Marc Copland is a very lyrical, sensitive pianist. He’s adventurous, too. There are plenty of louder, busier improvising keyboardists, but very few so creative and consistently eloquent. Time Within Time is a sublime solo set. Bookends is an equally compelling double-CD of studio and concert duets with saxophonist David Liebman. Copland’s pianistic ‘voice’ is as distinctive as any singer’s, his ‘touch’as tender as any lover’s.
Pat Metheny regards Raphael Rabello as ‘one of the greatest guitarists who has ever lived.’ Antonio Carlos Jobim said ‘Raphael is Brazil’s finest guitarist’. Rabello died in 1995, aged 32. Seven months earlier, over just two afternoons, he recorded Cry, My Guitar. Very few guitar albums are in the same league as this posthumous release. Its astonishing, subtle, beautiful nylon-stringed acoustic guitar solos incline to choro, but draw on many sources. There are no over-dubs.
Two unusual, beautiful, virtuosic solo performances: one in a theatre in its Italian artist’s home city, the other in a Portuguese monastery. Luciano Biondini’s Prima Del Cuore means ‘before the heart’. A reviewer noted that Biondini ‘bristles with Mediterranean fire and charm’; any attentive listener will ‘quickly forget any prejudices.. against the squeeze-box’. Ricardo Rocha’s guitarra portuguesa is a beautiful instrument, more akin to mandola than guitar. Rarely heard alone, it usually accompanies fado singers. Ricardo Rocha’s voluptuária does not reject tradition, but his more adventurous coruscations show why Rocha has been called ‘the Ornette Coleman of his instrument.’
Tonight revolves around two keenly observant songsters. Catherine MacLellan is from Canada’s Prince Edward Island. In part the fruit of a short marriage, her Church Bell Blues is highly personal, but not self-indulgent. Little Grey Sheep is the fruit of Danny Schmidt’s fertile, wry mind. Danny loves Austin but is not so keen on the rest of Texas. His amusing and his very dark songs prove equally rewarding. Devon Sproule is among his very handy musical accomplices. Unlike far too many singer-songwriters, Catherine and Danny really can sing and write.
Azerbaijan may not be the ideal base for an international career in music. It is, however, home to one of the world’s greatest vocalists. Alim Qasimov says ‘there has to be a fire burning in you..It’s either there or it isn’t’. To hear him is to be amazed. To pay close attention is to be rewarded, more richly. He is a subtle as well as powerful, immediately-arresting singer. So is his daughter, Fargana Qasimov. Their Spiritual Music of Azerbaijan offers superb players as well as the leaders’ solo and duo vocal flights.
In a world over-full of ‘bossa-nova polite’, ‘bossa-lite’ and ‘post-bossa-trendy-and-trite’, Brazil’s Monica Salmaso is especially welcome. Womanly as opposed to girlish, she is comfortably herself, rather than one more pale shadow of someone else or yet another of those who try far too hard to appear ‘different’. Her voice is beautiful, not just pretty, her singing subtle and relaxed, but strong. On Noites de gala, samba na rua, accompanied by the excellent quintet Pau Brasil, Monica celebrates one of Brazil’s greatest songsmiths - Chico Buarque.
Saï-Ko is the debut CD from a splendid, seemingly-unlikely trio. Its leader is a virtuoso of the long zither which is emblematic of Japan. Koto player Mieko Miyazaki is also a singer-songwriter and musical adventurer. Manuel Solans is a master of the western classical kind of violin. Trio Miyazaki’s other member is Bruno Maurice. He plays the Bayan - a huge, Russian species of accordion. The CD title refers to coloration (Saï) and rhythm or palpitation (Ko); its music ranges widely, with precision, daring and lyricism. Expect to be surprised, nicely.
Lau’s studio CD (featured here on 27.10.07) was this young millennium’s most auspicious debut from a British ‘roots music’ group. Lau Live is even better. These two Scots and an Englishman are very creative musicians within a living tradition. Much of their repertoire is brand-new and/or self-penned. Their appetite for interplay and improvisation is still very evident when they interpret ‘traditional’ songs and tunes. Kris Drever sings and plays guitar, Martin Green is the squeezer and Aidan O’Rourke plays the fiddle.
Rokia Traore is generally quieter than most ‘African divas’. The independent-minded songster from Mali is also more creative, less predictable. Pay attention and you soon understand why she has been described as ‘the most adventurous singer-songwriter in Africa’. You also discover that her voice is much ‘bigger’ than at first it seems. Tchamantché (‘balance’ or ‘equilibrium’ in Bambara - her first language) is a highly original set of her own songs, plus a highly original (‘hidden’) version of a Gershwin song - one famously ‘owned’ by Billie Holiday.
Sephardic ‘Surf’? This hitherto-unsuspected genre almost fits some of the music on Lucifer: Book of Angels Volume 10. The more extreme end of John Zorn’s wildly eclectic musical world may be ‘hellish’ to some ears, but not so anything here. Zorn’s compositions for Lucifer are immediately-attractive, mostly genial and nigh-irresistible. They also reward close attention. Lucifer is the first new recording in a decade by the Bar Kokhba sextet: violinist Mark Feldman, cellist Erik Friedlander, guitarist Marc Ribot, double bassist Greg Cohen, drummer Joey Baron and percussionist Cyro Baptista.
