"Playing for Change"
Yesterday's edition of Bill Moyers Journal included one of the most arresting features I have ever seen on TV. In the segment in question, Moyers presented lengthy excerpts from "Playing for Change: Peace Through Music," a film produced by Mark Johnson, a sound producer/engineer and film director.As explained at the Bill Moyers Journal website:
"Playing for Change" "brings together musicians from around the world — blues singers in a waterlogged New Orleans, chamber groups in Moscow, a South African choir — to collaborate on songs familiar and new, in the effort to foster a new, greater understanding of our commonality.You can watch the "Stand By Me" portion of the film in the video below. A transcript of Moyers' interview with Johnson is here.
Johnson traveled around the globe and recorded tracks for such classics as "Stand By Me" and Bob Marley's "One World" — creating a new mix in which essentially the performers are all performing together — worlds apart. Often recording with just battery-powered equipment, Johnson found musicians on street corners or in small clubs and they would in turn gather their friends and colleagues — in all, they recorded over 100 musicians from Tibet to Zimbabwe.
All of the "Stand By Me" performers are wonderful. I found myself especially taken with "Grandpa Elliot" Small, a New Orleans street musician.
Labels: Africa, Arts, Asia, Collaboration, Latin America
<< Home