Outlaw Social was conceived one evening four years ago at the Lucky Bar in Victoria, when Oliver Swain was made an offer he couldn’t refuse by a pair of young women with good times on their minds.

Yungchen Lhamo didn’t aspire to become a musician. When she was growing up in Tibet in the ’70s and ’80s the singer was more concerned with her Buddhist spiritual practice. But Lhamo’s grandmother knew that the young girl had an exceptionally beautiful voice—one that would sustain her through life, and further enrich the culture of her homeland.

Crosscultural fusion doesn’t get any better than what was heard at Sunday (July 20) morning’s Full Strings Ahead workshop: to the delight of a delirious Stage 6 audience, three ace bands came together to prove that bluegrass and Chinese music are secretly cousins under the skin.

Of all the fine traditional bands to have come out of Quebec in the past decade, Les Chauffeurs à pieds is probably the least known in the rest of the country. According to leader and founder Antoine Gauthier, there are two main explanations for this. The first is that, to maintain a sense of well-being, the trio requires ready access to quality brews from its home province—at festivals especially. As a result, the band hasn’t travelled all that much. The other reason is less colourful.

In the small Moroccan village of Jajouka lives a caste of artists, mostly elderly men, who make music in a tradition that snakes back into the mists of time.

Cirque du Soleil has made music much more present in its latest production, with a clown-faced percussionist who coaxes two teeterboard acrobats with his drumbeats, and a violinist who duels with a whistler while the cast plays wineglasses and Tibetan bells.

Vancouver’s own Zapato Negro rewarded the early birds who flocked to David Lam Park on June 28 with a sizzling presentation of Afro-Cuban jazz. The quintet, led by bassist Allan Johnston, began with a lengthy version of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” that gave the classic a bright Latin face-lift.

If you think you know what a bass sounds like, take a listen to Renaud Garcia-Fons’s brilliant live recording Arcoluz. On several of the tracks you’d swear he was playing a cello or a viola, at times even a violin. But as the DVD that comes with the album reveals, the 45-year-old Frenchman coaxes all the timbres, tones, and textures from a five-string upright double bass.

Herbie Hancock was in an expansive mood at the Vancouver International Jazz Festival’s opening-night gala—at the Orpheum on June 20—and he had every right to be. Just two days before, he’d been named musician of the year by the New York City–based Jazz Journalists Association, while his guitarist, Benin-born Lionel Loueke, was dubbed best up-and-comer.

Intricacy (Moco Loco)

Ahi na’ ma (Independent)

When Coco Zhao started singing jazz standards in Shanghai in the mid ’90s, there were few experienced musicians to accompany him. But things have changed dramatically since that time, and the Chinese megacity boasts one of Asia’s fastest-growing jazz scenes-with Zhao as its brightest star.

To be a leading Cuban jazz pianist, you need to have taught yourself to play a range of contemporary postbop styles and you should have studied for many years at a rigorous classical-music conservatory. But what’s mandatory is that you feel the island nation’s traditional rhythms coursing through your veins.

Singing has long been a crucial part of Ryan Shaw’s life. The 27-year-old soul sensation from Decatur, Georgia, grew up in a devoutly religious family, and before he was in grade school he was already an enthusiastic member of the children’s choir at his local Pentecostal church.

Give ear, old-time fiddlers, blues guitarists, Highland pipe bands, country crooners, Latin percussionists, and a cappella cowboys—this year’s Canadian Folk Music Awards are calling, from afar. The ceremony won’t be held until November 23 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, but for a shot at one of the prizes you’ll need to get your application to the committee by July 4. There are 19 categories in all, including Pushing the Boundaries and Young Performer of the Year.

An interview with Billy Bragg feels like a brisk walk with him through England—in time as well as space. As his semi-autobiographical 2006 book The Progressive Patriot revealed, the bard of Barking is fascinated by history—not the stuff of kings and battles, but where and how the commoners lived, fought for their rights, and forged an identity. Bragg likes to go back a very long way.

Made in Dakar (Nonesuch)

Getting those first breaks in the music biz is tough for any new band with ambitions. For Americana roots outfit the Wilders, the chances seemed especially limited, as their Missouri/Kansas, base is far from the action in traditional music-industry centres. Soon after forming 10 years ago, the four musicians decided they needed to take a radical approach to attracting attention.

Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares builds a legend using uniquely powerful techniques.

The map of northern Europe reveals a lot about Denmark and its population. The low-lying country of 5.5 million people is located in a strategic position between the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and no town or village is more than 70 kilometres from the ocean.

On a recent holiday, Steve Dawson—guitar maestro and founder of local label Black Hen Music—had the bright idea of putting together a tribute album to one of his favourite bands, the Mississippi Sheiks.

A concert to benefit Lawrence Anthony, the long-time production manager of the Coastal Jazz & Blues Society who—as reported in the Straight’s May 1 edition—recently suffered a brain hemorrhage, will take place on Saturday (May 17) at the Ironworks (235 Alexander Street). The event will feature local jazz, rock, and world-music acts, and Steven Hill of Leaky Heaven Circus as MC. For more details, see www.coastaljazz.ca/.

Congolese songwriter Mapumba is one of the strongest new voices out of Africa, an artist who knows what he wants and won’t accept compromises. When he couldn’t find a producer who shared his musical vision, he decided to make his debut album on his own. This entailed not only financing the project but studying sound engineering and building a home studio—then playing every instrument on the 12 original compositions.

Extraordinary Rendition (Cumbancha)

For Zakir Hussain, the tabla is more than a percussion instrument with an extraordinary range of tones, timbres, and pitches. The Indian maestro regards the paired hand drums as faithful, lifelong companions. He’s never so much as thought of playing anything else.

Staff and friends of the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society were shocked to learn that long-time production manager Lawrence Anthony suffered a brain hemorrhage on April 18. “It happened at Festival House on Granville Island,” the society’s media director, John Orysik, told the Straight.

Mike Silverman, a.k.a. That 1 Guy, takes the tradition of the one-man band and hurls it into the future. The Californian musician, whose latest album is titled The Moon Is Disgusting, is the inventor and master of an astonishing metallic contraption he has dubbed the Magic Pipe. With this technologically enhanced instrument, he creates songs and soundscapes rich in tribal beats, dance grooves, and percussive rhythms.

Banjo player and bandleader Alison Brown is usually tagged as a bluegrass musician, but she’s a more diverse artist than that. Her original acoustic music brings together bluegrass, jazz, folk, country, pop, old-time, Celtic, and even Latin flavours. In lesser hands, that could be a recipe for stylistic inconsistency.

Welcome Here Again (Green Linnet)

Multi-instrumentalist Kurai Mubaiwa, one of Vancouver’s leading African musicians, received some bad news last month. His former partner had died of malaria in Zimbabwe, leaving their eight-year-old daughter, Nyasha, in danger. “I’m so very afraid for her,” Mubaiwa—who came to Canada from Zimbabwe as a refugee in 2002—told the Straight.

Kevin Burke is upbeat about the current state of Celtic music. Though its mass appeal may have waned over the past decade, the veteran Irish fiddler notes that its hard-core following is on the rise. He sees a movement back to the genre’s community roots in reaction to glitzy international stage productions like Riverdance, while at the same time there’s a greater appreciation of the diversity of Celtic tradition.

Angélique Kidjo is in overdrive. The New York–based African chanteuse has just won a Grammy for best contemporary world album for Djin Djin, and the requests for interviews are growing exponentially. So she doesn’t waste time tiptoeing around the question of how she bagged one of the music industry’s top prizes with her ninth release.

Indo-Canadian singer Kiran Ahluwalia wants her husband, Rez Abbasi, to get his artistic due. After last year’s release of her third album, Wanderlust, the media focused almost exclusively on the more exotic new elements in the music, such as the use of Portuguese fado musicians on three tracks and the trancelike Saharan groove of “Teray Darsan”. But they overlooked the contribution of her guitarist spouse, whose influence on the recording is everywhere.

For more than 50 years, New York City’s East Harlem neighbourhood has been a crucible for Latin music. Better known as Spanish Harlem, or simply El Barrio (the ’hood), this community gave rise to boogaloo, Latin soul, and the hot salsa that conquered the world’s dance floors with the songs of Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, and their peers. The 13-piece Spanish Harlem Orchestra is dedicated to bringing back the vintage salsa dura sound of the ’70s, and taking it further.

Soon afterward Buchbinder discovered klezmer and founded the Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, in which he continues to play. Instinctively, he gave the songs he was performing a subtle Afro-Cuban feel, but it would be many years before he took things further

La Bottine Souriante's Yves Lambert returns with his hot acoustic quintet

Every gesture has spiritual meaning for the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey

What's in a name? Three years ago, when DJs Nils von Hahn, Tarun Nayar, Lady Ra, and Adrian Blackhurst decided to create a worldbeat fusion collective, they needed the right moniker one that would encapsulate their outlook and stick in the public mind. At a brainstorming session von Hahn hit the bull's-eye with Beats Without Borders. The tag had an alliterative hook, and gave a clear indication of the four spinners' music and ethos.

The subtle interactions between the six tuxedoed and brightly bow-tied musicians, their dancing eyebrows and impish glances, lit a fuse of humour that burned throughout their presentation of sacred and profane compositions.

The globetrotting Aubele lived away from his beloved Buenos Aires for six years–first in Berlin, and then in Barcelona. He quickly landed a recording contract, though it wasn't with a European label. Since the late '90s, when he started working as a DJ to supplement his income as a guitar teacher back home, he'd been an aficionado of the tripped-out dub sounds of Washington, DC's Thievery Corporation, in particular its album The Mirror Conspiracy

Afro-Cuban troupe Yoruba Andabo follows tradition with its spirit-infused movement.

La Radiolina (Radio Bemba)

For Viji Prakash, bharata natyam­–the classical dance of southwestern India–knows no cultural boundaries. The director of the U.S.–based Shakti Dance Company has choreographed South Asian takes on Cinderella, The Nutcracker, and Peer Gynt. Five years ago, she was asked to write a piece for the opening of an Asian art exhibition in Los Angeles, and chose as her narrative the life of North Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama, better known as the Buddha.

Marcel Khalifé is not only a hugely popular artist throughout the Arab world, he's also a controversial figure. The Lebanese composer and oud player has faced criminal prosecution three times–in 1996, 1999, and 2003–for insulting Islamic values with his composition "I Am Joseph, O Father". The song, based on a poem by Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish, quotes two verses from the Koran–an inclusion deemed blasphemous by some. Kha­lifé was acquitted on each occasion.

Jerez de la Frontera in southern Spain is chiefly known as the capital of sherry, the fortified wine that takes its name, in anglicized form. But the Andalusian city of some 200,000 inhabitants is also one of the major centres of flamenco. It's home to three of the artists coming to this year's Vancouver Flamenco Festival: singer Manuel Tañe, dancer Adriana Maresma, and guitarist Juan Antonio Gomez.

Eliza Carthy is one of the linchpins of the English folk scene–leading her own tradition-based band the Ratcatchers, and performing with her mum, singer Norma Waterson, and her dad, legendary singer and guitarist Martin Carthy, in the band Waterson: Carthy. As if that's not enough to keep her busy, on her upcoming swing through British Columbia the 32-year-old singer and fiddler will be playing in the new duo she's formed with her partner, Victoria-born Aidan Curran.

Lache Cercel was 17 when he first heard the music that would change his life. At the time, the classically trained Romanian violinist was performing in Black Sea resorts, with a repertoire of light-opera pieces and classical themes, well-known Eastern European folk tunes, and a touch of Roma (Gypsy) music though nothing too wild or dark. In the 1970s, under the regime of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, it all had to be safe, state-approved fare.

Loudon Wainwright III's sardonic wit has a way of getting under people's skins and sticking in their minds. The veteran actor and folksinger-songwriter–best known for his paean to road kill, "Dead Skunk"–celebrates life's oddities and ironies with lyrics that oscillate between humour and pathos.

While few classic-rock fans may have heard of Bert Jansch, at least one song by the veteran Scottish folk guitarist is familiar to disciples of Led Zeppelin. That's because–at least, according to one side of the story–Jimmy Page ripped off Jansch's brilliant Irish lament "Blackwaterside" in its entirety, renaming it "Black Mountain Side" and taking full credit for both music and arrangement on the band's 1969 eponymous debut album. A lawsuit ensued.

For as long as she can remember, Nigerian-born Maobong Oku has been fascinated by dance and music–drumming, especially. "From my early childhood onwards, anywhere there was a drum, I was there. I would run from the house into the street whenever I saw or heard a masquerade [a procession of masked figures and percussionists], and I would follow it. I'd come back really late and get into trouble–but I kept on doing it."