Louis Sarno (July 3, 1954 – April 1, 2017) was an American adventurer, recordist and author. In the mid-1980s until about 2016 he made field recordings of the music of a Bayaka (BaAka) "pygmy" forest people while living among them in the

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...

. The recordings are now held by the Pitt-Rivers museum at Oxford University, UK. Sarno lived in the CAR for more than 30 years, and held a dual citizenship there and in the United States. He documented some of his experiences in his memoir, ''Song from the Forest: My Life Among the Pygmies'' (2015), which Geoff Wisner included in his survey work '' A Basket of Leaves: 99 Books That Capture the Spirit of Africa''. Of Italian heritage, Louis Sarno was born and raised in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

ethnomusicology Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...

, in 1985 he went to Africa to record the famous music of the forest people. He and his collaborator Bernie Krause combined recordings of Bayaka music with sounds of their surrounding environment into a two-CD/book package entitled ''Bayaka: The Extraordinary Music of the Babenzélé Pygmies'' (Ellipsis Arts). Louis Sarno married a Bayaka woman for a period of time, and adopted a son (Samedi). The documentary film ''

Song from the Forest ''Song from the Forest'' is a 2013 German documentary film written and directed by Michael Obert. The film premiered on 21 November 2013 at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, where it was honored with the Best Feature Length Docum ...

'', by German director

Michael Obert Michael Obert (born 1966) is a German book author and journalist who has been compared with the likes of Bruce Chatwin, Jon Krakauer and Ryszard Kapuściński. His debut movie ''Song from the Forest'' was honored with the Award for Best Feature-Le ...

, tells Sarno's life story. The film premiered at the

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...

2013 where it was honored with the Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary. A movie based on Sarno's life called '' Oka!'' was released in 2011 (in the

Aka language Aka, also known as Yaka or Beka, is a Bantu language spoken in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo, along the Ubangi River dividing the two countries. Aka is spoken by the Aka people, pygmies closely related to the Ubangian-s ...

, ''oka'' means "listen"). Sarno died on April 1, 2017, in Teaneck, New Jersey, due to complications of liver ailments.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarno, Louis 1954 births 2017 deaths American male non-fiction writers Writers from Newark, New Jersey American expatriates in the Central African Republic 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American musicologists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American musicologists 21st-century American male writers American people of Italian descent