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CD Review
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Down Beat , CD Review >>
Frank London's
Klezmer Brass Allstars
Carnival Conspiracy
PIRANHA 1902
4 1/2 Stars
Les Yeux Noirs
tChorba
World Village 468046
3 Stars
Damned if trumpeter Frank Lqndon doesn't keep putting out albums stuffed with some of the most stirring music heard anywhere, using Jewish music as an open field where his radioactive brain, his jackhammer pulse and his palpitating heart run amok with modern retellings of traditional klezmer and Hasidic prayer melodies. Saluting the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the first Jews in New Amsterdam from Brazil, he and 40 colleagues from eight countries shout out in jubilation. London's zany musical neighborhood extends from the boroughs of New York to Eastern Europe and Latin America.
Pick and choose among riches, as all 12 selections feature stellar musicianship and seven sung in Yiddish, Spanish, Ukrainian or Hebrew. Marvel over the dodging clarinets and bedrock brass (xim-pah of a slapstick matador frolicking with Jewish revelers on the riotous "In The Marketplace All Is Subterfuge." Listen in awe to Brooklynite Curha's dub remix of London's vivid reconstruction of the age-old tune "A Time Of Desire." the dizzying singing by Kol Isha. Delight in the happy collision of rhythms from Scott Kettner's New York mara- catu band (they look to northeastern Brazil and New Orleans) and fervidly imaginative drum mer Aaron Aaronson, a London regular. More quietly intoxicating in spirit and execution is London's revamping of the bittersweet tradi tional number "Borracho #1," which soothes like a post-Carnival sauna/steam bath complete with light flagellation from eucalyptus branches dipped into warm soap water.
Named after a Django Reinhardt .song, Les Yeux Noirs, a septet led by brothers Eric and Olivier Slabiak, plays ii modestly entertaining sort of French Gypsy music that makes signifi cant emotional and musical referrals to their Yiddish ancestry in Eastern Europe. Although the vocals usually run to Gallic melodramatic mush and the nods to modernity with samples, programming and rock touches add nothing to the heartiness of the band soup (chorba), only the hopelessly cynical or tin-eared would deny the allure of combined accordion, strings and percussion. The most appealing of four instru- mentals is the caravan hoe-down "Doina Si Joe De Marian." where Marinel Miu's hammered dulcimer spins gold. Frank-John Hadtey
Carnival Conspiracy. In Your Garden Twenty Fecund Fruit Trees: Oh Agony, You Are So Sweet Like Sugar I Must To Eat You Up: Another Glass Of Wine To Give Succor To My Ailing Existence; Midnight Bands Judia; In The Marketplace All Is Subterfuge (Podolye. Podolye); Who Knows One?; Pantagruel, Shiker Hmdert Prozent; A Time Of Curha Mix; Our Ancestors Four Thousand Years Wide; Out Of What?; Mi Yamalay; Borracho #1 The Cobbles In The Street Moan For You. (59:28)
Personnel: London, trumpet, peck horn; Susan Hoffman Watts, trumpet, Merlin hepherd, clarinets; Matt Darriau, clarinet atto sax ophone, Atex Kontorovich, clarinet, afto and tenor saxophones: Curtis Hassetormg. trombone, skronk guitar; Jacob Garchik, bari tone horn, trombone; Ron Caswell, tuba; Mark Rubm, tuba, bari tone horn, Tex-Mex guitar, Aaron Alexander, drums; Marjana Sadowska, vocals (II: Lorin Sklamberg, vocals (21; Michael Alpert, vocals, poyk (4, 9); Sarah Mma Gordon, vocals (6). Sanne Moericke, accordion 4, 9); Rob Curto, accordion 10); DannvBlume, guitar 1J; Jeff Warschauer, baritone horn (1,9); German Gofctenshtayn. danne! (9); Margot Leverett. clarinet (11); Randy Crafton. percussion (7): Scott Kettner & Maracatu New York (6, 7, 10], Kol Isha (4, 6, 8, 9, ), vocals; chorus (9).
04/01/06
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