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The Washington Post
September 29, 2012 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
He collected a continent of rare recordings
by Tara Bahrampour
Long before there was ping-pong diplomacy or perestroika, a short,
balding, Armenian American was lugging an enormous reel-to-reel from
village to village, sweet-talking people into singing and playing for
him.
Leo Sarkisian had the kind of career that today lives only in legend:
Hired by famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, he was paid by the U.S.
government to travel throughout Africa, visiting every country over
half a century and returning with thousands of rare recordings of
music that most of the world had never heard.
On Friday, Sarkisian, 91, officially retired from the Voice of
America, where the weekly radio show he started 47 years ago,"Music
Time in Africa," isVOA's longest-running English-language program.
In Africa, he socialized with presidents, military dictators,
accomplished musicians and tribal villagers. He outwardly steered away
from politics, but under the surface he wove a subtle diplomatic
tapestry based around grooving on tunes.
"So many of them had never talked to an American before," Sarkisian
said Friday morning as colleagues gathered around their desks for a
coffee-and-doughnut send-off. "The embassies wouldn't have
cultural-affairs officers, so the embassies would use me."
Listeners across English-speaking Africa grew accustomed to hearing
the flat A's of Sarkisian's Boston accent, teaching them about the
music of their own countries and those of their neighbors.
"He was the man," said Peter Clottey, a native of Ghana who is now a
reporter for the VOA program "Daybreak Africa" and who listened to
Sarkisian's show in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. "People thought he was
very authentic, and he got to know the musicians firsthand. To hear
your country's music on an international station is a big deal. . . .
Nobody had done that before."
In the words of his wife, Mary, who traveled with him, Sarkisian "just
lucked out." He had enviable leeway, going where he wanted and staying
as long as he liked. Often he was met at the airport by dignitaries
and admirers.
"I step out of the airplane, and there are all the fans and the
military escort into the capital," Sarkisian recalled of an early trip
to Ghana. "VOA, we were so damn important! This was unbelievable. I
hate to get political, but that's gone."
Sarkisian, whose parents emigrated from Turkey early in the 20th
century, had studied art and worked as a commercial artist in New York
and a map-drawer for the Army during World War II.
He took an interest in world music at a time when "foreign music was
kind of a dirty word here," he said, and after he wrote a paper on it,
he was hired by California-based Tempo Records to go abroad and record
music.
Marrying in 1949, he and Mary, also a Massachusetts-born Armenian,
started traveling in the Middle East, where, "in the mountains of
Afghanistan, in the Hindu Kush mountains, she slept in pup tents while
I made sure that the howling wolves wouldn't come in," he recalled.
With a knack for languages, he picked up Farsi and some Arabic, in
addition to the Turkish, Armenian and French he had learned as a
child. As African countries were getting their independence in the
1950s, Tempo sent him to Ghana and then to Guinea, where Murrow caught
up with him.
His wife described the day in 1961 that Murrow, then head of the U.S.
Information Agency, climbed up seven flights of stairs to their
apartment in Conakry, Guinea, because the elevator didn't work. After
listening to some of Sarkisian's recordings, "he said, 'That's
marvelous; it's just like American jazz' - because it was really
jivey," she recalled. Murrow hired him on the spot.
As his wife spoke, Sarkisian smiled and touched her arm. "I'm glad
that I had this little balm with me," he said. "You should have seen
her in some villages where I had a corps of about 35 women. . . . She
would talk to them, put them at ease. Even the women who would come
nursing a baby to the microphone, she put them at ease."
Although they traveled through Africa during sometimes politically
unstable times, the Sarkisians said they never encountered a problem.
Being Armenian was a bonus, because many countries had
well-established Armenian communities eager to help them.
And spending so much time in Africa helped Sarkisian understand the
currents of conflict in Africa well enough to choose music that would
resonate. He played songs from both North and South Sudan during
fighting there and chose songs from particular villages during ethnic
battles in Nigeria.
"The big part of this music is to let them know that we're interested
in them," he said.
He recorded Louis Armstrong performing in Tunis, and he discovered
African musicians who would later become legends themselves, such as
Fela, whom he first recorded in Lagos, "before he was anything."
"It helped raise pan-African awareness . . . and status of some of the
musicians," said Jonathan Kertzer, associate professor of music at the
University of Alberta in Canada and director of its Folkways Alive
center. "He was a true pioneer."
Sarkisian's recordings, which VOA Director David Ensor called "one of
the most valuable and sought-after collections in the world," reside
in the basement of VOA, in the Leo Sarkisian Library of African Music,
and the collection is gradually being digitized by the University of
Michigan's African studies department.
The library is stacked with reels of tape, vinyl records, and art and
hand-carved gifts from African friends. It provides a trove of
material for Heather Maxwell, director for African music for VOA's
English to Africa service who is taking over Sarkisian's role as host
and producer of "Music Time in Africa."
"I just never thought I would be taking up the reins for him," she
said. "It's really an honor." Because of funding cuts and security
concerns, her job is unlikely to entail the same kind of freewheeling
travel that his did.
Standing in the library, Sarkisian leafed through a stack of
handwritten fan letters, many from children. All get replies from
Sarkisian or his wife. "A country like Burkina Faso, with $25 per year
per family, Mary said a little kid in a country like that, he has to
be answered," he said.
"A big thanks to my/our elder brother Leo Sarkisian for his dedication
and untireless work he has done for music time in Africa," wrote a
listener from Zambia.
A listener from Nigeria wrote to "felicitate" the United States on the
killing of Osama bin Laden. "You see, these people are on our side,"
Sarkisian said, holding up the letter. "This is the satisfaction we
get - in making friends with the people who believe in us."
In Bangui, Central African Republic, Sarkisian recalled a radio
director who couldn't quite believe an American had traveled so far
for African music. "He said, 'You came all this way to visit us?' "
Sarkisian said. "I said, 'Yeah, this is what we do.' "
Now, Sarkisian said he plans to do more painting (he has done many
portraits of the Africans he met), and playing the kanun, a 74- string
Middle Eastern lap harp. He drinks a glass of raki every day, has
perfect recall of decades-old phone numbers, and still can't help
raising his arms and shuffling his feet whenever African music plays.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
September 29, 2012 Saturday
Met 2 Edition
He collected a continent of rare recordings
by Tara Bahrampour
Long before there was ping-pong diplomacy or perestroika, a short,
balding, Armenian American was lugging an enormous reel-to-reel from
village to village, sweet-talking people into singing and playing for
him.
Leo Sarkisian had the kind of career that today lives only in legend:
Hired by famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, he was paid by the U.S.
government to travel throughout Africa, visiting every country over
half a century and returning with thousands of rare recordings of
music that most of the world had never heard.
On Friday, Sarkisian, 91, officially retired from the Voice of
America, where the weekly radio show he started 47 years ago,"Music
Time in Africa," isVOA's longest-running English-language program.
In Africa, he socialized with presidents, military dictators,
accomplished musicians and tribal villagers. He outwardly steered away
from politics, but under the surface he wove a subtle diplomatic
tapestry based around grooving on tunes.
"So many of them had never talked to an American before," Sarkisian
said Friday morning as colleagues gathered around their desks for a
coffee-and-doughnut send-off. "The embassies wouldn't have
cultural-affairs officers, so the embassies would use me."
Listeners across English-speaking Africa grew accustomed to hearing
the flat A's of Sarkisian's Boston accent, teaching them about the
music of their own countries and those of their neighbors.
"He was the man," said Peter Clottey, a native of Ghana who is now a
reporter for the VOA program "Daybreak Africa" and who listened to
Sarkisian's show in the 1970s, '80s and '90s. "People thought he was
very authentic, and he got to know the musicians firsthand. To hear
your country's music on an international station is a big deal. . . .
Nobody had done that before."
In the words of his wife, Mary, who traveled with him, Sarkisian "just
lucked out." He had enviable leeway, going where he wanted and staying
as long as he liked. Often he was met at the airport by dignitaries
and admirers.
"I step out of the airplane, and there are all the fans and the
military escort into the capital," Sarkisian recalled of an early trip
to Ghana. "VOA, we were so damn important! This was unbelievable. I
hate to get political, but that's gone."
Sarkisian, whose parents emigrated from Turkey early in the 20th
century, had studied art and worked as a commercial artist in New York
and a map-drawer for the Army during World War II.
He took an interest in world music at a time when "foreign music was
kind of a dirty word here," he said, and after he wrote a paper on it,
he was hired by California-based Tempo Records to go abroad and record
music.
Marrying in 1949, he and Mary, also a Massachusetts-born Armenian,
started traveling in the Middle East, where, "in the mountains of
Afghanistan, in the Hindu Kush mountains, she slept in pup tents while
I made sure that the howling wolves wouldn't come in," he recalled.
With a knack for languages, he picked up Farsi and some Arabic, in
addition to the Turkish, Armenian and French he had learned as a
child. As African countries were getting their independence in the
1950s, Tempo sent him to Ghana and then to Guinea, where Murrow caught
up with him.
His wife described the day in 1961 that Murrow, then head of the U.S.
Information Agency, climbed up seven flights of stairs to their
apartment in Conakry, Guinea, because the elevator didn't work. After
listening to some of Sarkisian's recordings, "he said, 'That's
marvelous; it's just like American jazz' - because it was really
jivey," she recalled. Murrow hired him on the spot.
As his wife spoke, Sarkisian smiled and touched her arm. "I'm glad
that I had this little balm with me," he said. "You should have seen
her in some villages where I had a corps of about 35 women. . . . She
would talk to them, put them at ease. Even the women who would come
nursing a baby to the microphone, she put them at ease."
Although they traveled through Africa during sometimes politically
unstable times, the Sarkisians said they never encountered a problem.
Being Armenian was a bonus, because many countries had
well-established Armenian communities eager to help them.
And spending so much time in Africa helped Sarkisian understand the
currents of conflict in Africa well enough to choose music that would
resonate. He played songs from both North and South Sudan during
fighting there and chose songs from particular villages during ethnic
battles in Nigeria.
"The big part of this music is to let them know that we're interested
in them," he said.
He recorded Louis Armstrong performing in Tunis, and he discovered
African musicians who would later become legends themselves, such as
Fela, whom he first recorded in Lagos, "before he was anything."
"It helped raise pan-African awareness . . . and status of some of the
musicians," said Jonathan Kertzer, associate professor of music at the
University of Alberta in Canada and director of its Folkways Alive
center. "He was a true pioneer."
Sarkisian's recordings, which VOA Director David Ensor called "one of
the most valuable and sought-after collections in the world," reside
in the basement of VOA, in the Leo Sarkisian Library of African Music,
and the collection is gradually being digitized by the University of
Michigan's African studies department.
The library is stacked with reels of tape, vinyl records, and art and
hand-carved gifts from African friends. It provides a trove of
material for Heather Maxwell, director for African music for VOA's
English to Africa service who is taking over Sarkisian's role as host
and producer of "Music Time in Africa."
"I just never thought I would be taking up the reins for him," she
said. "It's really an honor." Because of funding cuts and security
concerns, her job is unlikely to entail the same kind of freewheeling
travel that his did.
Standing in the library, Sarkisian leafed through a stack of
handwritten fan letters, many from children. All get replies from
Sarkisian or his wife. "A country like Burkina Faso, with $25 per year
per family, Mary said a little kid in a country like that, he has to
be answered," he said.
"A big thanks to my/our elder brother Leo Sarkisian for his dedication
and untireless work he has done for music time in Africa," wrote a
listener from Zambia.
A listener from Nigeria wrote to "felicitate" the United States on the
killing of Osama bin Laden. "You see, these people are on our side,"
Sarkisian said, holding up the letter. "This is the satisfaction we
get - in making friends with the people who believe in us."
In Bangui, Central African Republic, Sarkisian recalled a radio
director who couldn't quite believe an American had traveled so far
for African music. "He said, 'You came all this way to visit us?' "
Sarkisian said. "I said, 'Yeah, this is what we do.' "
Now, Sarkisian said he plans to do more painting (he has done many
portraits of the Africans he met), and playing the kanun, a 74- string
Middle Eastern lap harp. He drinks a glass of raki every day, has
perfect recall of decades-old phone numbers, and still can't help
raising his arms and shuffling his feet whenever African music plays.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress