Sunken Treasure: The Trallaleri of Genoa

Alan Lomax was born into a rarefied world where the collecting and recording of folk music was a family business. His father, John A Lomax, was a pioneering musicologist and folklorist. Alan started his career in the late 1920s recording the songs of sharecroppers and prisoners in the fields and penitentiaries of Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi.

Before his teenage years were out he had accompanied his father to Louisiana’s Angola prison to record Huddie Ledbetter. After meeting Lead Belly, his journey through 1930s and 1940s America involved encounters with everybody from Woody Guthrie to Muddy Waters.

His formative exposition to the truth of the matter explains a lot about the veracity of his mission once he moved to Europe in 1950. By the time he went to Rome in 1953, he had already amassed thousands of hours of recordings in Ireland, Scotland and Spain.

His love of polyphonic singing took him north to Genoa. The unique variation of the form that thrived there was known by the onomatopoeic term Trallalero. The Genoese version of group harmony singing featured a range of sounds he had never heard before. The tenor, baritone and contralto form a triumvirate of melody voices. A full choir of basses provide solid foundations for these melodies to soar. In between there is the addition of the chitarra, which mimics the sound of the guitar. In combination, the effect is a powerful elemental force.

Each group is called a squadre and the one Lomax recorded was comprised of longshoremen from the port. His recordings resonate with a rousing energy swept in from the Ligurian Sea. It’s a measure of Lomax’ skill that we are so readily transported back to their time and place with every listen.