Past Programs
World Music - 2008
Seckou Keita
13/12/2008
Seckou Keita’s music is a happy marriage of innovation and tradition. From Senegal, he resides in Britain and will tour Australia in February/March. A fine singer, but most especially a master of the kora, Seckou is noted for devising entirely new tunings for his 21-string harp/lute. The Silimbo Passage is named for the special time of day when ‘darkness gives way to the light.’ It is the second CD from what he now calls ‘SKQ’. The quintet’s other members are a sister of his who sings, a percussionist from Gambia, an Italian bassist and an Egyptian violinist.
Seckou Keita’s currently-functioning site is here:
www.myspace.com/seckoukeita
{includes details of his Australian tour}
www.seckoukeita.com is ‘under maintenance’, as I type.
A revealing recent article is here:
www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.press_release/project_id/383.cfm
George Kuo
07/12/2008
George Kuo is a virtuoso, but very relaxed, always lyrical. That remains true on O Ke Aumoe, nothwitstanding that it finds him in a Bordeaux mansion, rather than in Hawaii where his favourite playing venue is ‘outside on my porch, late at night.’ As its title suggests his new CD was at least recorded at the right/night time, when ‘You can hear the spirit of all the ancestors.’ George is a master of ki ho’alu - the Hawaiian style of finger-style acoustic guitar, known in English as ‘slack-key’ guitar.
Discover more about George Kuo and his new CD, here:
www.winterandwinter.com/index.php?id=1505
For a brief overview of ‘ki ho’alu/slack key’ go to:
www.dancingcat.com/about-hawaiian.php
For the ’full monty’, in depth, start here:
www.dancingcat.com/skbook-tableofcontents.php
Carlos Del Junco
06/12/2008
His eclecticism may annoy the odd ‘blues policeman’, but Carlos Del Junco’s Steady Movin ought to delight any ears with an open mind between them. Whether your tastes incline to blues, to jazz or simply to good music, the Cuban-born, Canadian harmonica ace’s new album offers a feast of delight and amazement. As one reviewer observes, ‘One needn’t be a harp-o-holic’ to enjoy it.’ Fittingly, its cover image of a harmonica in flames is a clever variation on an image popular in Mexican culture - of a burning heart.
Carlos Del Junco’s site:
www.carlosdeljunco.com
radio.string.quartet.vienna with Klaus Paier
30/11/2008
As the name suggests, radio.string.quartet.vienna embraces the present and future. Its second album, RADIOTREE, is a quintet affair with an eclectically inclined compatriot. Accordion and bandoneón virtuoso Klaus Paier is its primary composer, writing with all five players specifically in mind. All value and honour their classical roots, but are not constrained by them. Paier's compositional ingenuity is matched by his improvisatory abilities. The CD's four not altogether new pieces were penned by two late, great Austrians— three of them by Joe Zawinul.
Discover more about this album, here:
www.actmusic.com/pdf/ACT_9473-2_PFE.pdf
The artists’ sites are here:
www.radiostringquartet.com
www.klaus-paier.com
Edgar Meyer/ Chris Thile duo
29/11/2008
Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile is a singular instrumental duo's debut CD. Each man is a phenomenon of his instrument and is astonishingly flexible—mentally as well as physically. Edgar Meyer was five years old when he took up double bass, 42 years ago. A wizard with the bow, Edgar enjoys iconic status in both classical and bluegrass circles. He has had his eye on mandolinist Chris Thile for 22 years, since Chris was five. As one critic recently opined, Chris 'may well be the most virtuosic American ever to play the mandolin.' Their particular passion is to mix formal music and improvisation in a way that is natural, retaining the best elements of both.
A revealing, interview-based article on this duo is here:
www.aspentimes.com/article/20080813/NEWS/641201050/1077&ParentProfile=1058
Discover more about Chris Thile here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Thile
Discover more about Edgar Meyer here:
profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=51628806
Jonathan Zwartz
23/11/2008
Double-bassist Jonathan Zwartz has for decades been one of Australia’s ‘most valued/most flexible’ musicians, especially {but not only} in jazz. The Sea is one of the lovelier - and longer-awaited - Australian debut recordings as leader. Its composed notes are all Jonathan’s. The superb players are a ‘dream band’ of longtime mutual admirers. This is intimate, very lyrical, keenly focused music - never self-indulgent, but conversational, with some inspired improvisation. Sound quality is remarkable. As tonight’s show will divulge, behind The Sea there is quite a story.
Jonathan Zwartz site:
www.myspace.com/jonathanzwartz
Conrad Herwig (Latin, Shorter )
22/11/2008
After his John Coltrane and Miles Davis Latin side of... projects, trombonist Conrad Herwig offers a brilliant take on the music of another jazz genius. One critic says of Herwig's The Latin Side of Wayne Shorter, 'if you know a person who thinks jazz is difficult to get, lacks melody, or you can't dance to it, this CD will change their mind.' It was recorded 'live' at the Blue Note in New York. Herwig is technically phenomenal, but 'technique' is definitely not his obsession—expression is. Herwig has said, repeatedly, 'all of us need to listen to vocalists' Here, you really need to listen to the incredible playing of his special guests , trumpeter Brian Lynch and pianist Eddie Palmieri.
To discover more about Conrad Herwig, this is a good place to start:
www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=7600
Although 1990s-vintage, the interview here is still very revealing:
www.trombone.org/articles/library/viewarticles.asp?ArtID=6
Mamadou Diabate ( solo )
16/11/2008
Douga Mansa is a feast of absolutely solo, West African instrumental virtuosity and improvisatory flair. ‘Live’ in the studio, Mamadou Diabate plays kora - a 21-string harp/lute. As a griot/jeli, music and oral history have been his family’s calling for centuries. Mamadou was born in 1975 in Kita, Mali. His hometown is a major cultural centre. So is his adoptive one: New York. Mamadou is at once conservative and innovative, true to a tradition which ‘has always put a premium on holding on the old way, whilst constantly innovating and developing the art.’ He tours Australia late December to mid-January.
Mamadou Diabate site {includes tour details and performance video}:
www.myspace.com/diabatemamadou
You can read a revealing article here:
www.eyefortalent.com/eft-press/M-D%20Sing%20Out%20062007sm.pdf
Lila Downs
15/11/2008
On Shake Away Lila Downs is all over the place - mostly, in interesting, unpredictable ways. The daughter of a Mexican, Mixtec mother and a Scottish-American father, Lila Downs grew up in Mexico, then Minnesota. Now, she mostly lives in New York. Even if you already love her work, expect to be surprised by an album that is ‘bigger than Ben Hur’, but much more culturally diverse and much more likely to move you to dance!
Lila Downs site:
www.liladowns.com
You can read a recent, revealing, interview-based article here:
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-et-culture13-2008sep13,0,3329769.story
Dem Trio
09/11/2008
Dem Trio has a name with multiple meanings and an exquisite new CD. The Fountain is a multi-faceted expression/exploration of Turkish musical traditions. This is beautiful, refined, virtuosic, intricate music. It is also direct and surprising, a ‘chamber music’ which does not merely permit improvisation: it’s integral. The trio’s members are primarily players of various Turkish lutes, although human voice and a Turkish flute are also deployed. By choice of instruments and their attitude, Okan Murat Özturk, Murat Salim Tokaç and Cenk Güray show how ‘classical/courtly’ and ‘demotic/folk’ elements can be embraced simultaneously, without diluting either.
You can discover a little more, here:
www.oz-ist.com/artist.asp?id=9
Zim Ngqawana
25/10/2008
Multi-instrumentalist and occasional vocalist Zim Ngqawana is one of South Africa’s most interesting, passionate musicians. Zimology in Concert (USA) is the 2-CD fruit of an invitation from the University of Tennessee. The moment he knew pianist Donald Brown {once of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers} was on the faculty, he agreed to be visiting artist in residence for their African Semester. Once there, Zim found the other members of the UT faculty ensemble ‘as great and broad-minded’. Zim has said ‘it’s not a question of Africa or America’, that ‘music is as free as the air’. His concert illustrates those points, perfectly. Mostly wide-ranging Zim originals, it includes a wonderful Ellington salute.
Zim Ngqawana’s site is here:
http://zimology.net
Kayhan Kalhor and Brooklyn Rider
19/10/2008
The relevant ‘f’’ word fits more failures (some, well-intentioned, others exploitative) than musical successes. Silent City is, however, a brilliant example of ‘fusion’. Its makers have direct experience of both their very different home-places: Iran and the USA. Persian classical music has a longer history than the Western kind. Kayhan Kalhor is one of the most eloquent players of any violin species. He is the supreme exponent of the kamancheh. Brooklyn Rider is a New York-based string quartet. They met as members of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. Equally apropos are all these words: new, ancient, refined, earthy, composed, improvisatory, surprising, lucid. The key word is ‘beautiful’.
Discover a little more, here:
www.worldvillagemusic.com/anglais/album.php?album_id=109
Discover quite a lot more, here:
www.nytimes.com/2008/08/27/arts/music/27kayh.html
Bellowhead
18/10/2008
Of possibly-Arabic origin, Matachin refers to a dance with swords, masks and small shields. It is also the new, second full-length album from Bellowhead. The eleven members of English roots music’s most audacious ensemble come from wildly-various backgrounds. Bellowhead is hard to describe but nigh-impossible to resist. The band itself says it is ‘steeped in the English folk traditions of song and dance, but the feel is exciting, intoxicating, slightly sinister and deeply funky.’ Hearing is believing!
Bellowhead-central is here:
www.bellowhead.co.uk
Bako Dagnon
12/10/2008
Titati is spectacular. Bako Dagnon’s debut CD is also spectacularly overdue. As singer and cultural knowledge-bank, Bako is one of Mali’s living musical treasures, long recognised as such by her peers. The late Ali Farka Toure used to consult her. Mali’s most celebrated diva - Kandia Kouyate - was her protogé. In a career of more than 35 years she had made 5 albums, domestically. But only in 2007 - the year before her 60th birthday - did she record the album which now introduces her to the world. Bako Dagnon is powerful in every sense and well-served by her accompanists; they include two splendid acoustic guitarists and a harmonica ace.
Discover more about Bako Dagnon at these two sites:
http://bako_dagnon.mondomix.com/en/chronique4177.htm
www.geocities.com/fbessem/frames/art_dagnon_bako.html
WOMAD 1982-2007
11/10/2008
Tonight’s spectacularly diverse musical delights were captured, ‘live’, in many different places. With WOMADelaide 2009 now five months away, we explore the lavish 3-CD set/book with which WOMAD (‘World of Music Arts and Dance’) celebrated its first quarter-century. Most performances on Music & Rhythm: WOMAD 1982-2007 do not otherwise exist on disc.
If you would like to know how WOMAD began - and survived its difficult birth - read the article, here:
www.tpimagazine.com/interviews/9606/thomas_brooman.html
WOMADelaide 2009 happens March 6-8: www.womadelaide.com.au
Sainkho with Huun-Huur-Tu
05/10/2008
Mother-Earth! Father-Sky! is a sublime set of new and old songs from Tuva. This southern Siberian, central-most Asian nation is wildly beautiful. So is its music, most especially the singing. Sainkho is Tuva’s most celebrated female vocal artist. Huun-Huur-Tu is the seminal band in traditionally-based Tuvan music’s creative renaissance. Their collaboration is quintessentially Tuvan, but would have been absolutely unthinkable until a very few years ago. Some sounds may startle a Western newcomer, but most ought prove irresistibly beautiful to any attentive ears.
Sainkho’s site:
www.sainkho.net
Huun-Huur-Tu’s site:
www.huunhuurtu.com
Jerry Douglas
04/10/2008
Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Parker and country music are not often found in the same sentence. To dobro supremo Jerry Douglas, all are apropos. So are Ireland, New Orleans, even Baghdad: all are connected to his new CD, Glide. Douglas has done more than anyone else to raise the dobro’s profile and to make it ‘at home’ in lots of ‘new’ musical territories. The slide-wizard is a steel-worker’s son who fell in love with his instrument as an eight-year-old, forty-four years ago. In explaining why, the man hailed as ‘the holy ghost of the resonator guitar’ says of the dobro, ‘It’s just like a voice.’
Jerry Douglas’ site:
www.jerrydouglas.com
A recent interview (with Douglas playing, too) can be heard here:
http://wpln.org/?p=842
Steve Tilston
28/09/2008
His 1971 debut made clear that Steve Tilston was one of England’s finer acoustic guitarists/songsters. Ziggurat shows he is even better now, in all departments. Ziggurat is a set of new, shrewdly-observant originals, plus lovely new versions of two traditional songs. Tilston’s keen melodic sense is always-evident, as are his guitar skills and good taste. He borrows well, too: ‘One of the best melodies I never wrote’, he says of Chopin’s unwitting contribution to a very beautiful, otherwise-original love song.
Steve Tilston’s site:
www.steve-tilston.co.uk
Bennie Maupin ( in Poland )
27/09/2008
Bennie Maupin is a gifted composer and brilliant improvising player of reeds and flute. His bass clarinet work with Miles Davis was likened to a barracuda, prowling the lower clef. Keenly aware that ‘there are infinitely more sounds than there are notes’, Maupin is a master of quiet surprise and space. He is still growing, musically. On Early Reflections the 68-year-old from Detroit makes beautiful new music in Warsaw, with three fine young Polish jazz players and a superb female singer. Having previously recorded only operatic and Polish folk musics, Hania Chowaniec-Rybka here proves ‘sui generis’, quietly astonishing and absolutely comfortable.
Maupin’s official site:
www.benniemaupin.com
A very revealing, 2006-vintage interview is here:
www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=22723
Dřrge Becker Carlsen ( in church! )
21/09/2008
For nearly three decades Danish guitarist Pierre Dřrge has led one of the world’s more eclectic, creative and entertaining large ensembles. Keyboardist Irene Becker and reeds player Morten Carlsen are also founder-members of New Jungle Orchestra. Pierre, Irene and Morten’s occasional trio inclines rather more to contemplation and to intimate settings, most especially churches. The Skagen Concert was recorded in one, in Denmark’s northernmost town, near the tip of the Jutland Peninsula. We also venture into a Norwegian church tonight - in Oslo, where John Surman and Howard Moody recently recorded some sublime duets.
For more about Pierre Dřrge etc, this is still the best place to start:
www.newjungleorchestra.com
Warsaw Village Band
20/09/2008
Infinity is the fourth studio album from Warsaw Village Band. The group began in 1997. Ever since, it has been surprising people at home and abroad. Vocally and instrumentally, these adjectives are equally apropos: novel, ancient, startling, beautiful, powerful, haunting. Before tonight’s featured artists were even born, a certain famous African-American ensemble coined a motto which also fits the young Polish sextet: ‘Ancient to the Future.’
To discover more, start at this very well-linked place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Village_Band
<i>Miles from India</i>
13/09/2008
Miles from India presents the music of Miles Davis, as never before seriously attempted. The late ‘prince of darkness’ had a following in India. Indian influences were at times audible in his recordings and Indian instruments and/or players occasionally present. But this is the first full-on collaboratiion between distinguished Davis alumni and leading musicians from the Subcontinent. One of many delightful surprises: an All Blues for north and south Indian classical virtuosi (Hindustani lutenist/Carnatic hand-percussionist, respectively, on sitar and ghatam) plus some Davis ’old scholars’, including the drummer who’d played on Davis’s original nearly fifty years earlier. No-one replicates their own or anyone else’s previous efforts.
Two good places to discover the story behind Miles from India:
http://home.nestor.minsk.by/jazz/news/2008/01/2801.html
and:
http://mixonline.com/recording/tracking/miles_from_india
Various interview/performance videos are here:
www.nme.com/video/id/jE3IcK1gOMU/search/abou
3ma ( Malagasy/Moroccan/Malian string trio )
07/09/2008
3ma is an unprecedented string trio. Their music makes pleasing sense the moment you hear their eponymous debut. The album title makes sense in French. Madagascar’s emblematic instrument is the valiha. Rajery is known as the ‘prince’ of that tube zither. From Mali, comes a master of a harp/lute hybrid - kora player Ballaké Sissoko. Morocco (Maroc) is home to Driss El Maloumi. He is a virtuoso of the oud - the fretless, Arabic lute. A festival in Morocco sparked the trio, which came together in Madagascar and made their album on another Indian Ocean island.
This project’s genesis is explained here:
www.rfimusique.com/musiqueen/articles/104/article_8087.asp
You can discover a deal more about Rajery here:
http://rfimusique.com/musique/siteen/biographie/biographie_7035.asp
Rabih Abou-Khalil: <i>em portuguęs</i>
06/09/2008
Lebanese lutenist Rabih Abou Khalil lives in Europe. His highly original, cosmopolitan music has particular colleagues in mind - in recent years, an Italian, an American and a Frenchman. All four players are highly individual, virtuosic, lyrical, adventurous, humorous. Abou-Khalil’s em portuguęs crucially involves a young newcomer: Portuguese vocalist Ricardo Ribeiro, who had previously ‘only sung fado’. This beautiful, unique CD is ‘deeply rooted in the everywhere and the nowhere.’ Its leader is keenly aware that wonderful/fresh - or terrible/banal - things can happen when very different folks join forces; em portuguęs illustrates his analogy concerning what a gynaecologist knows and what a lover knows!
Discover more about this project here:
http://www.enjarecords.com/cd.php?nr=ENJ-9520
Various interview/performance videos are here:
http://www.nme.com/video/id/jE3IcK1gOMU/search/abou
Aliéksey Vianna (plays Sérgio Assad ) repeat: first aired on 17.2.08
31/08/2008
Tonight’s show revolves around a definitely-Brazilian album for classical guitar, solo. Its still-young virtuoso Aliéksey Vianna was just eight when he took up guitar, via a happy accident at home; in a cupboard he found the guitar his mother had never quite got around to playing. Aliéksey Vianna plays Sérgio Assad: solo guitar works is a project actively encouraged/heartily approved of by the composer. Sérgio Assad is the older sibling in {arguably/inarguably} the world’s top classical guitar duo. Tonight’s show includes that duo’s astonishing take on George Gershwin’s best-loved orchestral work. They manage it wonderfully well, sans-orchestra.
Discover more here: www.aliekseyvianna.com
Luciano Biondini and Ricardo Rocha { repeat: 1st aired on 16.9.07 }
13/07/2008
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.’
Learn a little more about Biondini here:
www.enjarecords.com/cd.php?nr=ENJ-9509&PHPSESSID=6b1994df5156719689a9e1d9993aeb8e
Learn a {very} little more about Rocha here:
www.vachier-producao.pt/imprimir.php?p=Ricardo%20Rocha%20%3E%20Biografia&agenda=
To discover more about the guitarra portuguesa go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_guitar
For a really good look at this beautifully strange instrument, go to this gallery:
www.pbase.com/alagoa/guitarra_portuguesa
Raphael Rabello { repeat: 1st aired on 20.10.07 }
12/07/2008
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.
Discover a little more about Raphael Rabello here:
www.allbrazilianmusic.com/en/artists/Artists.asp?Status=ARTISTA&Nu_Artista=492
Andrew Robson Trio
28/06/2008
The Andrew Robson Trio’s Radiola may prove 2008’s landmark Australian release. Don’t be fooled by the cover: Radiola is no nostalgia trip. It offers brilliant new music. Andrew is the saxophonist and composer. His are real compositions, but what makes this such a special CD is the sensitive/empathic/alive, ‘in the moment’ interplay between all three players. Andrew, double-bassist Steve Elphick and drummer Hamish Stuart have been this particular trio since 1995. Each listens as well as he plays. All pay great attention to their actual SOUND. Sound engineer Ross Ahearn has captured them, perfectly.
Discover more, here: www.andrewrobsontrio.com
El Hadj N'Diaye
07/06/2008
Geej - the Wolof word for ‘sea’ - is the Senegalese songster El Hadj N’Diaye’s third CD. His remarkable voice will likely move even listeners unaware of his songs’ meaning. N’Diaye is a courageous, compassionate songwriter who wants ‘to show things exactly how they are.’ He sees singers like himself as, ‘in a way, the voice of the people’. His lyrics - pointed and poignant - are not designed to comfort Africa’s ruling elites. The music is uncluttered, but rich. African, Western and eastern elements/instruments are deployed with equal assurance.
El Hadj N’Diaye site:
www.elhadjndiaye.com/home.htm
Altiplano ( Magic Malik, Minino Garay, Jamie Torres a.o. )
31/05/2008
Take a well-informed, adventurous and uncommonly inventive trip to South America’s very high plains! Only the Tibetan plateau is bigger than the Altiplano. The CD Altiplano is definitely not yet another dose of ‘usual Andean music, treated the usual way.’ Its shifting cast has three co-leaders. Two are Argentineans: Jaime Torres (the world’s leading charango virtuoso) and percussionist Minino Garay. Malik Mezzadri - known as ‘Magic Malik’ - was born in Africa, raised in the Caribbean and resides in Paris. His flute is wonderfully unpredictable, as is the whole album.
A revealing interview with Magic Malik is here:
www.iht.com/articles/2003/09/10/zwer10_ed3_.php
You can see as well as hear Jaime Torres, here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSdjRGknK7g
Wanderlust
10/05/2008
When in Rome ... give the locals an inspired, multi-cultural, Australian surprise! Wanderlust did so at Villa Celimontana one 2004 night, as documented on their new CD. When in Rome features a compact edition of Wanderlust, plus an oud-toting guest. He’s Joseph Tawadros. The band-proper is led by trumpeter and primary composer, Miroslav {Mike} Bukovsky. His colleagues are trombonist James Greening, drummer-percussionist Fabian Hevia and keyboardist Alister Spence. Their musical conversations range widely and probe deeply.
Discover more here:
www.wanderlust.com.au
Bent Grooves (Kim Sanders and friends)
03/05/2008
‘No lounge-room cowboys here’ says the leader of Kim Sanders and Friends’ Bent Grooves. Kim Sanders’ recent three months of study and performance in Turkey was just the latest of many journeys to various continents, islands and cultures. If you wish to ‘do your own thing’, says Kim, you should first gain some understanding of particular cultures ‘at the source’. Kim and friends are some of Australia’s finer ‘world’ musicians. On Bent Grooves they have a lot of fun and their musical embrace is spectacularly wide. But they steer well clear of the shallows. All have ‘paid their dues’. No ‘world fuzak’ here!
Discover more here:
www.kimsandersworldmusic.com/index.html
Karine Polwart
13/04/2008
Karine Polwart can often be found tramping the hills near her home in southern Scotland. Wherever you look, you’ll be hard-pressed to find her peer, musically. Karine is equally uncanny as singer of traditional songs and as writer-performer of keenly-observant new ones. She has two current releases. Fairest Floo’er is mostly devoted to traditional songs, whilst this earthly spell is her new set of Polwart originals.
Karine Polwart’s site: www.karinepolwart.com
Antonio Sanchez
12/04/2008
Antonio Sanchez is on many notable albums, but Migration is his debut as leader. The phenomenal drummer from Mexico City is ‘quiet-spoken, yet intense’; he often plays that way, too. All four of his limbs - and their independence/inter-dependence - beggar belief. But Sanchez always serves the music, never batters it. The most in-demand drummer in New York is wide-open, surprising, yet superbly controlled. Migration’s core band is a piano-less quartet, with two saxes. It also has a ‘piano trio’ number, especially penned by its pianist - Chick Corea. The other guest also provides a new original; he - Pat Metheny - is the guitarist on an incredible duo treatment of the CD’s one old (Miles Davis) tune.
Antonio Sanchez site:
www.antoniosanchez.net
To really get a sense of how Sanchez approaches the drums, click the ‘Modern Drummer’ article link, here:
www.antoniosanchez.net/press.html
Gest8 {repeat: first aired on 10.11.07}
15/03/2008
Kaleidoscope is all over the place.. in the very best sense! It’s the debut CD from Gest8. Pleasingly unlike any other octet on earth, Gest8 really has nine members. One does not play regularly, six play ‘normal’ jazz instruments, one a Japanese zither, the other a computer.. Co-leaders/primary composers Sandy Evans and Tony Gorman have long been two of Australia’s most consistently rewarding/creative musicians in jazz....and in music well beyond what most people consider ‘jazz’.
Discover more, here: www.jazz-planet.com/sandy/gest8.htm
Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill
02/03/2008
Martin Hayes plays fiddle. Dennis Cahill plays acoustic guitar. Singly, each is remarkable. As a duo they are sublime. If you love Irish music you will surely love their sensitive, quietly inventive approach. If you generally don’t much care for Irish music, you may well love this duo all the more! Welcome Here Again is their first new duo CD in eight years. Fortuitously, its international release coincides with their February/March 2008 Australian tour.
Martin Hayes/Dennis Cahill site { includes tour details } :
www.martinhayes.com
Carla Bley (with Paolo Fresu}
24/02/2008
For more than three decades Carla Bley has been one of the most consistently creative composer-arranger-bandleaders. Although best-known for large ensembles, she can make a very small one sound remarkably ‘orchestral’, yet intimate. On The Lost Chords find Paolo Fresu, her regular quartet becomes a quintet, via Carla’s wish to give her saxophonist a ‘present’. Aware that Andy Sheppard so admired and felt a real affinity with the Sardinian trumpeter, Carla recruited Paolo - even before she knew his abilities, directly. Her trust in Andy’s judgement was not misplaced! Carla so loved his and Paolo’s interactions that she remarked, ‘I couldn’t wait to get through my solo...so I could simply listen to them.’ As always with Carla, the music is beautiful, surprising ... and humorous.
A conversation with Carla Bley - about this CD - can be read here:
www.ecmrecords.com/Background/Watt/Bgr_W34.php
For general info on Carla Bley, a good place to start is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carla_Bley
Aliéksey Vianna (plays Sérgio Assad )
17/02/2008
Tonight’s show revolves around a definitely-Brazilian album for classical guitar, solo. Its still-young virtuoso Aliéksey Vianna was just eight when he took up guitar, via a happy accident at home; in a cupboard he found the guitar his mother had never quite got around to playing. Aliéksey Vianna plays Sérgio Assad: solo guitar works is a project actively encouraged/heartily approved of by the composer. Sérgio Assad is the older sibling in {arguably/inarguably} the world’s top classical guitar duo. Tonight’s show includes that duo’s astonishing take on George Gershwin’s best-loved orchestral work. They manage it wonderfully well, sans-orchestra.
Discover more here: www.aliekseyvianna.com
<i>Mare Nostrum</i> (Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren)
10/02/2008
Mare Nostrum means ‘our sea’. To the ancient Romans it was the Mediterranean - a sea with European, African and Asian shores. Notwithstanding pianist Jan Lundgren’s Swedish nationality, this beautifully unusual trio has a Mediterranean flavour. Mare Nostrum is the first three-way exchange between Jan, Sardinian trumpeter Paolo Fresu and the French (ancestrally, Italian) accordionist and bandoneon virtuoso Richard Galliano. Each is highly eclectic, highly individual, a noted leader. All are open-eared and conversational - quietly brilliant players who don’t shout out their virtuosity. The music is mostly their own, but they also do lovely, surprising things to pieces by Jobim, Ravel and Trénet.
Discover more, here:
www.actmusic.com/product_info.php?products_id=239&show=2
Aliéksey Vianna (plays Sérgio Assad ) { show first aired on 17.2.08 }
31/01/2008
Tonight’s show revolves around a definitely-Brazilian album for classical guitar, solo. Its still-young virtuoso Aliéksey Vianna was just eight when he took up guitar, via a happy accident at home; in a cupboard he found the guitar his mother had never quite got around to playing. Aliéksey Vianna plays Sérgio Assad: solo guitar works is a project actively encouraged/heartily approved of by the composer. Sérgio Assad is the older sibling in {arguably/inarguably} the world’s top classical guitar duo. Tonight’s show includes that duo’s astonishing take on George Gershwin’s best-loved orchestral work. They manage it wonderfully well, sans-orchestra.
Discover more here: www.aliekseyvianna.com
Collard Greens & Gravy
26/01/2008
We begin the new broadcast year on Australia Day, in a metalwork factory in Melbourne. The best-yet CD from one of the great blues trios, Devil in the Woodpile, was recorded where Collard Greens & Gravy regularly rehearse. As friend and admirer Jeff Lang says, it ‘reeks of pure unadulterated dirt...hypnotic, sexy and primitive. Beautiful and dangerous.’ Songster and harmonica ace Ian Collard leads the trio. James Bridges plays guitar and fiddle. Anthony ‘Shorty’ Shortte plays drums and chicken feet.
The band’s site: www.collardgreensandgravy.com
Les Soeurs Diabaté { Guinean Lovesongs - first aired on 25.8.07 }
19/01/2008
Fine female, non-Western voices soar this weekend. Tomorrow, our primary address is in the south of India. Tonight’s is in West Africa. Donkili Diarabi - Guinean Lovesongs features the three voices of ‘Les Soeurs Diabaté’. Sona and Sayon Diabaté are in fact sisters. Mama Diabaté is Sona’s soul sister. Their distinctive voices are heard singly and together, with beautiful accompaniment on bolon, bala {respectively, a bass harp-lute and a xylophone which sounds more like a marimba than a Western xylophone} and acoustic guitar.
You can discover a little more, here:
wwww.africanculture.dk/en/sona.html
Rahim Alhaj with Sadaqa Quartet { first aired on 3.6.07 }
13/01/2008
Tonight’s featured album is an ’unlikely’ success. Friendship is a collaboration between an Iraqi master of the oud {the fretless, Arabic lute} and a Western string quartet. Lutenist/composer Rahim Alhaj fled Iraq in1991. Since 2000 - having gained sanctuary as a political refugee - he’s lived in Albuquerque. He and the Sadaqa Quartert recorded Friendship at the University of New Mexico.
Note: this program’s original broadcast came one week after another show which involved a string quartet where you would not expect one. In our summer season that show did not air ’last week’ - it is that of Saturday 29.12.07. The ’Turtle-’Trane’ edition’s audio is yours to demand from this website until Saturday 26.1.08.
Rahim Alhaj has an informative site, here: www.rahimalhaj.com
