Haitian Vodou Music and Ritual.
Anthropologist Elizabeth McAlister is an expert on Haitian Vodou and she's studied Haitian Vodou in Brooklyn and in Haiti. She's compiled a new album of sacred and ceremonial music recorded in Haiti and in New York, "Rhythms of Rapture" and contributed to a new book "Sacred Arts of Haitian Vodou." (Smithsonian Folkways).
Other segments from the episode on February 20, 1996
Dennis Brennan Strikes Out on His Own.
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Dennis Brennan. His new album is "Jack-In-The-Pulpit" (Upstart Records). Brennan names Barry & the Remains, Howlin' Wold, Buck Owens, Otis Redding, and the Stones as his influences. Brennan is from Boston and a review in The Boston Globe calls him "one of the city's foremost melodic-rock songwriters. He has a raw survivor's voice, but he delves under the skin like Elvis Costello. . .then rocks with the populist abandon of Bruce Springsteen and the Stones."
Do The Ceremonies Lead to a Greater Understanding of Black History?
Commentator Gerald Early considers Black History Month.
Transcript
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A Haitian Band with a Bold, New Style.
World music commentator Milo Miles reviews music from Haiti by the group Boukman Eksperyans. ("Vodou Adjae", on the Mango label).
Paul Farmer Examines Haiti 'After The Earthquake.'
The physician and anthropologist has spent 30 years treating patients in Haiti. In Haiti After The Earthquake, he details what it was like on the ground in the days after the 2010 quake — and why the country is still struggling to recover.
Understanding the Haiti Crisis
Kathie Klarreich is a freelance writer who has covered Haiti for more than 15 years. She is a Christian Science Monitor stringer and op-ed writer — and is currently reporting for Time magazine. She'll talk to us from Port-au-Prince.