Just Looking for a Little Grammy Respect

The Grammy winners will include a world music artist or two when the awards are handed out Feb. 21, but don’t expect to see or hear them on the televised show. As with jazz, classical and folk, the world music honors will be presented during a far less visible afternoon ceremony and briefly acknowledged during the prime-time presentation.

This comes as no surprise, of course, given the sponsoring National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences’ tendency to correlate awards with numbers. Sales equal visibility, and world music, like jazz and classical, does not represent a large percentage of record sales.

Still, when one looks at the number of categories included in the jazz and classical fields and compares them with the single grouping allocated to world music, something seems a bit awry.

As the motion picture business has discovered, national boundaries no longer have much relevance when it comes to entertainment. Jazz and American and British pop have long been as relevant to the world community as European classical music has been to this country. And to look at it from a different perspective, if international films such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Life Is Beautiful” can carve a place in the American marketplace, why shouldn’t international music have the same potential?

The simple response is that it does. Virtually every major presenting organization in the country relies on world music for a substantial portion of its programming. And performers such as Paul Simon, Sting (nominated in the pop male vocal category for his rendering of a song by Brazilian composer Ivan Lins) and Ry Cooder, among many others, have discovered the value of the 80% or so of the world’s music that is not encompassed by the majority of the Grammy categories.

Because there is just one world music award, five unrelated entries are in competition with each other. The Chieftains are the world’s best-known Irish ensemble, touring the world for more than three decades. Joa~o Gilberto’s guitar and voice were vital to the creation of bossa nova in the ‘50s. In the early ‘60s, Miriam Makeba was the first South African artist to gain global recognition. Youssou N’Dour is a Senegalese master of the mbalax pop style. And Paul Winter has been assembling smoothly pleasing blends of jazz and world sounds since he organized the Paul Winter Consort in the late ‘60s.

There’s nothing wrong with those choices. All are veterans, all are masterful artists, and all are deserving of a Grammy. What is bothersome is the fact that with only one category, performers with vastly different styles, goals and histories are placed in an uncomfortable competition. What possible criteria could an academy voter use to make a selection from this lineup of gifted artists?

The situation is exacerbated when world artists are nominated in vaguely related categories. This year, for example, the South African vocal ensemble LadysmithBlack Mambazo and the Cape Breton Celtic fiddler Natalie MacMaster are selections in the traditional folk category. Each, of course, performs traditional music, but is MacMaster’s music more “traditional” than that on one of the Chieftains’ most roots-oriented releases? And why are the Chieftains, rather than MacMaster or Ladysmith, in the world music category?

At the very least, one hopes that the academy will consider adding a few categories in the world music field, including African, Brazilian and perhaps an inclusive category that might be called Mediterranean, embracing everything from fado to the music of Greece and the Middle East. And, while we’re at it, it would hardly be ghettoizing to include a European pop category, which would allow the opportunity to honor some of the fascinating new sounds from that part of the world without having to place them in competition with more highly promoted American product.

Is that too much to ask from an organization that now includes fields devoted to reggae, polka and spoken word, as well as a Latin field that has six categories? Can world music really deserve any less?

Bang on a Drum. Kodo, the taiko drum ensemble, is rattling the walls of UCLA’s Royce Hall through Sunday (reviewed on Page 18). For those who can’t get enough drumming, the ensemble has just released “Kodo Tataku: The Best of Kodo 2,” with 11 selections culled from six albums. The CD includes five tracks previously unavailable in the U.S. Still want more Kodo? Several members of the group will participate in taiko workshops March 1-4 at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center downtown. Information: (213) 628-2725 Ext. 130.