Club Med X

Calvi's 13th century citadel

I promised you this one. The best place to finish your Club Med tour is 'Chez Tao', a classy restaurant up in the citadel of Calvi, Isle of Corsica (France). I visited the city a few times. The restaurant has some magic because of its many 1950's celeb visitors. It's now probably soaked with tourists.
You just let the music play from their homepage and you get the idea; classy, worldly, exotic, oriental, local, jazzy, magic. It's not easy to get a table [that's a good thing] but then - from the terrace - you get the ultimate mediterranean experience, with a superb view on Calvi bay.

Club Med IV

Kocani Orkestar, Macedonia

This album actually triggered me to do the Club Med series. The Kocani Orkestar is from Macedonia, a small country with borders to Greece. It's actually a Balkan country, semi-Mediteranian. They play an amazing mix of contemporary Jazz and their rootz music with lots of brass and wood. It just brought me down on my knees.

- This is a nice one from the tube to get you acquainted with these guys. I guess "bellyjazz" is not far from the spot.
- The Red Bull song sounds very sexy [17MB.] and you already can hear the bellydance music from Turkey and Lebanon.
- Their "Kocani Orkestar meet Paolo Fresu & Antonello Salis" album is big and comes in two parts of 90MB. each.

Enjoy

Club Med IX

Jewish Chick, Uitjes in het Zuur

I love the girls and I dont't want to skip Israel in my Club Med travels. Pretty difficult, because Israel has not much of a music culture of its own, the country just started in 1948. So here are just a few misc. songs;
- Mantovani, Fiddler_On_The_Roof
- Dutch, Amsterdam, Jiddish

Enjoy

Club Med II

I Muvrini, March 2008

OK, here we go, starting with the isle of Corsica (south of France).
I made about five holiday trips in my earlier years to this great island. There I was treated with some life sings at my med-beach-bar in Calvi. So great memories. And I have another story up my sleeve about the restaurant there way up the Calvi citadel.

I Muvrini is a world-famous band from Corsica. They play local and traditional music in their own Corsican language, acapella, voices only, polyphonics etc. all great stuff.

1. I Muvrini - Fiaccule Di Speranza (acapella)
2. I Muvrini - Requiem (acapella)
3. I Muvrini - Rispondimi Ie (with choir & music)

And this song just grabs you by the balls / by the tits (volume up);
4. I Muvrini - Ecco Bella

Oh (btw) they made this Amsterdam song, probably a cover from Jaques Brel;
Amsterdam - by I Muvrini
Amsterdam - by Jaques Brel

I must make a blog about JB - he was so great

Enjoy

Club Med VI

Pristina, 28.06.2004

Belo Platno is a folk band from Kosovo (where Serbian and Albanian friends were killing each other). If it was not for this music, I would have skipped these black pages in history.
- this is a nice song
- and another one [with a bunch of local instruments]
Both joyfull songs from these tormented regions.

Enjoy

Club Med V

Before we are crossing the Aegean See, we strole around in Greece. This is Herodote territory. He had a great story about the 20 year adventures of King Sailor Odysseus of Ithaca.
Odysseus had himself bound to the mast of his ship by his crew while passing The-Island-Of-The-Sirens to avoid the temptations of their sexy sounds.
When he got home after 20 years, he killed all the lovers of his wife Penelope with a bow & arrow, so heavy, only he could handle it properly [just wondering what he did with his wife].
Wow - so great stories.

Here is a Great Greek Folk album; Domna Samiou - Kaneloriza. The nice thing is that the .rar expands into Greek language tokens which is totally incomprehandeable for non-Greek people. Here is just a sexy sounding song to get you some idea.

[Greece = no belly-dance, but we are very close now]

Enjoy

Club Med VII

Sophia, Constantinople; mixture of Byzantine and Orthodox Christianity

At last we arrived in bellydance country. Now I need your guidance. This style of music goes all over the south-eastern mediterranian; Turkey, Anatolia, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and many other countries around the Mediterranean. There are definite regional and historical styles that we (from Amsterdam) can not keep apart. If you want to comment, please feel free.

- World Championship Bellydancing, 2008, Lebanon-TV (tube)
- Fadwa is from Morocco - but she was too sexy ... ;)
- Hot song from a 'Best-Of' belly album - it made my girl move

Enjoy

Club Med

This is a new project. I will post a Mediterranean music tour. I had already had some stuff on my HD and now I found some more. It is generally called 'world-music' and this strange music sometimes just grabs you right by the balls / tits. I try to restrict myself to the surroundings of the Mediterranean Sea to keep it a manageable project; and it includes some of my belly dance favorites ... ;-)

You have to Wiki, Google and find additional information for yourself, because it's all pretty exotic stuff (they are world famous in their village). Here are just a few songs to let you know what to expect;

[1] This is the 20MB./8:00min. live Gajda song from the Macedonian Kocani Orkestar. The hottest parts are in the end.
[2] This is the polyphonic song Fiaccule_Di_Speranza from the I Muvrini band from the isle of Corsica. I blogged them before but most links are dead.
[3] Belo Platno is from South Serbia and makes some great folk music. Here is their Gugu Tino song.

Enjoy

Club Med VIII

tribal-fusion is a western style of belly dancing, this gal has some workshops for you

Here is a great 2CD mix of original 'Best Belly Dances in the World'. That means - from all the countries around the medditerranian sea (still not sure about the countries & styles).

There is a USA chapter about belly dancing, but that has to do with some post-feminist, tree-hugging, work-shop, look-at-my-fat-body, I-am-so-great-because-Oprah-Winfrey-told-me-so stuff.

I will maybe post some of these later NOT. Here is a nice tube with Shakira & Beyonce with some belly dance sounds.

Here are the belly originals;
- A sample song from CD1
- CD1 is about 70MB. with 7 tracks (with some pics)

- A sample song from CD2
- CD2 is about 95MB. with 11 tracks (without pics)

- Sandra = Super (LBC clip from the tube)
- Estelle = In my Haram (LBC clip from the tube)
- Hizzi = Hotty (LBC clip from the tube)
- Maroccan Hottties (clip from the tube)

Enjoy.

Club Med III

The Quaker Boys, 1928

I had the Canto Malavita album in mind for this blog. But now I remember that I posted it a some time ago. It's a very local and folkish type of music from Italy about 'Ndrangheta, Camurra and Mafia. There was recently an impressive (natural) movie about Napolitan Camurra that I still have to hunt down.
The (poor) south should be the opposite from the (rich) north of Italy, but PM Berlusconi recently showed that half of the Italians are still potential fascist criminals.
The Non Su' Lupu song really makes your feet move.
"Funny guys these Romans" (Obelix).
Enjoy the great music.

Dance

I smell a connection between Turkish belly-dance and Spanish Flamenco. No it’s not that far apart. Take a look at this 2009 dance of Didem . I am a fan of hot music dance. Didem is a top belly-dancer from Turkey and a good reason why Turkey should join the EU.

I blogged this theme before; like jazz, belly-dancing has many roots and styles around the Mediterranean Sea [club med] that are not easily understood by our northerners. I think it’s just plain sexy.

Flamenco is a sing & dance style (many styles) from the South of Spain with definitely Moorish influences. I was not surprised there was a connection with belly-dancing. Spanish Flamenco also brought us many famous guitar players. Take a look at this impressive guitar clip with Paco Lucia .

Enjoy