisville, food, and other cultures recorded & visited every single ethnic restaurant in the city and put them in one pamphlet.  (There have been since others that opened since this one has been published).  You need this pamphlet — it contains restaurants the LEO refuses to put in its yearly restaurant guide — don’t hesitate to Facebook him at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=176700595

I’ll sum up about World Fest by sharing a comment a friend of mine posted on Facebook:

WorldFest > the State Fair; WHO KNEW!?!

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On the Road with Appalatin:  Boulevard Tavern & WV’s Culture Fest

It’s amazing to see how far Appalatin has come in the past year.  When first I saw them, at the Americana Fest, they were still obscure even though they had been around for four years at that point.  They were in the process of recording their first album – but, since its release, and their cover for LMN in January, they’ve become one of the hottest bands in Louisville and are now on their first gigs outside the Metro area.

A couple of recent ones, over the weekend Sept. 9-11, took them to the State of West Virginia.  Appalatin and West-By-God’s vibrant contemporary (and traditional) music milieu make for a natural fit.

Their first show was at the Boulevard Tavern, along the Kanawha River in Charleston, on Friday, Sept. 9 – local NPR welcomed them by giving them a promotional spot.  WV NPR, which is very popular there, has since followed up with a piece about them — http://www.wvpbmedia.com/news/2011/IA0917Appalatin.mp3

The gig at the Boulevard Tavern was absolute fun.  Appalatin typically plays about an hour and a half – but on this occasion they did not like the Romans, but like the West Virginians do, and knocked people’s socks off for nearly the next three hours!

This local musicianship-marathoning in the Mountain State derives from the time-honored tradition whereby local fiddlers, banjo-players, and hill-hidden music virtuosos of all sorts decide periodically on some meeting place – unadvertised, unannounced, and, to all but the savvy, unknown – back in the hinterland; drive up there in their pick-ups, with their dogs; set up camp; take out their instruments – and jam together, in varying combinations, as the mood takes them, for the next one, or two, or three days – unheard by anybody.

But back to the Boulevard.  The first improvisational high point of Appalatin’s performance was when Fernando picked up the booking agent’s washboard and started playing it.

The second was when three random, individual local musicians got up out of the audience and went up onstage and started playing with them (rhythm guitarist Marlon had to sit down and trade places with them for a while, to make space).

But don’t feel like you’ve missed out on all the fun.  So great a time does Appalatin have with this kind of jamming, they have signed on for a new weekly gig at ZaZoo’s, Thursday’s, as a way to collaborate with other artists in town.

And – if you want to imbibe some of the flavor of hearing Appalatin in that other ‘zoo’ setting, – Appalatin will be returning to the Boulevard Tavern in Charleston in January.

Then – on to Culture Fest.  Held at a campground just outside of (beautiful, scenic) Pipestem, WV.  Homey.  Part Hootenanny, part World Fest – yeah, pretty much an Appalachian World Fest.

I have heard that attendance at this year’s Culture Fest, which has been around since, I think 2003 or 04, was down; but, judging by the bands – both their quality and how much they obviously enjoyed it — you would never have known.

And it was there that the other two peak moments in audience participation over this memorable weekend broke out:  first, when a male hula-hoop dancer with blonde braids got up and began hh-dancing.  (You’d have to know the State, but it may be that hula hooping never went out there, in the first place.)

And — just when I was thinking audience participation doesn’t get any better than what I’d already witnessed — this guy 12 feet tall, playing the vuvuzela, and wearing a clown outfit got up and starting dancing on stilts.  West Virginians, like Louisvillians, really do know how to party.

The event is organized by Lori McKinney and her husband, Robert Blankenship (of Option 22, who recently performed here in Louisville at LMN ‘s Worldbeat Showcase at the Rudyard Kipling) – and they do a super job:  bringing in talent like Dream Job, from Pittsburgh; Rattlemouth, from Richmond, VA; and, especially, the all-Native American group from Pembroke, NC, Dark Water Rising:  http://www.reverbnation.com/darkwaterrising – THIS IS A BAND TO WATCH.

It’s a testament to what a great band Louisville has produced in Appalatin, how much musicians from first-rate groups like those that appeared at Culture Fest want to play with them.

Appalatin has a new bassist, Mason Roberts.  As much as I liked Mario, the musician previously in that spot, as being not only a fine musician, but also someone who personally exudes an almost-magical level of happiness and joy, it’s nice to have a contrast in Roberts, whose deep, somber tones both ground and round-out the band’s sunny, playful character, and contribute a subtle complexity to their sound that is a hallmark ingredient in Appalachian music.

Alright, enough of that!