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Sample Track 1:
"Alison House" from Coffee & the Mojo Hat
Sample Track 2:
"Farewell" from Coffee & the Mojo Hat
Layer 2
Album Review

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Hearth Music, Album Review >>

Folk 'n Jazz: Jim Gutmann, Ben Hall, Duane & Dwayne, Neil Pearlman

Here's another concept album that sounds ridiculously difficult to pull off. And it is. Blending the dynamic stride playing of Cape Breton piano with jazz/Latin piano styles is a strange mix, but young American pianist Neil Pearlman has guts. Pearlman makes the bold claim that there's a clave in traditional Scottish music, and while you'd be hard pressed to find it in the particularly straight playing of Highland pipers or classically-influenced fiddlers, when you start getting into some of the more down-and-dirty forms of Scottish music in Cape Breton (or close-to-the-floor as they like to say), there are some hard beats that simply can't be ignored. And it's surprisingly successful to strip the music back to reveal some of those hidden backbeats, which Pearlman does with great zest.

Pearlman, for his part, has devoted much time to studying jazz and Latin piano styles, but grew up playing Scottish music with his parents and stepdancing in their ensemble. He's a precocious player, and you can tell how much fun he's having subverting the Scottish accompaniment paradigm with this album. But he's got some excellent ideas as well, and the musical chops to pull off this kind of attack on the status quo. I've heard plenty of albums that combine jazz with Celtic music, but none that take the concept as far as this one. Not all of the album works, but it's performed with such gusto that you won't much mind. And there are some gorgeous gems, like the beautiful singing of Elizabeth Burke on "MonyMusk Lads," or the funky Hammond-meets-Irish-flute track "Farewell." Kudos to Pearlman for such a brave debut and let's hope for more music to come from his strange worldview. 06/06/11 >> go there
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