BY FERNANDO GONZALEZ
SPECIAL TO THE MIAMI HERALD
The remarkable voices, songs and images in the recently released box set Alan Lomax in Haiti are a stunning, delightful treasure, a vivid portrait of a time and place.

On the set's 10 discs average people sing their everyday stories, berate corrupt politicians, celebrate children's toys, lament lost loves or call on the spirits. The singers were recorded by musicologist Lomax more than 70 years ago with a cumbersome, portable aluminum-disk system, and the results were so discouragingly noisy and distorted that the project was set aside until new technology and a slow, painstaking effort over the past decade restored the hidden music. As Alan Lomax in Haiti (Harte, $129) proves, time has not weakened its spirit.

Ethnomusicologist, author and Haiti scholar Gage Averill, who was instrumental in cataloging, compiling and annotating the material, recently recalled being at a conference in Chicago and about to introduce dancer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham, a champion of Haitian culture.
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