La Paloma - One song for all worlds

La Paloma - One song for all worlds

Five hours of various versions of the world’s most played and sung song (from the beginning of the vinyl era to now more than 2000 recorded versions appeared). No other piece is so widely spread and at home in so many different musical worlds whether it be Tango, Jazz, Pop, Opera, Salon, Twist, Surf, Reggae and Rock. All over the world, La Paloma captures the musical daydreams of humming, whistling and singing people. Although the text seems to vary from one country to another, everyone seems to feel the basic contents: longing, loneliness, separation, love, reunion, sometimes death. Images of the ocean, doves and islands connected with one’s own closed world and the beautiful unknown. Since one plays and sings it much more passionately than the good, slowly but surely it has been filled with the dreams and tears of the entire human race, Marcel Proust wrote in his short pamphlet Praise to Bad Music, and for this reason it should be respected.

Reference: La Paloma - One Song for all Worlds Vol. I-VI Trikont CD's with detailed booklets and illustrations

Go to Trikont website

In 492 BC the fleet of the Persian Mardonios sank off of the coast of Greece near the Athos mountain. The Greeks that witnessed the accident from the coast were confronted with an unbelieveable spectacle: flocks of white doves flew from the sinking ships and sought land. Until this time the white dove was unknown in Western Europe and this event marked the beginning of their spread. Bound to the myth of being the carrier for souls and messages of love, they were already known long before in the Near East Asian cultures. It appears that this symbolism exerts itself in the text of La Paloma more than 2000 years later: “As strangely as it might sound, if the Phonecian sailors of the Mardonios, the Persian fleet that went down near the mountain Athos had known this song, then they would have understood every word as if a poet from their homeland had written it“ ( Heinrich Dittmar, Symbol der Sehnsucht Aller). With part two of Trikonts long-term project La Paloma-One Song for all Worlds, we once again take up the trail of the white dove: start in Germany with Richard Tauber and Ilse Werner, follow it to Austria, Italy, Mexico, Hawaii on to America, where we are present when Humphrey Bogart receives the Maltese Falcon from the dying captain of the La Paloma, we find her in a train station in Manchuria, see her disguised as Dr. No in Jamaica, only to finally land with her in the Phillipines (Leopold Seelos).

Press for La Paloma One Song for all Worlds:

The mother of pop. (TAZ)
What all versions have in common is the insatiable longing for love and neverending fear of separation and accompanying loneliness. (Der Spiegel)
The Munich based Trikont-Label, experienced on the subject of pop culture, now has set the goal of publishing a complete collection of all avaliable La Paloma recordings. Since that isn't so easy, they have begun with a humble CD. A second is already to follow. Kalle Laar, avantgard Sound Architect, with his fine feeling for harmony, has put together 25 versions that offer an introduction to the universe of La Paloma. (Die Woche)
For the individuals that still see no sense in such a compilation of the neverending same, they can find a philosophical justification in Kierkegaard: “Repetition is the reality and earnestness of being. One who desires repitition, he is matured and earnest." Yes, we want a complete edition of All La Paloma recordings. (Sueddeutsche Zeitung)
The only tune that waves itself for the last 130 years through the melodic memory of the human race. It always finds new roots. The tones are the movie screen for changing and opposing texts and emotions: love, pain, homesickness, longing to travel, joy of life and fear of death. In one version, Oedipus and his mother wander by in sailors clothing and now we're at home said the groom, I see my mother. A song for men even when women sing it. Filled with an heroic view into the distance, closed fists against broken hearts and bigger than all longing and the scent of masculine sweat. La Paloma is a set of patricharchal pop culture, a sort of musical Goethe proverb for every situation. (Die Zeit)
... the ultimate gift, a small silver CD that unties 25 of 2000 versions of La Paloma. A trip through history and the genres through time and trends. A universal sampler with only one melody - that was everything, but never sappy. (jetzt, Sueddeutsche Zeitung)
Recorded over 2000 times in Cuba as well as Scandaniavia; as tango, march, twist or reggae, from opera singers, crazy rock stars and soft music kings. Munich's DJ Kalle Laar has collected 26 versions of the hit on CD accompanied by an excellent booklet. Nonstop La Paloma - always the same song but always different. (Abendzeitung)
When the seeman's myths and the scent of seeweed in the metaphorical harbor are too much then this song has at least 10 emergency exits that offer new fresh meaning and leads to interwoven cultural history of the world. (Profil)
The compilation is simultaneously full of distance and serious love, the somberness is evident on the cover: a close up image of an immaculate pale violet front of an accordian with mother of pearl inlay - no text appears. In a 28 page fully illustrated booklet, Laar tells a detailed history of the song, it's origins and metamorphosis. Laar chose the 25 examples for his CD from a collection of several thousand recordings. Luckily they are not arranged in any chronological or stylistical order, but rather randomly combined with compositional flair integrating the sounds of older recordings. One Song for all Worlds appears as a subtitel for Laar's compilation which the Trikont-label intends to continue. Here La Paloma becomes a learning tool, how versitle a piece of music can be, which affinities it develops and how differently it can be received and used. Last but not least, an overview of the standard of the recording quality over the last 100 years since its birth. (Zuericher Tagesanzeiger)