| Reviews
Sometimes a best-of album intended to showcase one artist winds up spotlighting a host of fantastic performers. This is certainly the case with Jarabi (Palm Pictures), a compilation of the work of renowned Malian griot Toumani Diabate, who is a master of the 21-string harp known as the kora.
Diabate’s illustrious collaborators include legendary American bluesman Taj Mahal, Spanish "nuevo flamenco" ensemble Ketama and seminal Malian artists like singer Kassemady Diabate and fellow kora player Ballake Sissoko. The resulting pieces – some original compositions, some adapted from traditional songs – are intricately woven, intensely rhythmic and at times almost hypnotic. Some are gentle, like "Kandjoura;" some, like "Mali Sajio," are more infectious.
The extensive liner notes allow listeners to gain a greater appreciation of both the artists’ skills and the musical history of Mali, but Jarabi would be a worthwhile purchase for any music fan even without them.
The same holds true for the re-release on Rounder Records of the New York-based Klezmatics’ back catalogue. These albums not only showcase the musical talents of the nearly 20-year-old group, but also provide a unique window into the experience of being Jewish in North America. The two reissues I received illustrate this point nicely, as they feature both arrangements of traditional klezmer music from the European Jewish community and 20th-century compositions by American and European musicians.
The notes to 1988’s Shyvagn = Toyt, which features songs the Klezmatics performed live in Berlin with Les Misérables Brass Band, have both translations of the Yiddish lyrics (although roughly half the songs are instrumentals) and descriptions of the different dance beats represented in the music – you should be able to tell a hora from a freylekhs in no time.
Rhythm + Jews (1991) follows much the same model (although without the brass band), and also has a very funny liner essay from Michael Israel Wex on the difficulties of being a young Jewish beatnik.
Rounder also released the Klezmatics’ most recent album, Rise Up! Shteyt Oyf! (2002), which features powerful songs like "Barikadn (Barricades)" and the Holly Near-penned "I Ain’t Afraid" alongside traditional dances and folk songs. Pick up Shyvagn = Toyt to get your bearings, and then go wild.
Also available on Rounder, The Best of Tish Hinojosa Live was recorded at the Cactus Cafe in Austin, Texas in the summer of 2002. A singer-songwriter of Mexican heritage, the San Antonio native began singing jingles for Spanish radio as a child, and has since had her country-folk compositions recorded by artists like Linda Ronstadt. This 17-track collection includes selections from all of Hinojosa’s albums – from 1989’s Homeland to 2000’s Sign of Truth – as well as the previously unreleased tracks "She’s a Highway" and "Otra Vez."
Hinojosa’s pleasant voice and crackerjack backing band do equal justice to uptempo country tracks like "I’m Not Through Loving You Yet" and gut-wrenching ballads like "Something In The Rain," which touches on the plight of migrant workers. An interesting feature of this album is that Hinojosa tells the stories behind the songs in her between-song chatter rather than in the liner notes – her booklet essay talks instead about her lifelong musical journey. A good introduction to both Hinojosa’s work and the Tex-Mex musical tradition as a whole.
Alas, not all best-ofs live up to the name. Case in point: Six Degrees of P-Funk: The Best of George Clinton & His Funk Family (Epic/Legacy). Don’t assume that this is a Parliament-Funkadelic album – instead, it’s a collection of the various side projects that P-Funk members have pursued since 1979. Unfortunately, for all the talent these musicians have, most of their independent work isn’t much more than mediocre R & B and hip-hop.
The tracks from P-Funk drummer Jerome "Big Foot" Brailey’s Mutiny project are pretty funky, as are the contributions from flash-in-the-pan groups The Sweat Band and Mico Wave, but the work by Bootsy Collins, Junie Morrison, Phillippe Wynne and Clinton himself (with the P-Funk All-Stars) is nowhere near the calibre of Parliament-Funkadelic’s output. And that’s actually one of the few interesting aspects of this release – the proof that P-Funk is, was and always will be on a planet of its own. |
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