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April music reviews

Greece: A Musical Odyssey

Putumayo World Music

Another coffee-table 'classic & contemporary' combo from Putumayo, usually adept purveyors of cross- (sub-) cultural packages to Think Globally clients. This time, though, the selection leans too heavily on the traditional, with the repeated characteristic tones of the bouzouki, the accordion and the stridently plaintive voices too frequently conjuring clichéd images of stilted national costume poses on LP cover-sleeves consigned to the abandoned/oblivion zone of older parents' record collections.

Much of the music featured is rooted in the rembetika form - the Greek 'blues' which blends Turkish and Middle Eastern influences with Greek and Balkan traditions, and which will be familiar to anyone who's had their antennae active and attuned to the world at large. So it's over-familiarity that's probably the problem here. Beyond the selection panel's chosen parameters for this CD, there must be a raft of Greek musicians who are pushing more interesting buttons and taking bolder risks with the form than what's on offer here.

Whatever Putumayo may gain from slick niche packaging, they'll quickly lose if they decline to step over the boundary of the bland. Paul Green

John Hammond: In Your Arms Again

EMI

If you have a penchant for confusing guests, ask them who this blues man is and watch them rattle off the names of America's finest black blues artist. Then enjoy their response when you show them the clean-cut white boy that is John Hammond.

For decades now Hammond has delivered the blues message with a reverent yet enriching authority that is hugely enhanced by is own staggeringly good guitar playing (favouring a steel strung slide guitar) and dazzling blues harp.

While it surprised me to see the combination of Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and others amongst his own compositions, the arrangements (never more than a three piece - Hammond, Steve Hodges (drums, percussion), and Marty Vallou (basses)), are as original as they are varied. For example Ray Charles's I Got A Woman comes with a percussive impact that leaves you wondering if he's celebrating the fact! Percy Mayfield's My Baby's Gone is also a stand out track due to surprising ease with which Hammond delivers the soul legends vocal lines. Blues doesn't come much better than this. All that's missing is the peanut shells on the floor. Allan McFarlane

Ben Harper and the Blind Boys Of Alabama: There Will Be A Light

Virgin

Veteran - and much revered - American gospel performers The Blind Boys of Alabama are teamed up with lightweight soul and blues singer Ben Harper on this well-meaning but sometimes dull album. Before hearing a note, I knew where my loyalties were on this one: two Easter week-ends ago at Byron Bay I was in awe of the Blind Boys' hour-long set which, at twice that duration, would still have left me wanting more. The following day, however, I walked away from Harper's concert after twenty minutes, still none the wiser as to why he's regarded as some kind of superstar.

The Blind Boys' Clarence Fountain, Jimmy Carter and George Scott have grown more inspired and inspiring with age and Harper, as a singer, still doesn't do it for me. What is impressive about him on this set, though, is the high standard of the songwriting: more than half of the eleven tracks are his and I'd be keen to hear what someone like Mavis Staples would make of Wicked Man or Picture of Jesus .

The best thing about this collaboration is the chance that some of the Ben Harper fans who hear it may investigate the Blind Boys' back catalogue. Fred Muller

Charles Lloyd: The Water Is Wide

ECM

Charles Lloyd has got some history. His jazz quartet of the late 60s (Lloyd, Keith Jarrett, Cecil McBee/Ron Mclure, and Jack DeJohnette) could fill rock stadiums but when this group separated Charles quietly slipped into almost total retirement. We have pianist Michael Petrucciani to thank for getting him back into serious playing in the 80's.

Fast forward to 1999 and add in Brad Mehldau on piano, John Abercrombie on guitar, Larry Grenadier on bass and the great Billy Higgins on drums in the last recording session before his untimely death. If you know anything about jazz you won't need telling that this is a top quality quintet but the great thing is that they combine so well. It's easy to put an all star group together but making them sound like a group rather than a group of individuals is a trick that often proves difficult.

The Water Is Wide is a mostly slow to medium paced CD, which covers many bases. The album comprises a couple of lesser known Ellington pieces (Heaven, Black Butterfly) one Strayhorn (Lotus Blossom), five original Lloyd compositions, Hoagy Carmichaels Georgia and the title track The Water Is Wide . Highlighting the album for me is the stunning spiritual There Is A Balm In Gilead played as a duet with Higgins.

From the beautiful bluesy opening of Georgia through to the immensely moving Prayer this album is simply class. Abercrombie is quite understated but right on the mark, as shown by the lovely opening solo on The Water Is Wide . Brad Mehldau has many opportunities to evidence his harmonic understanding and ability to freshly interpret melodies. Grenadier is solid (although the best bass work on the album is by Darek Oles on the very moving last track Prayer , which was written for Higgins during an earlier illness) and Higgins himself is always inventive and present. Lloyd is in great form. His tone is full and warm and his mood goes from relaxed to reverential.

This is beautiful jazz. Always melodic, played with understated grace and elegance, and expertly recorded. Highly, highly recommended. Craig Fenemor

David Murray & The Gwo-Ka Masters (Featuring Pharoah Sanders): Gwotet

Justin Time

It's party time! This is something of a departure from my usual listening experiences but when it's this much fun who gives a damn. The two Caribbean islands that comprise Guadeloupe, the home of the Gwo-Ka Masters, are home to only 400,000 people and most of them seem to be credited here. Okay, that's overstating it but the playing roster does runs to fourteen including eight horns, two guitars, a bass and three percussionists.

David Murray and Pharoah Sanders are two of the most fiery players going around with Saunders claiming direct links to Coltrane. Their playing here doesn't hide from that fact so unless you like some spitting, aggressive, high register playing I wouldn't bother reading on too far. (Murray does play a bit of bass clarinet for added texture here and there.)

Backing up the two nominal leaders are the Gwo-Ka Masters. Guadeloupe is rich in Creole culture with strong African and French influences which seems to translate into a very funky sound. These guys really can drive the music along by locking into a funky grove and not letting go, now and then adding earthy vocals to the sometimes turbulent combinations happening around them. This brings me back to my first sentence though, in the end all this energy seems to merge into one big polyrhythmic party, an edgy party it must be said, but a party no less.

I can see this being enjoyed by those who like their music raw and exciting, those who appreciate the sheer power and impact that such a big, horn based group can muster. There's always something happening, and the beats just keep pumping out. Go on, let your hair down and have some fun. Craig Fenemor

Willie Nelson & Friends: Outlaws and Angels

Lost Highway

It sounded so promising: the Duet King with a stellar support cast ( Al Green, Merle Haggard, Keith Richards, Jerry Lee, Rickie Lee, et al), but...

One major drawback is that it's a live recording. True, sometimes the house band are truly country-kickin' - harmonica crying, pedal steel yearning, backing girls swirling in behind the front-row heavyweights. Yet the format is laboured as star after "greatest"/"legendary"/"grammy-winning" star is wheeled on for an often too cursory treatment of a relevant staple from the canon.

A worthy exception would be the re-working of Midnight Rider with Ben Harper, which at least has momentum and conviction. On your own tribute stage, it's arguably forgivable to get distracted by the surrounding glow; but how different a poised studio collection with these same partners could have been.

And the man himself seems consummate to the point of complacent at times. He's inclined to take too many liberties with rhythm conventions - at his most would-be low-key, sounding perilously reminiscent of Ronald Reagan. It's a fine line between sedate and sedated, and marvellous though he is, he's regularly guilty of taking his foot off the pedal. Both Lucinda Williams' Overtime and Carole King's Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow are undermined by this indolent approach.

Unlikely to satisfy diehard fans or lure new admirers. Paul Green

Orff: Carmina Burana

Sally Matthews (soprano); Lawrence Brownlee (tenor); Christian Gerhaher (baritone); Rundfunkchor Berlin; Knaben des Staats-und Domchors Berlin; Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

EMI Classics

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is one of those pieces the audience love and critics are expected to loathe. The tunes are just too good for a 20 th century composition, the orchestration too much fun to hear (and play), and far too much has been picked up and used for film and commercials for this work to taken seriously. Really EMI, what were you thinking!

Having got that stage of life where I can enjoy a piece of music for the sheer fun it exerts, then there is nothing more likely to tickle these ears than a well performed (and recorded) performance of this staple of the choral/orchestral repertoire.

OK it hardly needs a Sir Simon to make the piece a success, but when he is in front of the best orchestra in the world, alongside a choir in fine form, with mostly excellent soloists then this is a sure way to guarantee listening pleasure.

The recording is in the mould of live recordings, detailed with plenty of impact but close to enable the audience coughs to be kept to the absolute minimum. Not all the soloists are in peak form (Sally Matthews would probably have wished a retake of the odd bar or two), though Christian Gerhaher, a name new to me, is an inspiring discovery. A seriously good performance then, that doesn't take itself at all seriously. Recommended. Allan McFarlane

Rachmaninov/Chopin: Piano Sonatas etc

Hélène Grimaud (piano)

Deutsche Grammophon

This is a transcendental performance of two of the most life affirming sonatas in the piano repertoire. Transcendental in that here is a release that will open up a world of unforgettable pianism for those new to the works, while those more familiar will be utterly spellbound at the depths of interpretive insight contained on this most essential of new releases.

The French pianist Hélène Grimaud continues her series of quintessential recordings for Deutsche Grammophon (the earlier release entitled Credo is equally rewarding) with the somewhat unusual coupling of the second sonatas of both Chopin and Rachmaninov, and makes a very convincing case for the juxtaposition in the brief essay in the accompanying booklet. Even more convincing are the performances themselves, where the virtuostic passages are dashed of with apparent ease and the delicacy of the simpler passages is played with an often-eluding mixture: that of simplicity mixed with reverence.

If you don't know these works move now to discover them. A highly rewarding experience awaits you.   The recording itself can be rated as fine as the performance. You will not hear a better prepared and recorded piano. Allan MacFarlane

Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin , D795

Ian Bostridge (tenor); Mitsuko Uchida (piano)

EMI Classics

Excitement brewed when I spotted this on an EMI release sheet. One of the finest lieder singers still recording and arguably one of the finest Schubert pianists together in one of the most superb song cycles ever written. On paper an immediate classic.

Then I had a listen. All sounded a bit familiar, a search quickly unearthing Bostridge's earlier recording for Hyperion with Graeme Johnson accompanying. While the EMI recording has a briskness about it that some will find a relief (not I) and Uchida's touch at the keyboard continues to be a singular marvel, in the end the all too distinctive voice of Bostridge offers too few points of difference form the earlier recording. Indeed while not even remotely being a linguist, I found Bostridge's German just too English. I am not sure this had to more to do with mannerism than pronunciation but I am sure an artist of the skill he most surely is would do more than enough to compensate in a live setting. As it is, the catalogue is packed with alternatives. Seek out the natural German speakers, to my ears a baritone as well, and the depths of this extraordinary music will be truly revealed. Allan McFarlane