In 1990, the BBC
broadcast the ‘One World One Voice’ documentary, a documentary to raise awareness of environmental issues. It was followed by an almost hour long chain of music, initially started as a tape by Kevin Godley (“10CC”) which he then shared with fellow musicians around the world. And quite a bit of musicians helped along: the list is so long, a good start is the Wikipedia article.
The result of all this, or rather, the mix is fairly good: there are highlights like Salif Keita’s piece and there are parts that could have been omitted (New Frontier). But the most outstanding part of the album is the Finale, which features Japanese Kodo drummers mixed in with a 2 minute or so classical piece performed by the Leningrad Symphony Orchestray. And not surprisingly, that’s today’s ‘Past the Bridge’ piece (
One world one voice 30+ some seconds). I’ve waited for a long time to see this clip appear on the Internet, but I guess, if you’re patient, everything will end up here: if you’re more interested in seeing the clip, or rather the whole documentary, try Youtube, of course.
I used to have the whole CD on one MD disk and if I was in a good mood I used to listen to the album from the beginning to the end: I don’t think a lot of people appreciated that, particularly when the voice of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan faded in. Not that I loved his music, but it fitted quite well within, well, everything. I was not too old then, barely leaving my teenage years. An excellent age to discover World Music. An excellent age to terrorize fellow-train passengers with the sounds of World Music. An excellent age to discover that where ever music is played in the world, the notes always seem to overlap and that musical tunes, no matter where and how they are played, are truly universal.