Marc Rossi Group, Mantra Revealed

Marc Rossi has a take on Indian-influenced fusion that is thoroughgoingly sophisticated, eminently musical and well put-together. His Marc Rossi Group recording Mantra Revealed (Innova 816) gives us much to experience, admire, and enjoy. It's a core group of Marc on keys, Lance Van Lenten on tenor and soprano, Bill Urmson on electric bass, and Mauricio Zottarelli on drums and percussion. They are joined in important cameo roles by vocalist Geetha Ramanathan Bennett, and the guitars of Prasanna and Bruce Arnold.

This is the sort of fusion that derives its principal thrust from the compositional-arranging prowess of Mr. Rossi. The finely enthusiastic performances in general and the appropriate idiomatic solos from tenor, piano, vocals and guitars give the music depth and drive.

"Jazz Impression of a Kriti" starts off the program with great strength, taking an Indian Kriti (Carnatic compositional element) and transforming it into a well turned fused onslaught in ten with some remarkable guitar work by Prasanna, who plays a nuanced solo that is both informed by traditional Indian phrasing and blazes beyond it into a realm where it mixes with rock and jazz in a post-McLaughlin fashion. The two following pieces pit the limber vocals of Ms. Bennett with some sterling fused-ensemble writing.

The album continues on with an interesting cornucopia of ornate fusion compositions that bring in at times various well-conceived indo-fused elements, as well as Afro-jazz and a hint of Brazilian jazz. The second half of the album generally excels in the architectural intricacy of the melody lines, rhythmically heightened solo work and heavily burnished ensemble work. Bruce Arnold and Bill Urmson stand out for their work on "New Beginnings." "Sahara" has a Tyner-Sanders feel to it, grooves nicely and highlights some rather scorching Van Lenten soprano.

"Voice of 1000 Colors" has a very attractive Afro-Reichian beginning then segues to fused bossa. "Vertical Fantasy on 'You Know You Know'" gives Rossi a chance to comment upon, embellish and give his improvisational impressions of the classic McLaughlin line.

"Feast or Famine" ends the program on a nicely turned modulatory fusion mode.

In the end there are spots of sheer brilliance in the Indo-fused introductory pieces and then some very well wrought mainstream fusion in the following pieces. Rossi is a composer-arranger of great promise and definite talent. The performers give their all (which is a goodly sum) and you go away feeling happy. What more can you ask? Indo-fusologists will love the first half of this program; general fusicologists will appreciate it all I suspect. I reveled in the first half; enjoyed the second.

Dominic Duval, Songs for Krakow, for Solo Contrabass

Dominic Duval is one of the foremost improvisation/jazz contrabassists practicing today. His work with Cecil Taylor, Trio X, his own units and countless other associations has won him an avid following, deservedly so. And when a bassist of this caliber goes it alone to make a full album of unaccompanied solos, it is sure to be an event. Songs for Krakow (Not Two) is such an outing, and it has been garnering my enthusiastic attention for more than a week.

The solo bass outing only makes sense with the most accomplished and imaginative artists. It's just you, your bass, your ideas, and what you can make of it all. Happily Songs for Krakow makes much of it. In fact it is one of the handful of such efforts that strikes me should be of interest not only to bass players but to all lovers of the improvisational arts.

Of course Dominic's formidable technique is very much on display, in pizzicato and bowing modes. He uses the natural elementality of the instrument, its open string configuration, the open string(s) along with the simultaneous sounding of stops on adjacent strings, and other aspects of the idiomatic nature of the instrument to bring a primal directness of communication to the ears. There are figures he develops and works variations around and there are free-soaring flights into good blowing areas. And he goes far beyond fundamental string combinations and multiple stops that lay close to hand into stratospheric realms that express potently and emphatically what the solo bass can be capable of under his command.

He cuts lose here. Songs for Krakow gives you about an hour of why Dominic Duval is a bassist of enormous stature. There is structure, there is freedom and there is some wailingly down expression to be savored throughout. Grab it and let your ears travel with the sounds!

Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners 1905-1953: Classic Yiddish 78s from the Mayrent Collection

If you think my double review posting of today on this site has a particular design, you would be right. The message is peace through music. I don't need to elaborate.

We look today at a rather marvelous 3-CD set Cantors, Klezmorim and Crooners 1905-1953: Classic Yiddish 78s from the Mayrent Collection (JSP Records 5201). It's a wide-ranging smorgasbord of Yiddish music as it came to be in the New York of the turn-of-the-century and covers well its gradual incorporation of jazz and popular elements over the years while never losing its roots. There are well-loved traditional melodies, Cantorial gems, unusual combinations and Yiddish popular songs and humor. So you have Yiddish theater star Aaron Lebedeff, the Abe Schwartz Orchestra, Morris Goldstein, Sophie Tucker, the Bagelman Sisters, Naftule Brandwein, Clara Gold, Molly Picon, and any number of Cantors and other artists now perhaps little known doing what they did in a masterful transfer to digital audio that brings the sound and inflection of the music to us in as bright a sound as I've heard.

It may not be for the novice listener, or if it is, it has to be one with the patience to absorb such a huge assortment of authentic sides in styles that may sound rather unfamiliar today. Any lover of the music of the era will revel in this collection, as I most certainly did. And the comedy!! This is so much a part of the roots of New York that it is as essential as stories of Babe Ruth, old pictures of Coney Island or the literature of the Harlem Renaissance.

Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Bahrami Fard, I Will Not Stand Alone

The rich tradition of Persian classical music is something I have experienced with great interest and pleasure over the years. Yet nothing quite prepared me for the recent recording of Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Bahrami Fard, I Will Not Stand Alone (World Village). I say that because the music is quite beautiful but also strikes me as sounding like a furthering of the tradition into a realm of tone and style of an original kind.

The sound of the music is deeper in that the bass santour, well played by Ali Bahrami Fard, has an expanded range that goes well with the sound of the shah kaman, a bowed instrument that was made especially for Kayhan Kalhor. The latter has an expanded range as well and in Kalhor's hands, an attractive, slightly hoarse tone.

According to the information on the press website, Kaylan Kalhor created the music on this album as "a meditation on one of the most difficult stages in his life, where darkness and violence seemed to be taking over yet through music and his connection to the people, hope rises. This album is a bittersweet reflection on love, life and country."

The music is very moving. Excellent. Kalhor is an artist of the very first rank and Fard an excellent accompanist and a soloist of distinction as well. This is music to make you reflect. It is very beautiful music.

Michael Schenker Group, Live at Rockpalast 1981, Hardrock Legends Volume 2

There was a point in the early '80s where hard rock had not yet totally morphed into the cartoon-like exaggeration of professional wrestling. The Michael Schenker Group featured Schenker, a lead singer, a guitar-keys man and a drummer. Their on-stage demeanor was more geared to the honest presentation of their music than it was to a creation of otherwordly persona, of comic-book super heroes with guitars. That of course was going on with Kiss and other bands and it was to dominate the stage style of arena metal in the years that followed.

This is shown refreshingly on their 1981 appearance on the Rockpalast TV series, with a DVD entitled Hardrock Legends Vol 2 (MIG 90227). It's about an hour of the band doing their music on stage. The sound is generally quite good. Schenker plays some nice hard rock lines. The band is tight. After tenures with the Scorpions and UFO this is his first major solo band effort and the emphasis is on the pyrotechnics he was known for. The songs themselves have the typical pristine straightforwardness of the hard rock of the times.

Fans of the heaviness of 1981 in general and Schenker in particular will find this a good way to spend an hour now and then.

Public Image Limited, Live at Rockpalast 1983

When Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols broke up and Johnny went on to form Public Image Limited in the late seventies-early eighties, I was so immersed in my schoolgoing world that I missed it. Turns out that was a pity. Luckily we can retrace our steps later on and I have done that.

One good bit of the band in full flower is on the recently issued DVD of Public Image Live at Rockpalast 1983. This was a West German TV series that put bands in a medium-sized venue and set them loose. And so did they with Rotten and crew. Public Image straddled a line between punk and new age in ways that kept the aggressive thrash aspects of the Sex Pistols and added a bit more riff power and finesse, comparatively speaking.

So you get an hour of the band in good form, doing what they did. The sound is full, Rotten dynamic, the band primed. The DVD includes a short punky sort of interview and a fair bit of the sound check.

Those that lock into this period will find this a good show. These guys had it going then.

Rick Drumm and Fatty Necrosis, Return from the Unknown

When Larry Coryell cranked his guitar in an early incarnation of the Gary Burton group back in the mid-sixties, it caused a sensation. One side felt that this jazz-rock, as it came to be called, was the music of the future. Another very vocal side thought it an abomination. The music persisted and flowered with Miles Davis, John McLaughlin and scores of others creating masterpieces in the medium. Some of the music was sufficiently inclusive of world, funk and other influences that it came to be called fusion, but the controversy never went away. For a time formulaic versions and the Marsalis contingency served to discredit the music and it nearly fell into eclipse. It was too powerful and open-ended to succumb and there has been continuance, resurgence and new life in the music in the past decade or so.

Enter on the scene one Rick Drumm and Fatty Necroses, and their first album Return from the Unknown (self-released). It's a fairly large band with Drumm on the drums, two guitarists, Fred Hamilton and Corey Christiansen, who also write the music, plus contrabass, piano, trumpet, sax and trombone.

Drumm has an interesting background. Besides his musical world he is in the business world (currently heading up D'Addario strings) and has an MBA. For all that our focus is on the album at hand. It's a good one with a varied palette of music that goes from balladry to fusion to metal to funky. The music is quite well put-together, the ensemble parts have a nice feel to them, the guitarists can tie some fire to their plectrums, the rest of the band can get some solos in there that are worth hearing and the program flows nicely from start to finish.

Now there is much more in the way of detail I could add, but what counts is the togetherness of the unit and their cohesive sound regardless of the stylistic variation. Drumm's drums are the glue that holds it together. There is so much music to be had here in the 63 minutes of the CD, good music, that I will leave off giving further description and just say that if you appreciate the full band sort of jazz-rock, this is one of the better efforts so far this year.