67 f JOSEPH REINHARDT


Joseph Reinhardt Joue… Django Label Ouest 304 022.2


Joseph Reinhardt was the younger brother of Gypsy guitar genius Django Reinhardt. From their earliest days playing as a duo for coins, through the years of international fame until, Django’s premature death in 1953, their rela- tionship was nothing if not tempestuous. They regularly vowed they would never play together again, a promise usually forgotten the following morning. Joseph only ever played the accompanying chords when per- forming with Django, yet his contemporaries knew him as a fine guitarist in his own right.


This album was first issued in 1959 and reveals a remarkable musician. Able to dis- play the chromatic virtuosity of his brother, as demonstrated on I Know That You Know, yet his style is his own, darker, and more at ease with space between phrases. His arrangements are striking. The cheerful old chestnut Sweet Sue is reinvented with the mood so altered, that the finishing quote from Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue seems per- fectly in context. He also slips a couple of his own fine compositions, Bric-à-brac and Triste Mélodie, amongst those of his brother’s. Label Ouest have added three further tracks to the eight tracks from the original limited- edition disc. Two are from the film Mon Pote Le Gitan (1959) and a further Joseph Rein- hardt composition recorded by Stéphane Grappelli’s Hot Four (1947).


If you are a fan of the Gypsy jazz style, seize the opportunity to own this remarkable historic material. www.label-ouest.net


Jon Moore


OPI: ORCHESTRA POPOLARE ITALIANA DELL’AUDITORIUM PARCO DELLA MUSICA


Taranta D’Amore Parco Della Musica MR022 CD


The size of this ensemble matches its rather long name and numbers 23 in total, although only 18 are featured in the photographs in the booklet. Unsurprisingly, the music was recorded in the Auditorium Parco Della Musi- ca in Rome, which is a boldly designed mod- ern complex of three concert halls that occu- pies part of the 1960 Olympic site in the north of Rome. Despite being recorded in a concert hall, it is not a live album.


The ensemble is directed by the respect- ed and talented accordeonist Ambrogio Sparagna, who also composed most of the music and wrote the lyrics to four of the songs (the rest of the lyrics are mostly tradi- tional, as are two of the tunes). The material draws on the tarantella and pizzica styles of southern Italy, which are predominantly dance traditions. A lot of the songs have live- ly rhythms, but also included are less frenetic, narrative songs. These are also an important part of Taranta and they serve to give a vari- ety in rhythm and tempo.


The large ensemble allows Sparagna the luxury of being able to rotate the lead vocals between some accomplished singers, includ- ing Mario Incudine, Raffaello Simeoni, Alessia Tondo, Silvia Gallone and Mimmo Epifani. Sparagna even takes the lead himself on the delicately arranged romantic song Fiore D’Aprile. Sparagna takes the folk dance liter- ally into the concert hall by marshalling his generous resources with intelligent arrange- ments that spotlight the proficient playing without losing the spontaneity and excite- ment that is such a vital part of this music.


www.felmay.it – via Egea Music UK. Michael Hingston


have unfortunately proved to be rather rare. The same cannot be said for the Union ver- sion. However, in recent years, as is the case here, they sometimes come up with a decent song or two, release them as a ‘single’ and then pad out the rest of the 40 minutes or so with live tracks. The two new songs in ques- tion, the calypso-inspired title track and Kamone, which wouldn’t sound out of place on a Mononoke album, are perfectly good, charming even, but there’s an element of frustration in the total package. In the end they sound like tasters for a full album, which is what they might even become, hopefully.


All available via www.farsidemusic.com Sebastian Spiller


SHAHKILID Nedaye Asemani Muziek Publique 002


Oki


OKI DUB AINU BAND Sakhalin Rock Chikar Studio CKR-0116


MALTESE ROCK Downtown Rock Aurasia Off Note AUR-19


SOUL FLOWER UNION Live Until You Die! BM Tunes XBCD-1032


Three releases of what can loosely be termed Japanese roots music: two from rela- tive veterans of the scene, two from oppo- site poles of the Japanese islands and two with rock in the title.


Oki has been combining his native Ainu roots from his northern base of Hokkaido with the help of the Dub Ainu Band for sev- eral years now. As the title suggests, this new album is as much rock-oriented as dub. In fact it wouldn’t have been out of place if they had renamed themselves the Blues Ainu Band, on tracks such as Osoro Omap, Tawki and Bekabeka, although these invoke the desert blues as much as the Delta or Chicago variety. Variety is perhaps the operative word for this album, with jazzy inflections and pul- sating Brazilian rhythms alongside tradition- al pieces played on Oki’s instrument of choice, the tonkori; the long, skinny, bass res- onating stringed instrument, and the com- mon thread throughout. Sakhalin Rock is an album that grows, its diverse elements mak- ing perfect sense after a while.


It’s difficult to make much sense of the Maltese Rock album on first listen. It’s as if Tom Waits has washed up on an Okinawan shore, in Japan’s deep south, been accosted by a klezmer band and forced to sing in Japanese. Only in the context of what’s gone before, does it all fall into place. Nearly 20 years ago, Okinawan traditional musician Tetsuhiro Daiku recorded a few albums with a brass band, influenced by chindon, a colourful tradi- tion of street marching music. The combina- tion was so successful and unclassifiable, this jazz/ chindon/ punk/ klezmer mix almost became a genre of music in itself. The real clue here is Tetsuhiro Daiku has written the liner notes, and although there aren’t that many obvious signs of Okinawan roots, instinctively it still sounds like music rooted in some kind of tradition, just not an obvious one.


Rock band Soul Flower Union from Osaka were one of the artists influenced by those Tetsuhiro Daiku albums; especially their brilliant acoustic offshoot, Soul Flower Mononoke Summit, took a lot of their musi- cal cues from them. Any recordings by SFMS


On 20 June 2009, Neda Agha Soltan found herself present at the latest of the wave of increasingly angry protests against the disput- ed election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that swept across Iran. As she watched the protest she was shot in the chest. The horror of the moment was captured on amateur video, and those tragic frames were repeated, playing out the moment again and again in a viral Zapruder loop, flowing instantly through the veins and arteries of the internet. In her death, Neda became famous. For their debut release, Persian fusionists Shahkilid have dedicated their work to Neda. The name of the CD Nedaye Asemani plays on hers and means ‘Heavenly Murmur’.


The group play an experimental, impro- vised style of music where the classical Persian tar, tombak and ney are augmented by a very western cello. And it’s a beautiful, involving sound they make: reflective, meditative even, with slow-building complexity as instruments combine. The subtlety of instinctive improvi- sation is bred of a 20-year collaboration between Dadmehr (tombak) and Shahram Mirjalali (tar). The heavenly murmur is present in Dadmehr’s breathlessly restrained drum patterns, and in the extraordinary range of tones that Davood Varzideh extracts from the ney, ranging from industrial steampress to pic- colo in the space of a few seconds. Murmur grows to rage on the track Rameshgar, where Shahram Mirjalali attacking the strings with fury and wonderful dexterity, creates a clang- ing Hendrixian confusion. In a liberating moment, the murmur has become a scream.


www.muziekpublique.be – UK distribut- ed by Discovery: www.discovery-records.com


Tom Jackson ROB SAY O’er Lang At the Fair Veteran VT157CD


Rob is now 35 which means that a debut album from this superb and important musi- cian is long overdue. Rob’s first instrument was the English concertina but with both his parents playing Northumbrian pipes, it was perhaps inevitable that he should take up the pipes as well. Tracks featuring these instru- ments roughly alternate on this album.


That he has become a prominent compe- tition piper is evident from several of the pip- ing tracks. He demonstrates an amazing tech- nique yet he always plays within himself. The most remarkable pipe tracks are where he plays theme and variation and Because He Was A Bonny Lad would stand out in any com- pany. The instrument also lends itself well to duets and the album reaches a rousing conclu- sion where he and Andy May share a fine attacking interpretation of the famed Cut And Dry Dolly. Rob brings the same precision to his concertina playing and on the opening track, he immediately pins the ears back with


Photo: Paul Fisher


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