A Path of Light
Hevreh Ensemble: Jeff Adler, bass clarinet/Native American flutes; Judith Dansker, oboe/Native American flute; Laurie Friedman, clarinet/Native American flute; Adam Morrison, piano/keyboards.
ETHEL: Ralph Farris, viola/vocals/minimoog; Kip Jones and Corin Lee, violins. Dorothy Lawson, cello.
Shane Shanahan, percussion. George Rush, double bass. Naren Budhkar, tabla.
Ansonica Records 0013
Total Time:  49:13
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Ansonica tends to pull together a blend of global music with connections often to both the classical and jazz worlds.  This new release featuring the Hevreh Ensemble fits perfectly with that mission.  The group makes its debut here on the label.  They have traveled throughout Europe to audience and critical acclaim for their unique blend of global musical traditions.  The compositions on this release are by Jeff Adler.

The listener is invited to come along on a musical journey that explores a few unique global traditions while also offering moments for reflection and deeper contemplation along the way.  The album opens with the jazzier rhythms of Sima de los Huesos which features a gentle lyric line against a jagged propulsive bass line.  The ensembles interesting blend of Native instruments with traditional sounds is rather refreshing and the organ adds an almost 60’s vibe to the opening of the album.  “A Path of Light” moves from a moment of subtlety to a klezmer-like dance which then adds an Indian table for a real ethnic musical fusion.  The music here, as elsewhere, blends engaging melodies with a variety of gentle percussion and mallets creating a sound that has an ancient folk feel that is very much modern in its harmonic and rhythmic funkiness.  From this to a the poignant “A Thousand Questions” with its dark bass clarinet tone against mallet percussion and a plaintive oboe that opens the work.  The primary melodic idea is then continuously transformed as new instrumental colors are added.  Each of the pieces that follow craft fascinating journeys of melody and timbre with beautiful results.  Once in a while the melody takes a rather unusual turn which makes the music ever more interesting.  The use of different keyboards often adds an additional unique color and jazzier reference to the style.  Each track moves through these moments of reflection and dance-like rhythms that create engaging music.  Some of the central pieces begin to move us toward more classical expression with a variety of repeated motifs that often come together with extended harmonies in tracks like “Hacked”.

Hevreh Ensemble is a distant cousin to the Frederic Hand Jazzantiqua.  What Hand’s group did in blending ancient modes and melodic styles with jazz, Adler’s music does with global musical instruments and gestures.  The use of electronic keyboards adds that modern jazz vibe from time to time with the melodies lending themselves to interpretation that is enhanced by the shifts in instrumental color.  A Path of Light thus creates a steady stream of invitations to explore the ancient and the present.  The result is a very engaging album that is about as unique as one can get as it blurs the lines of New Age, Jazz, Classical, and Global music.

Messing Around…With the Classics
Hakan A. Toker, piano.
Navona Records 6202
Total Time:  56:35
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

As one listens to Hakan Toker’s album, it is reminiscent of many of those crossover albums that take familiar classical tunes and then add a decided jazz or ethnic spin to them.  That is indeed what is happening in his release, Messing Around…with the Classics.  Toker essentially presents a familiar theme and then begins his own free improvisation adding decided jazz stylings but also sometimes veering off into another piece.

The opening “Elise’s Got The Blues” is an easy entry into Toker’s program as we move from a straight treatment of a familiar Beethoven theme into an often witty set of variations influenced by contemporary jazz with blues notes.  It even flirts a bit between the music hall and a late-night noir-ish bar setting.  “Gnossienne Czardas” is an example of the sort of other mashups that occur on the album as we go from Satie to Liszt colliding together.  Bach meets Mancini in the brief “Moon River Invention” and pops up later with a more jazz-like influence in “Toccata and Fugue in Blue”.  There is even an interesting take on Paul Desmond’s classic jazz album in “Take Five or More.”  The artist’s Turkish roots also help add unique color to these “interpretations” or “explorations”.  This comes to the forefront in the “Rondo Turchissimo” (based on Mozart’s familiar tune) and the closing “Istanbul Not Quite Constantinople”.  Mozart’s tune also gets a fun Latin version.  The decision to show these two sides of improvising Mozart with global musical ideas is important because it adds to the validity of what Toker is doing here while making for some rather fascinating music making.

Overall, this is a great listen that recalls the work of Chick Corea, Jacques Loussier, and then takes off down roads that recall Tempo Libre’s blends of Cuban rhythms and Bach.  If all those are the sort of albums that are guilty pleasures, this one certainly can hold its place alongside them.  While Toker’s aesthetic seems to be one that focuses on where he might take a piece on a certain day or time, this is at least one snapshot of his approach.  Most likely these improvisational directions would change each time he decides to musically meditate and react to the musical ideas and themes of his chosen repertoire.