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FAIRPORT CONVENTION
Whilst not cutting edge, Sadeh’s melodies
and the Voyagers arrangements manage to
Fame & Glory Matty Grooves MGCD049
merge Jewish, Middle Eastern, eastern Euro-
pean and jazz influences in such a way as to
Live At Cropredy ‘08 Matty Grooves
give the band a distinctive sound and style.
MGCD048
There are even Latin traces that hint at the
When is a Fairport Convention album, not a
Gotan Project without the vocal sampling. This
Fairport Convention album?
is particularly noticeable in the title track, with
the syncopated accordeon stabs over a Middle
About a decade or so back Fairport,
Eastern groove and the piercingly hollow jazz
through the Dan Ar Braz connection, became
flute of wind-man Stewart Curtis.
involved with French composer Alan Simon
who’d completed a song cycle called Excalibur
Whilst there is a strong element of jazz
centred around Arthurian myth. Five albums
in her music, Sadeh, who has a background in
later the partnership’s as strong as ever, Simon
classical and Middle Eastern music, seems
presenting them with an increasingly diverse
more comfortable playing around with sim-
bunch of characters to be vocalists and fea-
ple traditional folk chord structures overlaid
tured instrumentalists. The time seemed right
with subtle melodies that twist in surprising
then for the collective to present the first
ways. This duality is evident in Gulliver In
issue of this material on our side of the Chan-
Jerusalem, an upbeat Balkan Gypsy track
Ti-Coca
nel. Occasional copies had sneaked in as
until the clarinet transforms it into a sizzling
imports, particularly 2007’s The Celtic Ring but
Bar Mitzvah dance number.
Matty Grooves saw the merit in hosting a TI-COCA & WANGA-NÈGÈS
There is lots of tempo variation within
proper release, hence Fame & Glory.
this album, but the slower, more introspective
Haiti Colibri Accords Croisés AC 127
pieces are still full of vigour and intensity. Klil
What we’ve got is a mix of 15 tracks, some
is a soft and mesmerising lullaby that features
very prog with crunching guitars mostly the Haitian twobadou
a beautiful passage of Sadeh’s bowed bass
work of Jethro Tull man Martin Barre and oth- (troubadour) Ti-Coca
and Goldberg’s mandolin tremolo. The track
ers, Clannad ethereal with Jacqui McShee, (“Little Coke”, a.k.a.
suddenly and inexplicably transforms into an
whilst there is one piece of thumping electric
David Mettelus) has
exhilarating eastern-inspired jazz funk section
jigging, Castle Rock, which opens proceedings
worked with Wanga
with Goldberg switching to guitar and Stew-
in fine style, recorded when Dave Mattacks
Nègès from the ensemble’s founding in 1976.
art Curtis on flute. The rather pessimistically
still manned Convention’s drum stool. Else-
Piano accordeon, banjo, double bass, and per-
named What Else Is There references the
where various Fairports, Simon Nicol, Chris
cussion constitute the foundation for Ti-Coca’s
1950s Mediterranean rock rendition of Miser-
Leslie, competently steer proceedings in-
potent, gravelly interpretation of traditional
lou – the track that everyone remembers from
between a mixture of studio and live offerings
konpa, meren, boléro, contredanse, and the
Pulp Fiction – with the charged electric guitar
that hold the idea together despite wandering
Vodou chant genres of ibo, kongo, petwo,
tremolo and dominance of the flute.
off from Arthur into Breton folklore towards
and yanvalou. The brilliant result shares strik-
Reconciliation is one of those CDs that
the end. Gigs have seen Justin Hayward,
ing sonic kinship with accordeon and string-
deserves a lot of listening and at each play it
Maddy Prior and others join the ensemble, yet
band traditions elsewhere around the
gets better. As the title suggests, these tracks
a pleasantly surprising feature here was just
Caribbean, including the rural meringue of
reveal that it is possible to create harmony
how well the vocal of King Crimson and Asia’s
the neighbouring Dominican Republic (pre-
even while combining diverse musical influ-
John Wetton – normally used to chest-beating
ceding the sanitised, amplified urban version
rock – sits amid the strings and Celtic synths of
popular on the pan-Latin dance floor),
ences.
www.tzadik.com
Lugh. As a side project this is worth investiga-
Jamaican mento, Bahamian rake-and-scrape,
www.daphnasadeh.com
tion and it seems a fair bet for a theme for a
Belizean brukdown, and zydeco.
Laoise Davidson
future Cropredy set. Speaking of which…
Packaged in a smartly designed and
beautifully illustrated hardcover booklet,
All who made the annual pilgrimage to
with notes in French and English, Haiti Colibri
north Oxfordshire last year came away speak-
is a lovely document of and testimony to a
MARY HUMPHREYS &
ing of the best set Fairport had conjured for
rural dance style whose African roots remain ANAHATA
years. Pleasing to report then that the memo-
manifest, even as global markets do their
ry is more than borne out by the official
Cold Fen WildGoose Studios WGS 362CD
best to ignore the vital roots of more saleable
recording. Simply put, this is a five-star object
popular commercial forms.
Effectively a sequel to their previous CD Fen-
and is the finest Convention offering for an
age. Ok it’s all old material but one listen to
www.accords-croises.com, distributed by landia, this East-Anglian-themed disc from
the majority of it and you realise why so many
Harmonia Mundi:
www.harmoniamundi.com the established, felicitous partnership of
Mary and Anahata bears all their usual hall-
loved the original releases. From the opening Michael Stone
marks: sprightly playing, earthy and charac-
trio it’s obvious that the band aren’t going to
terful singing, imaginative accompaniments,
be tripping across their yesterdays lightly, this
and a healthy ratio of songs to tune-medleys.
is serious stuff: Ye Mariners All, Reynard The
Fox, have a new snarl in them. A quick dip
DAPHNA SADEH &
The songs are in the main drawn from those
collected by Vaughan Williams in Fens vil-
into Babbacombe Lee produces a most sensi-
THE VOYAGERS lages during 1906 and 1907 (the exception
tive Cell Song and fiery Hanging Song, Chris
Leslie really on form and the others right in
Reconciliation Tzadik TZ8134
being Young And Single Sailor, which comes
from the Lucy Broadwood papers). As Mary
there, fencing hard and strong, a manic Doc-
Daphna Sadeh has many talents, and playing has discovered, however, the snag is that in
tor Of Physick and gothic, black Reyardine.
the bass incredibly well is only one of them. many cases RVW only notated the music, and
It’s the way they nod tribute though to She happens to be an inventive composer of didn’t always manage to return to his source
the 30th anniversary of Sandy Denny’s passing Middle Eastern or ‘Semitic’ style music; all to retrieve the words. She has therefore often
which lifts everything, “We once had a chick the tracks on this and previous albums are had to resort to some creative detective work
singer in the band who cast a long shadow,” her own compositions. She also really knows in order to unearth a suitable set of words
quips Simon Nicol. Her old friends and passion- how to put a band together. The Voyagers from the archives, subsequently then either
ate guardians of her memory do her proud, a include some of the most respected and tal- conjecturally matching that text to the col-
mere five songs included but two absolute
ented musicians who play Jewish, Middle lected tune or using a variant text to recon-
stunners: Chris While is mighty on It’ll Take A
Eastern or eastern European music in Lon- struct the song itself (rather as RVW himself
Long Time yet even she is outdone by her
don. Reconciliation is their third CD since would likely have done).
daughter Kellie on a brilliant John The Gun,
they formed in 2002 and shows the band at
This practice explains the presence on
ice and fire in one voice. Mention too for the
their most seductive and hypnotic.
Cold Fen of many very familiar song titles, a
epic guitar of Jerry Donahue on both tracks, Reconciliation is published on the Tzadik cursory glance at which makes the tracklist-
full and rounded it echoes from speaker to label, commissioned by jazz tycoon John ing seem deceptively mundane, even unad-
speaker in a way I’ve not heard from him in far Zorn. He used his fame and success to create a venturous. But be reassured, for Mary’s well-
too long. Hats off to live engineer Paul Smith label that supports music and artists that developed skill in canny adaptation and sen-
and producers, John Gale and Ric Sanders. other labels wouldn’t ordinarily touch – at sitive reconstruction gives rise to some
A job more than done well, it might be
least that’s what he claims. His Radical Jewish
intriguing settings that make the proverbial
subtitled Finest Hour. Buy in the full confi-
Culture series (to which Reconciliation
fresh coat of paint seem an understatement
dence that somewhere Sandy Denny is smiling.
belongs) includes CDs by the great and the
(even Abroad As I Was Walking, which incor-
good of avant-garde, adventurous and
www.fairportconvention.com; distribut-
porates a considerable number of well-trav-
unusual Jewish music, giving a platform to
ed by Proper:
www.properdistribution.com
elled phrases), while Rosemary Lane makes a
artists that struggle to be heard through
particularly fetching finale. In some instances,
Simon Jones
restrictive mainstream genres.
the ‘new’ tunes adopted for familiar texts or
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