As a young girl who wanted to walk the dangerous path of sin and sloth, I was often reminded by my parents that I should emulate a lotus. My father used to put all of us kids through the paces of this oft-repeated call-response dialogue - with me bored, yawning, and already tired of the Lecture to come.
Never did I imagine that I would be the one recounting my father's story one day. I had to come halfway across the world, to find a place which actually follows my parents' wise teachings. Everyday the WCBN lotus rises above the surrounding swamp of commercial radio from which it stems, and raises the consciousness of the citizens of Ann Arbor through different kinds of music from all over the world.
When I first joined WCBN-FM, Ann Arbor in 1992, it was to co-host the Francophone music show, 'Radio Libre Ann Arbor'. After 2 years of this, I felt that there was a void in the programming - why was the Indian Subcontinent, with its rich musical traditions and its enormous impact on the music of the world, not represented? Therefore, as many others before me at CBN have done, and will continue to do, I created a new show titled 'Sounds of the Subcontinent'. That is one of the secrets of the vitality of this station - we change avatars according to the world we live in - and today's "global village" demands a fuller representation of the globe in the village of Ann Arbor.
The world is a big place, its peoples and cultures too diverse to be contained in just one day. This little write-up of our Sunday shows doesn't even begin to describe the depth, range and scope of the music out there or in here. What we do at CBN is a modest little effort to bring you the world, in any small way we can. Come walk the world with us! SUNDAYS are very special - dedicated specifically to the music of the world outside our immediate one, spinning non-stop all around the globe from 9 am till midnight. An appropriate start to the Sunday lineup is Café International (9-10), a musical travel-interview program, where host Dan Rosenberg features music, travel stories and interviews from his recent trips. In less than 4 years, he has been to 20 countries in 5 continents where he has interviewed more than 500 artists! This is followed up by Turkish Delight (10-11) with Mert Aksu bringing us freeform lookum from Turkey while on Dromedary Express (11-12), Yalcin Yanikoglu and Randy Baier put on the burnoose to keep out the heat and the sand, and take you where their camels lead! Just as I felt a certain void in our program 4 years ago, this summer we felt we needed to represent a HUGE chunk of Asia which was not being covered - China, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, etc. Thus rolled in the Tsunami Dream (12-1), with Randy Baier bringing in tidal waves of music from eastern lands afar!
From there, we fly back closer home - Michel Château's Radio Libre, Ann Arbor (1-2) has been bringing Francophone music from Louisiana, Quebec, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Senegal, French Guyana, the Caribbean, Reunion, .... for 10 years now! Then we have Tex inciting the world to dance at the Ann Arbor Polka Party (2-3) with honky-style polkas from Chicago and Toledo, Slovene swing from Cleveland, polka pop from Welk and his crowd, glittering Eastern-style polkas from Connecticut and New York . . and we link it all to contemporary Latino polkas from Texas, Mexico, and elsewhere. All Aboard! The Jaffa Jive (3-4) boat either stays anchored in the old port of Jaffa just south of Tel Aviv, or sails with Ilan Rosenberg to the shores of Greece, Lebanon, Egypt so we can get a full flavour of the Eastern basin of the Mediterranean, North Africa and even Eastern Europe.
Some of our shows have evolved from one to several hosts over the years, with people growing interest in different kinds of music. Dan Bass, Richard Wallace and I now share Sounds of the Subcontinent (4-6) which brings you the entire Indian Subcontinent as well as world music influenced by this region. And how can one represent the world without oneself in it? What better representation of the USA in Sunday's CBN world than Jazz, and what better representative than that great maestro, Duke Ellington, who toured the world as the US Ambassador of Culture? The Duke is on the Air (6-7) with host Dave Crippen, is a departure point for Open Letter to Duke: Real Black Miracles (7-8) with Lisa Cohen, Paul Friedman, Howie Kaplan and Hakan Uras! The first show features the vast range of Ellington's body of work and its evolution over the years, while the second connects Ellington's ideas and compositions with the out and free jazz of the 70's, the avant-garde of the 90's - all the while demonstrating jazz's immense influence on international music and vice versa.
This also segues gracefully into more Afro-rooted shows - one a hoary tradition, and the other brand new. The CBN tradition, the Pan-African Heartbeat (8-9), has four rotating hosts this summer; Mike Perini, Chris Peterson, Dan Rosenberg and me, with music ranging from juju to soukous, Georgia to South Africa, Santana to the pygmies - from all over the vast and stupendous African Diaspora of the world! In keeping with our CBN musical habits, Chris Peterson just returned from a long stay in Bolivia - amazed that there was so much fantastic music we don't get to hear in our world - he created Inka Kola (9-10) this summer, where he and Fecundo Sepulvera bring us freeform music from Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador!
What better way than to end closer home with a long-standing CBN Show, Radio Caliente (10-midnight) which sizzles with salsa, merengue, Latin jazz and hip-hop, rock en espa–ol, cumbias, mariachi - "lo mejor de la musica latina" - so come join the party! Moreover, the three hosts Lucy Arellano, Manuel Maga–a and Wilson Valentin are committed to inviting guests to the show, from Mariachi Michicano to a speaker on Puerto Rican political prisoners. Radio Caliente continues to go beyond just playing music, and be committed to local and national Latino communal struggles.
So, do you know where your jewel lies? Wake up and smell the flowers!
Every Sunday 9 am - midnight, WCBN-FM, 88.3 Ann Arbor.