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His own arrangements of traditional songs are both thoughtful and highly capable, his singing attractive and his guitar playing much of the ‘gently intricate yet firmly accessi- ble’ school that we hear in musicians like Mar- tin Simpson and Ewan McLennan. The materi- al Chris has chosen for this album is intended as an affectionate homage to his parents’ repertoire, consisting as it does of songs that have for him become cherished and personal family heirlooms. That means a number of familiar titles, then, several of which were pre- viously recorded either by his parents as a duo (The Streams Of Lovely Nancy, Haymaking, Rambling Robin) or by his father solo (Bonny Labouring Boy, Chilbridge Fair). The disc’s one contemporary selection is Kay Sutcliffe’s Coal Not Dole, for which Chris adopts the melody used by Swan Arcade. Usefully, Chris’s succinct booklet notes credit his sources, and he admits to deriving inspiration from, variously, Nic Jones (Wanton Seed), Hart & Prior (Bay Of Bis- cay) and Martin Carthy (in general).
Instrumental settings tend to revolve
around Chris’s interestingly busy, animated guitar, and the simple textures are selectively fleshed out by contributions from a pool of musicians comprising Jackie Oates, Pete Flood, Vicki Swan, Jonny Dyer, Issy Emeney and Keith Kendrick. In the final analysis, while Chris’s versions can’t be considered radically challenging they’re certainly well sung and played and pleasingly delivered, even if his apparent keenness to achieve individuality of phrasing occasionally gets in the way of the tune. As interludes, the disc also contains two sparkling instrumental tracks, Chris’s deft, rippling arrangements of Playford and Tickell tunes.
www.chrissarjeant.com/ David Kidman
MELECH MECHAYA Melech Mechaya Felmay fy 8192
Arguably Portugal’s greatest klezmer band, in a not overly crowded field, have finally put together a neat international release in order to explain those ecstatic live notices which they have been receiving for the last six years or so. They have myriad influences, of course, which they’re keen to display, including cred- itable studies of Goran Bregovic at his sly best. And yes, they do fuse fado into their klezmer, including the vocals of MÌsia, here sublimely tackling the rueful Gare No Oriente.
I first came across the band through the riotous 2010 video for their Dança Do Desprazer, a loose, acoustic shuffle through the standard, in a film that captures the joy- ful and stylish appeal of klezmer music more than any number of treatises or liner notes.
There are seven highly inventive origi- nals here, though to claim a klezmer banner for all of them is tenuous and inviting con- troversy. File under klezmer. But also file under folk music, perhaps, or quirky pop, or jazz, or unplugged modern dance music, or tango. Or none of the above. World music, maybe. It’s certainly all based on a tradition. Not at all contrived, the set has gradually evolved into this precise but modest release through years of live honing and increasingly rapturous feedback.
The lazy marketing suggestion is that they bring drama to klezmer merely by hail- ing from Portugal, and having an innate knowledge of fado. More telling is their employment of the Klezmatics’ Frank London in the complex fizzing melodies of their John Zorn homage, Caleidoscópio.
They turn the Freylach De Varsóvia circle dance, through tango, into a widescreen fill, while the Mazel Tov wedding music is a dis- play of the band’s conviction that Balkan rhythms and Iberian rumba do combine
warmly and well. This is the sound of an accomplished band thinking outside the box. They are based, of course, outside the box.
It doesn’t all work. Chinelo Aquático makes bold claims to have a “drum ‘n’ bass from Manchester” vibe about it. It doesn’t. And as the brooding minimalism of the con- cluding Dança Árabe fades out, there’s cer- tainly debate to be had over whether much of this should even be called klezmer. But there’s no debating the panache of a band who really should be booked, everywhere, now.
www.felmay.it John Pheby VARIOUS ARTISTS
The Rough Guide To Highlife Rough Guides RGNET1280CD
With all the current interest in the fearsome Fela, afrobeat scourge of the guilty, it’s a treat to hear a youthful him singing happy highlife from the palmy days of Nigerian independence. This is where the album opens, though the origins of highlife were in Sierra Leone and Ghana where local musi- cians concocted smooth and danceable music for the elite, drawing on local palm-wine music and Western showband music. Quickly the music moved along the coast to Nigeria and out into the wider population, increas- ingly adding indigenous and harder pop ele- ments to the mix. While the size of the bands decreased – economic necessity – so the intensity grew, until finally you ended up with something that could stand beside the best of James Brown, diverging out into swampy juju and funky afrobeat.
This CD details the years before highlife
went tuff. The rhythms are lightly rolled out, the sweet voices to the fore. Usually the mood is dreamy and drawn-out. Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe’s Osondi Owendi, which pre- figures Sunny Ade’s masterly understatement, is so apparently supine you are hardly aware of the magic that’s being worked. But it is. Sir Victor Uwaifo – not to be confused with Dr Victor Olaiya, also included on the CD – is a little more urgent. The drifting magic remains.
More insight into the general euphoria comes with the customary free Rough Guides
Melech Mechaya
CD – here it’s by Seprewa Kasa, an acoustic trio based around the traditional kora-like seprewa harp, an endangered species. The sound is pure serenity.
www.worldmusic.net Rick Sanders
EVIE LADIN BAND Evie Ladin Band Evil Diane Records EDR002
SUZY BOGGUS American Folk Songbook Loyal Dutchess
What you can do with and without a reason- able budget. Ladin is a banjo picking, step- dancing singer and songwriter from Califor- nia and produces a captivating album mixing original songs with highly original takes on older songs. An original song, He’s Not Alone, is a classic country song performed many miles away from a standard country song for- mula, as Shadow Of The Pines is an old Carter Family song performed a similar distance away from the original. Ladin is supported by three musicians who complement her origi- nal take on her music, usually adding bass, guitar and fiddle to her voice and banjo, but like the rest of this most enjoyable album they totally eschew any formulaic approach to their musical settings. Entertaining, inter- esting and original.
www.evieladin.com
Suzy Bogguss is an award-winning singer from Nashville who has tours to pro- mote her records, with this one given an exclusive launch in Cracker Barrel Restau- rants, a sort of American Little Chef. And we all know what happened to them. The recording is a departure from the Nashville norms and offers a beautifully-produced album of 17 acoustic versions of extremely well-known folk songs. Opening with a hot Shady Grove, I have to confess by the time I got to Beautiful Dreamer and passed through the likes of Banks Of The Ohio and Sweet Betsy From Pike I had had enough. Whilst I could never tire of Stuart Duncan’s inventive fiddle, and solid guitar from Pat Bergeson that drives the entire album, Bog- guss’ voice is tuneful but adds nothing to
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