UCLA Ethnomusicology Marks Anniversary With Usual Verve

The UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive celebrated its 40th anniversary Saturday night at the Jan Popper Theater with an entertaining survey of the colorful music that the Ethnomusicology Department brings to the Southland on a continuing basis.

The performers came on stage in quick succession. The UCLA Samulnori ensemble, beautifully garbed, opened with a thunderous bang, offering a powerful display of complex Korean drumming. One of the event’s most impressive performers, erhu soloist Chi Li, followed, employing the distinctive, vocalized sound of her two-stringed, violin-like instrument at the service of arching, pentatonic melodies. Equally compelling: the extraordinary Arabic music of Jihad Racy, playing the sensual-sounding mijwiz , a double-piped Egyptian reed instrument.

Off-center rhythms and keening vocals from Bulgaria surfaced in a performance of gaida (bagpipe) player Ivan Varimezov and singer Tzvetanka Verimezova. Next, highly regarded sitarist Shujaat Khan paired with tabla player Abhimam Kaushal for a too-brief display of North Indian raga playing. World dance was added via an energetic presentation of “Adzohu,” a traditional war dance from Benin, and Indonesian dancing to “Titi Alit,” performed by the UCLA Balinese Gamelan.

This splendid opening was followed by a far less convincing “Tribute to Don Ellis,” the late trumpeter-composer whose collected scores and media have just been acquired by UCLA.

Despite a lineup of artists that included Kenny Burrell and Francisco Aguabella, as well as former associates Milcho Leviev, Glenn Stuart and Fred Selden, Ellis’ trademark adventurousness surfaced only twice--in his “Indian Lady” and “Bulgarian Bulge.” Far too much of the set was devoted to an interminable encounter between the UCLA World Jazz Ensemble and the Balinese Gamelan. Performed in rudimentary 7/4 time, with 11 soloists, it was the antithesis of Ellis’ beautifully crafted explorations of unusual world meters.