"I'm now enchanted with life -- and have forgotten about death."

That's a pretty noteworthy remark from anyone, but especially from an 86-year-old who has seen a lot of life. But then how many octogenarians get to have the kind of fresh start that was given to Puerto Plata? The Dominican Republic-native singer-guitarist just two years ago made what by any measures would qualify as a belated debut album, 'Mujer de Cabaret.' And the new acclaim and attention brought to his talents and to his style of music -- a lively, lilting mix of merengues and boleros that came to be known as bachata after having been suppressed during the brutal rule of Gen. Rafael Trujillo from 1930 until his 1961 assassination -- is what's behind his refreshed attitude.

That sense of renewal he's experienced simply sparkles in his new second album, 'Casitas de Campo,' a collection putting the spotlight on fellow Dominican songwriters with energy gained from his unlikely acclaim of the past two years. It's a direct line back to his childhood, something that without these opportunities would have probably just slipped away. Somehow he makes the wistful nostalgia of such songs as 'Brisa de la Tarde' sound like they evoke something that happened to him last week, not decades ago.

Puerto Plata, 'Brisa de la Tarde'

In 2005, ethnomusicologist Gage Averill found himself introducing pioneering African-American dancer Katherine Dunham at an event. Dunham, who passed away in 2006 at age 96, was being honored in part for her invaluable studies of music and dance in Haiti in the 1930s, delving deep into the history and aesthetics of arts forged in the island crucible fueled by the cultures and travails brought by African slaves. Haiti had served as one of the key way stations for the slave trade in the West, a history full of tragedy and oppression that nonetheless forged truly rich and unique culture and ultimately shaped key aesthetics throughout the Americas. When Dunham had been there, many of the old ways were dying in the growing shadow of the modern industrialized world.

Averill, currently professor of history and culture specializing in Caribbean studies at the University of Toronto, had for several years before the event been involved in a project to research and release material from the massive sound and film archives recorded in 1936 and '37 by American song collector Alan Lomax during his trips to Haiti. The material, kept in the Library of Congress and long unexamined, was the results of an arduous adventure in which the young Lomax lugged cumbersome recording equipment around on buses (he had no private transportation on the visits) even while suffering from malaria. Despite all that, he was able to gather an unbelievable 1,500-plus recordings covering the full range of music: work songs, religious music, vodou and rara ritual, children's songs, mérengue and other social dance styles among them.

Call it the revenge of the band geeks.

It seems that everywhere you turn these days, you can find the folks who probably got a lot of grief for their stints in their high school bands -- marching and otherwise -- wielding their horns and drums and even accordions with great pride. Brass bands and various derivatives might just be the hippest things going.

Well, brass bands have always been hip in the Balkans and in New Orleans, so it's no surprise that it's sounds from those contrasting climes, with maybe some Mexican street music as well, that have provided templates for a bunch of the young American acts in the new brass class. Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Slavic Soul Party's new album, 'Taketron,' is dominated by Balkan influences but takes a side trip into a funky piece by New Orleans' great Rebirth Brass Band. Portland, Ore.'s MarchFourth Marching Band -- they even use "marching band" in the name! -- flips the formula, its 'Rise Up' album drawing mostly on Crescent City funk with a few nods to the jittery Balkan rhythms along the way. Then there's New York band Red Baraat, whose new 'Chaal Baby' does a sort of Balkan-Bayou-bebop-bhangra with its Rajasthani roots. And let's not forget such recent brass-ieres as Gogol Bordello, DeVotchka, Beirut and alt-rock darlings the Arcade Fire, who are nothing if not a marching band at heart.

OK, so it's not Van Halen moving on without David Lee Roth or Genesis keeping things going after Peter Gabriel's exit. But the vaunted Silk Road Ensemble have clearly taken their first recording foray without founder Yo-Yo Ma as an opportunity to strike out in some exciting new directions.

With the famed cellist surrounded by a revolving cast of international, multinational virtuosos and composers, the nonprofit Silk Road Project has since 1998 expanded its concepts of following the musical threads of the eponymous highway with various weavings of sounds and traditions from China, Central Asia, India, ancient Persia and the modern Middle East. On the Ensemble's new album, 'Off the Map,' with Ma sitting it out, four works commissioned from inventive young composers point the compass in the other direction, bridging East Asia to the Americas. But with the uncharted explorations taken here, the album title 'Off the Map' seems perhaps too prosaic. This is not about geography but rather more about an aesthetic abstracted from the literal Silk Road's illustrious history.

Baaba Maal has spent most of his life musically reaching out from his native village of Podor, Senegal, to the world. In December, he wants to bring the world to Podor. The fourth edition of his Blues on the River festival will take place, in part, in his hometown among his fellow Fulani tribespeople.

"I think everyone should come!" he says. And it's not just a matter of ticket sales. He wants true participants. He wants us. He wants you!

"What we need, I think, is to give a power to all these people outside of the big cities who really, really want to express themselves -- to give them the right combination and organizations to sit and have a cultural voice. But also need the rest of the world to send people to make the link that is happening. Otherwise, the bridge we want to make will never happen. I invite everyone!"

Listen to the sound of revolution:

Orquesta Cubana de Musica Moderna, 'Vehicle'


Seem familiar? Right. It's 'Vehicle,' the 1970 one-hit by American band the Ides of March, along with Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago, led a wave of horns-heavy bands of the time. Only this instrumental version is by the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, an all-star studio ensemble recorded in Havana under the strict auspices of the Castro regime and a launching pad for such future stars as Chucho Valdes, Paquito D'Rivera and Arturo Sandoval.

"That's one of the misty appeals of Cuban music at this time," says Dan Zacks, who included this track on 'Si, Para Usted Vol. 2' from his Toronto-based Waxing Deep label, the followup to a 2006 collection. "You have Communist revolution cranking out some really funky stuff."

As happened all over the world in those years, American pop music filtered its way into all sorts of cultures with some pretty profound effects, perhaps none more so than inside relatively closed societies. Cuba was among them.

Hard not to look at the choice of 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' for the lone cover on 'rivermudtwilight,' the first album by the super-trio Les Triaboliques, as coming with some subtext. After all, "misunderstood" is almost a default setting for these guys, each with histories of doing music that sometimes might have confused and confounded people.

Ben Mandelson very purposefully confounded -- and delighted -- many in the guise of Hijaz Mustapha with the high jinks (and high-standards in music) in the "forward in all directions" embrace of '80s/'90s band 3 Mustaphas 3, not to mention opening a lot of ears and doors to global sounds as proprietor and field producer with his GlobeStyle Records label. Justin Adams slid from adding global sounds to Robert Plant's music into producing desert blues warriors Tinariwen and making his own intercontinental hybrids in two albums with Gambian griot Juldeh Camara. And Lu Edmonds has been part of the provocateur post-punk world with the Damned and John Lydon's Public Image Ltd (with which he is about to do a set of U.K. reunion concerts), while more recently being part of the roots-punk-activist Mekons and serving alongside Mandelson in English troubadour Billy Bragg's band the Blokes -- not to mention that he bears a striking resemblance to one Uncle Patrel Mustapha bin Mustapha.