At the high point of the year, it seems appropriate that the theme of this issue's Earth Tones should be musical synergy. The brothers Danna join classical tropes of east and west for their score to the drama Green Dragon, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and percussionist and producer Mickey Hart are the driving forces behind stellar recordings that span musical genres and entire cultures and the World Music Network releases a belly dance compilation that chronicles the dance form's growing popularity in the western world. And composer John Williams, who seems to have been working by numbers for the last few years, rediscovers musical excitement and high drama for the latest installment of the Star Wars saga.
If Williams was asleep at the wheel for The Phantom Menace, someone woke him up for Attack of the Clones. His score for the latest installment in the Star Wars series (Sony Classical) is bigger, broader, more exciting and more in keeping with the spirit of the saga, making it a far more satisfying listen whether you liked the movie or not. It probably helps that the series' most familiar and best-loved themes--not only the Star Wars theme itself, but the Force theme and the Imperial March, last heard cleverly rearranged into something softer and gentler as Anakin's theme in Episode I -- are here in full force, so to speak. They're like the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9; a snippet here, a smattering there, and then, suddenly, they emerge in full, horns blaring and strings swelling for all they're worth.
It also helps that Williams had more to chew on. He got to write a towering love theme that is both more mature and darker than anything he composed for the original trilogy; given how the romance in question is destined to end, that's entirely appropriate. The old and new material blends much better than it did in The Phantom Menace, where changes from one to the other could be jarring. Although Williams reuses some of what he wrote for that film here, the transitions are much smoother, and the whole thing is much more organic in structure. Parts of it are as passionate and sweepingly drawn as anything Howard Shore did for Lord of the Rings, which, as you'll recall, is quite different from Williams' score for Harry Potter. Although there's the occasional odd moment--I will never get used to an electric guitar in a symphony orchestra, and there's a percussive section that makes one think that Williams spent some time listening to Tan Dun's score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon--the Attack of the Clones score reaffirms why Williams is one of the most respected film composers in the business.
Another score that deserves mention is that composed by the brothers Jeff and Mychael Danna for the film Green Dragon (Varèse Sarabande). Although the movie has had limited release (as of this writing, its only showing in Seattle was for the Seattle International Film Festival), this score is one of those rare and remarkable entities, a body of film music that's capable of standing on its own. That's partly a testimony to the composers; Mychael in particular has an extensive and impressive list of credits that includes Bounce, The Ice Storm and Girl, Interrupted. (It also includes Johnny Mnemonic, but there's no point in blaming a composer for a lousy film, right?) The score's dreamy, evocative mood, which prevails throughout a gradual but definite progression from eastern to western musical tropes, also says something about the film itself (which is worth seeing if you get the chance). The track titled "America" has the sort of grand, simple innocence that the country tends to inspire, until one takes a closer look at the reality beneath the ideals; in fact, the film is about Vietnamese refugees in the United States during the Vietnam War. "I Will Endure," "The Dragon Disappears" and "Farewell Saigon" bear out other impressions, implied by their titles. While the music borders on and sometimes crosses over into sentimentality, a silence resides at the center that becomes the music's true anchor in the end.
What happens when you collect compositions and field recordings from locales ranging from Finland to China, get a group of master musicians together from all over the world and then send them on the road and into the recording studio? Well, if you happen to be cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the group becomes the Silk Road Ensemble, and the resulting recording crosses musical boundaries in ways of which the ultra-hip can only dream. Silk Road Journeys (Silkroad Project) is an enchanting collection, not only because much of the material has never been heard before on CD because it was specifically commissioned for this recording, but also because these musicians are very, very good at what they do. How else could instruments ranging from piano and cello to pipa and erhu (don't worry, the liner notes explain what these are) work together in such perfect synergy? It's the in thing now to perform music from one culture using instruments from an entirely different culture or genre (a good example here is the Renaissance Italian piece "Chi passa per'sta strada," performed by an ensemble of Western and Eastern stringed instruments), but usually this sort of thing doesn't rise beyond the level of novelty. Even that can be interesting, and Ma and his cohorts could have taken the easy way out. But they didn't. There are moments of sublimity on Silk Road Journeys, reminders that a master performance is only partially about the performance itself. In larger part, it is about reaching for a musical ideal of perfect expression of the work being performed. One could argue that mastery is about getting out of the way of the music, attaining sufficient technical and interpretive powers to allow it to speak for itself. That, Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble have done. (Lest we get bogged down in meta here, I should also point out that it's just plain entertaining listening.)
Fans of the Japanese percussion group Kodo may be surprised by the group's newest recording, Mondo Head (Sony Music Japan/Red Ink). Seeded with guest performers ranging from Brazilian drummer and vocalist Airto Moreira, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain and the Gyuto Tantric Choir, this is the most crosscultural project Kodo has attempted. Mondo Head is less surprising once you discover that it was produced by Mickey Hart (see below). Many of the guest musicians are longtime Hart collaborators. The result is fascinating and a testimony once again to the talent and abilities of master musicians. As mentioned above, when discussing Silk Road Journeys, a problem that frequently emerges when you remove a particular kind of music from its surrounding culture is the loss of reference to that culture; too often, the music suffers as a result. There's no danger of that where Kodo and their colleagues are concerned, however. They manage the difficult task of keeping their music rooted in its idiom, while at the same time leaving everyone with plenty of room to move. The result is that each track on Mondo Head is unique and distinctive, but at the same time each is connected to the others. While many of the rhythms and melodies on this recording have been heard before on other albums, in other settings, Mondo Head represents the best of 20 hours of improvisation in the recording studio--a place where improvisation can be most challenging. Mondo Head simmers with the energy of master performers at the top of their game. It's not quite like being there, but it's about as close as you can get on CD.
Mickey Hart's stint as drummer for the Grateful Dead was, it turns out, merely the launch point for a remarkable career. He can be held at least partially responsible for the world-music craze and resultant crossovers. Hart's solo CDs provided the first point of contact for many master musicians from a variety of cultures with western audiences. Some of that career is chronicled in Over the Edge and Back (Rykodisc), a reference to his memoir of music, percussion and shamanism, Drumming at the Edge of Magic. Over the years, Hart has been the driving force behind an incredible variety of music, and this CD, a best-of collection, provides a sampling of his work, which ranges from percussive trance music on instruments he invented to the nostalgic, classic-rock-style "Down the Road." The cap to this remarkable collection is the closing track, a piece composed for and first performed at the Olympic opening ceremonies in Atlanta in 1996, which involved literally hundreds of drummers and is here presented in recording for the first time. This is a stylistically uneven collection; while Hart's performance and composition are distinctive, he's travelled all over the musical map, and frequently beyond its borders as well, hence the suitable and appropriately descriptive title of this CD. Most listeners may wind up picking and choosing favorite tracks.
The bellydancing craze has come around again, and once again, the Rough Guide people have an introduction on hand: The Rough Guide to Belly Dance (World Music Network). This reasonably priced compilation consists of previously released material in a variety of styles from a variety of artists. While some are very traditional in instrumentation and interpretation, others clearly show the influence of other cultures and musical styles (the liner notes go into some detail concerning the dance form's exposure to the West, and vice versa). Most of the tracks are percussion-intensive, as one would expect of dance music, and the final track, "Raqset El Banat," consists entirely of percussion. Whether you know how to belly dance or not (and if you don't, by the way, classes have sprung up all over Seattle), this is great dance music, with considerable variety in tempo and intensity. There are probably better collections out there, but this one is a great introduction and would be very suitable for circle or group dances.
Genevieve Williams is a Seattle freelance writer and drummer. She can be reached at rimrun@drizzle.com with feedback, suggestions, or recommendations. Local musicians are encouraged to submit material for review.