THE TIME OF BELLS, 3
Produced by Steven Feld
and Nii Noi Nortey

RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER, 2005

The Time of Bells 1 and 2 explored how church, animal, and ceremonial bells ring the time of day and season, ritual and festival, work and collective social life in Italy, Greece, France, Finland and Norway. Now the project turns to bells as musical instruments in Accra, capital city of Ghana, the former "Gold Coast." In Accra one commonly hears musicians instruct that "the bell is the keeper of the time" in traditional drum and dance ensembles. And eminent scholars of Ghana's music, like J. H. K. Nketia, John Chernoff, and John Collins, have analyzed the authoritative power of rhythm in the interaction of bell and drums. But bells do much more than keep ensemble time. Listen here as bells of different sizes, pitches, and timbres make time multiple. Interacting with voices, wind, string, percussion and reed instruments - including car horns and jazz saxophone -bells ring the vibrant time of traditional, contemporary, and Pan African diasporic styles now resounding in Accra.