Haiti 3: Songs Haiti / Various

The Ayida Group, a troupe folklorique of Port-au-Prince that sprung (with many similar troops) out of a 1930's - '40s social movement revaluing traditional cultural practices as critical artistic expression, demonstrates religious and dance music's associated with the deities of Vodoun. In addition, a blind troubadour and the Jazz Majestic play popular meringue-s and an itinerant Rara band comprised of saxophone, trumpet, drums and whistle plays in the streets for the pre-Mardi Gras festival. Folklorist, ethnographer and ethnomusicologist Harold Courlander, known for his important early work documenting the "vast unwritten literature, dances, music" of the Haitian peasants, released these field recordings from the urban cities and mountain villages of Haiti before nearly any other recordings were available.