The Dog Beneath the Skin

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 344, 25 January 1946, Page 8

The Dog Beneath the Skin

HAT the announcer unfortunately insisted on calling "A Panaroma of Latin-American music," was, with its commentary, one of the most interesting and informative broadcasts 3YA has had for some time. The recordings for the most part tangos, sambas, guarachos, congas and other dances-illustrated the commentary, and the whole was a study in primitivism; (for Latin-American

music is founded largely on the rhythms of Indians and Africans-Inca religious dances, laments of subjugated Amazonian and Mexican tribes, the drum-beats and choruses of negro slaves -and some-

times on their interaction, to judge from the Brazilian samba, whose name is derived from the caste name for those of mixed Indian and negro blood. All this is overlaid, first by imported European motifs, which appear enervated by comparison when-as in the Argentine bolero or the beguine of French Martinique-they have remained apart, unmixed with the primitive rhythms; and, secondly, by the veneer of sophistication imposed by the modern commercial and professional dance band which spreads these dances abroad. But. again one may speculate whether the sophistication brought by such a style differs so widely .from primitivism after all. The. whole programme, in itself enthralling, brought out the fascinating problem why the American civilisations (North as well as South), so proud of their civilisation, continue to draw their popular music from sources so primitive as to be actually tribal.