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Sample Track 1:
"One Day His Axe Fell Into Honey" from New Deli
Sample Track 2:
"A Crack in the Clouds" from New Deli
Layer 2
Album Review

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Knoxville.com, Album Review >>

The members of TriBeCaStan don’t make it easy for their audience to break down what they’re all about. The liner notes (and press release) for “New Deli” ramble whimsically with plays on words, fanciful tales and a smattering of actual facts. But the New York-based ensemble is no joke. These are veteran musicians producing something that’s not easy to explain. The release credits more than 20 musicians (members of the group plus guests) who are listed playing more than 50 instruments — many of them exotic to American ears, some exotic to all ears. Fronted by John Kruth and Jeff Greene, who between them play a couple dozen instruments on “New Deli,” TriBeCaStan is a “FolkLorkeStra,” which is an adequate definition for the act’s spirited world folk music — mostly instrumental, and often anchored in Western jazz, though not always. Opener “Song for Kroncha” kicks off as a seeming Latin jazz combo built on Kruth’s flute and Claire Daly’s baritone sax before the song veers into dissonant, free-form chaos. The curveballs keep coming: The animated “Louie’s Luau” is improbable banjo- and harmonica-fronted jazz with other instruments passing in and out of the mix, “A Crack in the Clouds” is a New Orleans dirge dominated by bluesy woodwind, “Dive Bomber” is a Eurasian mash-up, and “Jovanka” sounds like gypsy burlesque tango featuring a trumpet that eventually rampages. There are also covers, including an African/Chinese/Celtic-ish rendition of Don Cherry’s “Guinea,” a playful take on Ornette Coleman’s “Two for Ornette (Dee Dee/Theme From a Symphony)” and the most unexpected twist of all, a hybrid cover of the Nina Simone/The Animals song “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.” “New Deli” is so well-executed from start to finish, there’s no need to make sense of it. Rating: 4 stars (out of five) 02/21/12 >> go there
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