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  • Music of the Golden Sands: G’ayrat O’temuratov, Azat Seyilxanov: Songs and Melodies from Karakalpak Bards
  • Bruno Deschênes (bio)
Music of the Golden Sands: G’ayrat O’temuratov, Azat Seyilxanov: Songs and Melodies from Karakalpak Bards. Collected by Frédéric Léotar. Ethnic Series. Leiden: Pan Records PAN 2117, 2012. One CD-ROM (55 minutes, 25 seconds). Liner notes 4 pp. (Full liner notes available from Pan Records, info@panrecords.nl.) $15.00.

This CD comes from Frédéric Léotar’s fieldwork in Karakalpakstan, the large western region of Uzbekistan, on the bardic musical tradition, which is [End Page 134] pretty much unknown in the West. He has been doing fieldwork in that region since 2008. In 2009, he released La voix des ancêtres / The Voice of Ancestors—Karakalpakstan, on BUDA Records (on which I commented in Asian Music 42(1):145–48). In that previous CD, Léotar gave an overview of the longstanding bardic tradition of the Karakalpak people. For this title, he opted to present two of today’s great masters of the tradition: G’ayrat O’temuratov, a master duwtar player, and the blind bard Azat Seyilxanov. O’temuratov is a disciple of the late G. Tılewmuratov, while Seyilxanov is a self-taught bard. In this CD Léotar also presents an overview of the aesthetic criteria of the music.

The CD is divided into two parts. The first presents 10 instrumental melodies of the bardic tradition performed by G’ayrat O’temuratov on the duwtar, in the style of his master, Genjebay-baqsi. The second part includes five songs sung by Azat Seyilxanov, who accompanied himself on the duwtar.

O’temuratov is one of the foremost duwtar players today. It is a pear-shaped, 2-stringed lute that is also found among the Uzbeks, Turkmens, Tajiks, and Uighurs. In Karakalpakstan, its body is made of mulberry wood, while the neck can sometimes be made of apricot wood. The strings are metal, and the neck has 13 frets. O’temuratov is the artistic director of the Muxalles Instrumental Ensemble and professor at the Nukus Art College in Karakalpakstan. Many of his students are distinguishing themselves on the local scene as well as internationally. Léotar indicates that the pieces that O’temuratov performs on the CD were selected for their beauty and rarity and, in particular, the pleasure he has in performing them.

Azat Seyilxanov is renowned for his exceptional mastery of vocal technique and knowledge of epics. Born blind, around the age of 10 he felt strongly attracted to the epics he was then hearing on the radio. He is a self-taught musician who started to learn to play the duwtar and trained his voice to sing these epics. This is rare among practitioners in this tradition, which usually places a great emphasis on discipleship with a master. The songs on this CD are the first he has recorded professionally.

Following a short geographic description of the arid region from which these musicians hail, Léotar gives a brief historical overview of two bardic traditions from the region, the baqsi and the jiraw. The baqsi tradition references mainly epic stories and courtly love of the palaces. Bards in this tradition generally accompany themselves on the duwtar. The jıraw are bards of nomadic ancestry and specialize in “heroic” epics. They sing in a rough, guttural voice and accompany themselves on the gobız, a 2-stringed horsehair fiddle. The two musicians heard on this CD are both from the baqsi tradition.

One of the most interesting aspects of Léotar’s presentation of Karakalpakstan music is his focus on the aesthetics of this tradition. He focuses on how these musicians bring the story to life through their [End Page 135] performances in order to delight their audiences. We discover what, in the baqsi tradition, distinguishes a good, “clean,” or “opened” voice from one that is “average,” or from a musician that either “has no voice” or a “flat” voice. Musicians must also show the technical proficiency that the style requires if they want to be appreciated by their audiences. As storytellers, they must use particular...

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