Lecture by Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy
Adjunct Professor, Ethnomusicology
University of California, Los Angeles
Friday, Nov. 15, 2019, 1-3pm
Bake Restudy Continues: Muslims and Music in Malabar
In this multi-media lecture, Professor Catlin will discuss the folksongs called Mappilapattu, recorded in Malappuram, Kerala, on April 19 and 20, 1938, by Arnold Bake, professor of musicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Professor Bake had recorded those songs using singers of Malappuram, Mamburam, Parappanangadi, and Pullangode Estate. Two days later, he recorded some more songs in Kozhikode. He had also collected some Lakshadweep songs as part of that venture. Although many of these songs are unknown today, Professor Catlin led a project whereby a new generation of Mappilapattu singers listened to Bake’s recordings and recorded a fresh version. This venture is part of a larger project to restudy and repatriate the recordings and films done by Arnold Bake.
Amy Catlin-Jairazbhoy’s research, writing, teaching, curatorial activities, and multi-media publications often have an applied focus, aimed at community development of minority traditions, especially in diasporic settings. She curated and presented the first concert and lecture tour outside India of a group of African-Indian Sidi Sufi musicians and dancers from Gujarat in September 2002, traveling with them in England and Wales. Her recent publications include Sidi Sufis: African Indian Mystics of Gujarat (Apsara Media 2002: 79-minute CD), the volume co-edited with Indian Ocean historian Edward Alpers, Sidis and Scholars: Essays on African Indians (New Delhi: Rainbow Publications, 2003), and two DVDs: From Africa to India: Sidi Music in the Indian Ocean Diaspora (2003) and The Sidi Malunga Project (2004), with Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy. Funding for her research has come from such agencies as NEA, NEH, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the American Philosophical Society, Fulbright, the Indo-US Subcommission, and the American Institute of Indian Studies.
Part of the Nazir Ali Jairazbhoy Colloquium Series, sponsored by The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music Department of Ethnomusicology