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Dirk Powel is a multi-faceted musician. As both part of the band, Balfa Toujours-with his wife Christine Balfa-who performed here in Fallon a couple of years back, and with his own band, he demonstrates a complex emotional understanding of American roots musics. He has a unique ability to bring the life the musics that extend back more than nine generations in the American south. His latest release is Time Again (Rounder Select), and it is an exploration of the heart of the Appalachian tradition-some of the songs here will be familiar if you saw the film, Cold Mountain. The recording succeeds admirably in taking the material out of the archival realm and bringing it to dazzling life. This is the real stuff, vibrant and compelling.
Dervish is a seven-member ensemble from Sligo in northwest Ireland and, for many years now, they've been one of several groups at the forefront of traditional Irish music. Spirit (Whirling Discs) is the latest of several great releases from the band. It's a mix of reels, jigs, and songs that feature their vibrant blend of mandola, flutes, whistles, accordion, bodhran, guitars, fiddles, harmonica and bouzouki that percolate along behind Cathy Jordan's vocals. Their gift is the seemingly innate ability to play with an intuitive fluidity, to create beautifully measured songs whether it's Robert Burns' "The Soldier Laddie," or Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish leather."
Emeline Michel is one of Haiti's most important musicians and singers. Her latest CD is Rasin Keyol (Times Square Records). The title roughly translates as Creole Roots and gives but a glimpse of what she draws upon on the recording. She intertwines many rhythms including katabou, or Haitian drums to provide the foundation for her swirling emotive vocalizations. Her six-piece, and occasionally larger, combo glides effortlessly from relaxed and oh-so-melodic tropicalia, twoubadou, a relative of Cuban son, to rumba and furiously propelled up-tempo cascading African beat numbers. Spirit and body combine here.
Sandra Luna is a young Argentinean vocalist whose album Tango Varon (World Connection/Times Square) has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional World Music Album. Luna's music is rooted in the tango, not the increasingly well-known dance music, but rather tango cancion the vocal love songs (analogous to fado or mornas in other cultures) that are the heart and soul of the tango tradition. Her songs offer portraits-grandparents, dogs, children, life in the streets-of the stuff that bring the senses to life. The CD both invokes the past and looks to the future; from traditional bandeon and string numbers to songs that are highly percussive and have a variety of textures.
Congo Life (Stern's Africa/Next Music) is a sinuous assaying of Congolese Rumba by the group, Kekele. This musical hybrid-a mixture of Cuban rumba and African rhythms was hugely popular in the '60s. It is a heady mix of deep enchanting vocals, vivacious rhythms and a mesmerizing guitar-laced dance music. It is a classic sound that typified the heady days of African nationalism, before soukous came on the scene and overwhelmed the music's subtlety. Kekele is a "supergroup" of luminaries from the movement-a kind of Congolese equivalent of the Buena Vista Social Club-and they have both resuscitated and reinvented a classic musical styles.
Dervish is a seven-member ensemble from Sligo in northwest Ireland and, for many years now, they've been one of several groups at the forefront of traditional Irish music. Spirit (Whirling Discs) is the latest of several great releases from the band. It's a mix of reels, jigs, and songs that feature their vibrant blend of mandola, flutes, whistles, accordion, bodhran, guitars, fiddles, harmonica and bouzouki that percolate along behind Cathy Jordan's vocals. Their gift is the seemingly innate ability to play with an intuitive fluidity, to create beautifully measured songs whether it's Robert Burns' "The Soldier Laddie," or Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish leather."
Emeline Michel is one of Haiti's most important musicians and singers. Her latest CD is Rasin Keyol (Times Square Records). The title roughly translates as Creole Roots and gives but a glimpse of what she draws upon on the recording. She intertwines many rhythms including katabou, or Haitian drums to provide the foundation for her swirling emotive vocalizations. Her six-piece, and occasionally larger, combo glides effortlessly from relaxed and oh-so-melodic tropicalia, twoubadou, a relative of Cuban son, to rumba and furiously propelled up-tempo cascading African beat numbers. Spirit and body combine here.
Sandra Luna is a young Argentinean vocalist whose album Tango Varon (World Connection/Times Square) has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional World Music Album. Luna's music is rooted in the tango, not the increasingly well-known dance music, but rather tango cancion the vocal love songs (analogous to fado or mornas in other cultures) that are the heart and soul of the tango tradition. Her songs offer portraits-grandparents, dogs, children, life in the streets-of the stuff that bring the senses to life. The CD both invokes the past and looks to the future; from traditional bandeon and string numbers to songs that are highly percussive and have a variety of textures.
Congo Life (Stern's Africa/Next Music) is a sinuous assaying of Congolese Rumba by the group, Kekele. This musical hybrid-a mixture of Cuban rumba and African rhythms was hugely popular in the '60s. It is a heady mix of deep enchanting vocals, vivacious rhythms and a mesmerizing guitar-laced dance music. It is a classic sound that typified the heady days of African nationalism, before soukous came on the scene and overwhelmed the music's subtlety. Kekele is a "supergroup" of luminaries from the movement-a kind of Congolese equivalent of the Buena Vista Social Club-and they have both resuscitated and reinvented a classic musical styles.
