Copley News Service
January 23, 2005 Sunday
A countdown for the daring and the distinctive
By George Varga
With more than 30,000 albums released each year, just getting heard –
let alone making an impact – is a daunting challenge. This holds even
more true for bold, uncompromising artists outside the mainstream.
In a just world, these performers would be household names. For now,
they remain hidden treasures whose work should be savored, shared and
savored again.
So let the countdown begin (record company Web sites are provided for
each album):
10. “Skeleton Key Orchestra,” Nathan Hubbard
()
A tour de force from this drum dynamo, whose dazzling fusion of avant
jazz, electronica, Afro-Cuban and more is showcased on this two-CD
set by a talent-rich group that numbers up to 28 members.
9. Jenny Scheinman, “Shalagaster” ()
This New York violinist bills her music as “modern folk jazz,” but
that hardly does justice to her daring blend of classical, tango,
klezmer, blues and Middle Eastern music.
8. David Murray & The Gwo-Ka Masters, featuring Pharoah Sanders,
“Gwotet” ()
On which the two saxophone masters create a propulsive, multicultural
gumbo of funk, zouk and jazz with musicians from Guadeloupe, Cuba and
the United States.
7. Karan Casey, “Distant Shore” ()
The former lead singer in Ireland’s Solas shines on this often
hushed, but consistently enchanting, collection of Celtic ballads,
stirring laments and bluegrass-tinged reveries.
6. World Saxophone Quartet, “Experience” ()
Jimi Hendrix’s music is saluted and reinvented by this heady,
guitar-free group, which has long been noted for its ability to
eviscerate, not merely push, musical envelopes.
5. Rokia Traore, “Bowmboi” ()
The third album by this charismatic singer-songwriter from Mali finds
her celebrating and extending the traditions of the griot, the
singing, kora-playing oral historians of West Africa that helped lay
the foundation for rap 600 or so years ago.
4. Hem, “Eveningland” ()
A treasure-trove of finely crafted music, topped by Sally Ellyson’s
heavenly vocals, which suggests an alt-country chamber group
performing down-home yet urbane art songs.
3. Youssou N’Dour, “Egypt” ()
Accompanied by a 15-piece Egyptian orchestra and a West African vocal
and percussion group, this Senegalese vocal star has rarely sounded
so intimate or impassioned as on this stunning homage to Sufism,
Arabic culture and the timeless power of love.
2. Jerry Gonzales y Los Piratas del Flamenco, “Los Piratas del
Flamenco” ()
The marriage of flamenco and jazz takes on new life as expatriate New
York trumpeter Jerry Gonzalez and his Madrid-based group inject new
vigor into both idioms. Their mesmerizing synthesis indicates what
might have happened had Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk been Spanish.
1. Diamanda Galas, “Defixiones: Will and Testament” and “La Serpenta
Canta” ()
These two double albums by vocal master Diamanda Galas couldn’t be
more different. But each is as rewarding as it is provocative, and
both are utterly distinct from the work of any other artist working
in any idiom.
At once wrenching and cathartic, “Defixiones” was inspired by the
still-controversial Greek, Armenian and Assyrian genocides of the
early 1920s.
It finds Galas using her four-octave voice to expertly perform lyrics
in six languages, including Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. With them she
creates an earthy yet otherworldly palette of richly textured music
that explores emotional extremes in a manner simultaneously horrific
and strangely beautiful. Only by embracing the darkness, she
suggests, can we move to the light beyond, and “Defixiones” succeeds
on both counts.
The comparatively inviting “Serpenta” features Galas performing
wonderfully original versions of songs by John Lee Hooker, Hank
Williams, Ornette Coleman and other American roots-music icons, along
with her own “Baby’s Insane,” a jaunty music-hall ballad from hell
that begins with her singing: “I was covered in blood, the war has
begun / Hide the straight razor, because baby’s insane,” and later
finds her quipping: “It’s very pretty, don’t you think?”
The two-CD set is a showcase not only for her expressive singing, but
for her incisive piano work.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress