World Music DJ Baba Ganoush…
It’s later than you think, but never too late to dance!
The idea of Baba Ganoush as a DJ stems from my long-standing interest in world music, a love of dancing and providing music for my own parties and events using my laptop and Fender Passport 150w PA system. The first LP that I ever bought was the Rolling Stones first album in 1964. Not long after, while browsing in the HMV store in Oxford Street, I bought an LP of Arabic music on a whim featuring artists like Oum Khulthum and Farid al-Atrash. I loved the atmospheric sound of the oud and the strangeness of the music compared to what I was used to listening to.
The track below by Farid Al-Atrash struck me, beginning with a tango style arrangement then into the beautiful oud and sweeping strings and sustained heartbreaking vocal at 3.07 minutes in. It still brings me out in goosebumps more than 50 years later.
Also back in the late 60s, I played tambourine and occasionally triangle in the nascent and unfortunately short-lived rock band Scantily Clad. As an all male band we could never agree on our stage costumes. It was a learning curve.
Going back further, my parents were fond of playing Winifred Atwell’s ragtime piano pieces at their regular parties on our old gramophone and I was a fan of Elvis Presley. I had a collection of picture-sleeve 45’s that I had purchased while on holiday in Italy in 1963. We travelled to Italy by train as part of our package holiday.
Now in my 70s, I have been collecting music for more than 50 years and from that early experience with Arabic music, unafraid to take a risk in buying music that I suspect would be good even if I’m sometimes left with stuff that only gets played once, the gems that have been found are worth the effort and the expense.
Another major early influence on my musical taste and knowledge was my dear friend Andrew Weiner whose experimental listening and early rock journalism in the late 1960s brought much new music to the awareness of our friendship group. Now sadly no longer with us, thank you Andrew, always with us in the beat, in the rhythm and in the heart, where the music hits…
My interest in world music is influenced by my travels around north Africa, the middle east and Asia and my training in Biodanza that introduced me to the music of Latin America and of course anything that is good to dance to.
So the Baba plays African soukous, hi-life and funk, Latin fusion, salsa, cumbia, bomba, merengue, boogaloo, Brazilian percussion and Samba and even some stuff that you might actually know! Also Nu-jazz, Swing, good old-fashioned R & B and Jazz classics with some early Stones, Chuck Berry and even the occasional jig and reel thrown in to shake up the mix!
The video below of me ‘busting some moves’ is from the after party at the recent European Playback Theatre Gathering held in Sofia, Bulgaria. I was the DJ and inadvertantly played the track Rockit by Herbie Hancock while searching for something else on my iPod.
Sorry no vinyl, the Baba is too old for that malarkey but your fave CD tracks can possibly be incorporated into a playlist in advance. NB, I do not twiddle any knobs, everything is good to go, I just play music that is great to dance to and have fun… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se1EZCE_zLo
By the way, there has been a rumour going round that the Baba has in the past smoked aubergines. Baba’s lawyers robustly refute this completely unfounded assertion and issued the following statement that even if it were true, he didn’t inhale.
email via the contact form and the Baba will get back to you…
