Ovid’s gods return – to the jazz club

PATRICIA BARBER
Mythologies (Blue Note)

Chicago-based pianist/vocalist Patricia Barber spent eight albums building an influential jazz audience with her intimate poetry and brilliant songwriting. The Guggenheim Committee agreed, awarding a rare Fellowship to this popular singer. The result is an 11-song cycle based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. There’s nothing esoteric here; think more The Power of Myth than Campbell’s scholarly Masks of God series. Mythologies is filled with playful retellings of a Narcissus that isn’t necessarily vain and an Icarus that never falls. Barber’s backing band (guitar, drums, bass) and horn sections help flesh out an exquisitely textured album bordering sedate lounge atmospherics with sudden flourishes of guitar-driven frenzy. Few artists can straddle a line as fine as the soft, lyrical “Pygmalion” before launching into the searing “Whiteworld,” the latter a tribute to Oedipus. Besides a lackluster, Dadaist attempt at hip-hop on “Phaeton,” this is a mythology worth retelling for some time.

Radio Mali’s Acoustic Masterpiece

ALI FARKA TOURE
Red & Green (Nonesuch)

Since retiring from professional music, we have to take what we can of famed Malian blues musician Ali Farka Toure. On the double-disc Red & Green Nonesuch – the label that brought him abroad with Radio Mali and Talking Timbuktu – remasters albums cut in 1979 and ’88. These untitled gems (names refer to the color of original album sleeves) are exquisite minimal renderings of Toure’s interpretations of local Sonrai, Peul and Tamascheq styles, the last which Toure believes a major influence on American blues. The melodic interplay of guitar, vocals and calabash reveal stripped down sounds as rich as Baaba Maal’s epic Djam Leelii, superb fullness rendered by minimal instrumentation. Songs like “Chérie,” although light on low end, exhibit the same tendency towards trance as other Islam-based folk styles a la gnawa. In the repetition of floating guitar lines, steady calabash rhythms and Toure’s piercing, at times mournfully beautiful vocals, the strength of ten orchestras emit from four simple hands.

Gypsy Rapture

FANFARE CIOCARLIA
Gili Garabdi: Ancient Secrets of Gypsy Brass (Asphalt Tango)

When dealing with the schizophrenic soul of the Eastern European psyche, local folk music has to match in both intensity and melancholy. In separate studies, for example, it was shown Hungarians have the most sex in the world, as well as having the largest suicide rate. These extremities pervade the arts scenes, whether in the bucolic peasant ballads and táncház hysteria or blaring horns of marching band music. Honed in their base of Zece Prajini in east Romania, the 11-piece Fanfare Ciocarlia are masters of the local temperament. Part of a centuries-old migration of gypsies from India through the Balkans, brass music is rooted in Turkish military processions, hence the rapidly executed time changes and percussive dependence. Using a variety of drums, trumpets, saxophones and tubas, Gili Garabdi is equally groundbreaking in innovation. The addition of accordion and banjo add unique dynamics to this larger-than-life record. While some brass outfits play the opposites, Fanfare keep it upbeat the entire time, save two reinterpretations of guest vocalist Jony Iliev. Taking two tracks from his gorgeous Ma Maren Ma (the title track and “Godzila”), Iliev’s dusty voice sounds even less refined than on his debut, making these songs stronger with the backing brass. Re-creation is big on Fanfare’s agenda, opening with a blaring version of the James Bond theme song that avoids kitsch by besting the original. Even the slower moments – the opening minute of “Lume Lume” – end up scorching in fervent rhapsody. By the time the light electronic remix of “Alili,” their attempt at a “radio version,” closes the record, you’re so deep in the embrace of gypsy rapture the outside world no longer matters. You’ve entered a place as wide as the human experience itself, and there’s no looking back.

Bargain on the River

Gearing up to enter their 18th year in existence, World Music Network imprint Riverboat Records recently released Rhythms of the River, a collection of 17 tracks covering the history of the label. Like the albums they release, this is an excellent compilation featuring some of the best singles in their catalog. Senegal's Nuru Kane, Indian slide guitarist Debashish Bhattacharya, Cuban percussionist Pancho Quinto and Japanese electronica wizards Ryuyku Underground show a bit of the diversity Riverboat represents. Bonus tracks from WMN's Introducing label, including Etran Finatawa and Daby Balde, round out the disc fittingly. A gorgeous example of David Darling's cello pioneering with regional Taiwanese choral groups and a sneak peek at Radio Tarifa vocalist Benjamin Escoriza's upcoming solo debut album are highlights. But the real bright spot? The price: $2.98 on Amazon.

Morocco's Low End

AZZDDINE
Massafat (Barbarity)

Given the bass-heavy nature of Gnawa music – often no more than guembri (three-string bass lute), krakebs (metal clappers), chanting and maybe percussion, such as the bendir or tabl – it’s a wonder more low-end hasn’t appeared on modern recordings. Replace the guembri with Bill Laswell’s penetrating bass lines and a solution instantly presents itself.

Such is the case on Azzddine Ouhnine’s latest recording. The vocalist does triple time, also jumping on oud and darbouka for this 63-minute dubbed-out sojourn. The range of influence on these 14 tracks is tremendously expansive: hip-hop, reggae, trip-hop and other digital modalities, as well as traditional Moroccan music. It is a heavily synthesized effort with only spare classical instrumentation, although a very ancient feel reveals itself. Most of this is due to Ouhnine’s able virtuosity on oud; if you thought Hamza El Din jamming with the Kronos Quartet was innovative, we’ve entered a whole other realm here. Background vocal assistance by Noura and Naima add a pleasant feminine undertone, while Boualem’s rap on “Britou” lends an urban edge.

Massafat , however, belongs to Laswell. Ouhnine is obviously front and center, but it’s the production work that takes this from solid to exceptional. Recorded in Africa and New Jersey and glued together in Basel, Switzerland, the heavy, heady bass tones pulse with constant determination. While Laswell has worked on the Moroccan soundscape before (The Master Musicians of Jajouka and Ahlam), Massafat is new territory. It does borrow the trad feel of the Jajouka project (sans mizmar), and adds a smoother rock edge than the Ahlam disc purported. Fuzzy, driven guitars appear all over, as on the rather hyperreal “Ana Ou Enta,” but never loses itself in the thick walls that genre can exhibit. Even in the midst of seeming chaos, subtlety prevails.

There are no standout cuts here. The string-heavy “Fine” and oud-laden “Al Mouktab” are high choices, while the house-based track, “Goa Rozali,” is the most unique (and obviously danceable) included. As a mood setter, it rivals the strength of Laswell’s best, a la Ethiopian jazz throwback Abyssinia Infinite’s Zion Roots and the surreal Bob Marley reconstruction record, Dreams of Freedom. Alongside recent work on Cheb i Sabbah’s Algerian/Moroccan digitalist La Kahena, Laswell is taking Marrakech to whole new levels. As for Azzddine Ouhnine, he couldn’t have picked a better introduction to the world outside North Africa, one we only hope he continues to explore.

40 Years in Cuba

SABORIT
Que Linda es mi Cuba (Tumi)

If anyone could attest to the virtue of patience, it would be the Cuban folk band Saborit. Comprised of guajiros, i.e. countryside dwellers, the band has played together since the ‘80s (and individually two decades prior), only now releasing their debut recording. When they found out Tumi producer Mo Fini was in the region they camped out a few nights in their truck, waiting to play for him. It’s a tale straight out of hopeful Jamaican toasters following Coxsone Dodd around with guitar in hand. Sabarit obviously won Fini over, as they most likely will to you on this rich, fertile recording. Given the amount of time they had to prepare, material was not an issue. The album’s 13 songs unites the area’s African, Spanish and indigenous cultures through rumba, son and guaracha. Led by founder/vocalist Leon Alarcon, this eight-piece outfit (yes, in one truck) makes beautiful use of the tres, maximizing the shiny luster arising from the tiny frame. Working it into melodies of piano and rhythms of congas and guiro, and of course the foundation of bass, this is the island sound of Cuba performed at its height. The stories, ranging from life on a tobacco farm to community relationships, are told brilliantly by Alcaron. When he smoothly shouts “cumbia” in the midst of bouncing drums on “Amargo dolor,” you feel the weight of tradition in his dusky voice. It is a summery, reflective album – logical, considering the sonic depths they’ve had the time to explore, mull over and now, at last, share with the world outside of Cuba.