Learning to pay attention

By GRAHAM REID

While bigger acts commanded attention at the weekend's Womad in Taranaki, tucked away on a small stage American guitarist Bob Brozman and sanshin musician and singer Takashi Hirayasu proved one of the quieter delights.

With appreciative honks from ducks on the nearby lake the duo took Okinawan folk music on a global trip.

The wry, amusing Californian punctuated the set with quips but played with riveting intensity as he pulled strings, hammered the bodies of his gleaming steel guitars and turned the instruments into multi-purpose vehicles of sound.

Brozman is one of those rare talents who works across musical styles and spends half the year collaborating with artists such as Hirayasu, or musicians from West Africa and the Indian island of Reunion.

He has taken 18 musicians from 10 countries across Canada, and just come back from two months in East Africa.

He also plays solo concerts of Delta blues, calypso, Hawaiian and African music, swing and whatever else comes up.

"I can't put a label on it. It's just music," he laughs as Womad converts ask him to sign CDs.

"Categorising music is something record stores do very well. I don't."

Brozman - who boasts an impressive artillery of beautiful guitars - says the first ethnic music he heard was the blues, which is "not American music but African music struggling with the weird musical systems of Europe" and then through resonator guitars he discovered Hawaiian music.

"From there I realised all the great blues of the world happens at the frontiers of colonialism: European instruments and non-European sensibilities."

He has immersed himself in numerous musical styles - "I am such a non-imperialist, behaviourally, politically and emotionally, I don't meet these guys halfway, I go three-quarters the way" - and although now profoundly technically proficient, has discovered more fundamentals.

"What's coming in quasi-focus is it boils down to one verb, 'to be'. It's like, 'Are you there?' and 'How there are you?'

"It's how much attention you can pay - and that's something you never stop getting good at."

Brozman - who plays a solo show at the Classic on Queen St tonight - says the audience can expect an energetic show.

"There's a lot of playing but it's not about technique, it's all about having fun. I try to drive the train and lay the track in front of it at the same time.

"I like living on the edge of music."

* Who: Bob Brozman

* Where: Classic, Queen St

* When: Tonight, 8pm