Nguyen Le, Duos with Paolo Fresu, Dhafer Youssef - Homescape
2006
Breaking the boundaries between jazz and world music.
Brought to you by TQMP
The Quality Music Project
Bedroom boffins such as Danger Mouse have changed the sound of pop music, but home recording methods have had less audible impact on jazz and world music, which is more about performance than fiddling with a PC. However, guitarist Nguyen Le has used the freedom of home recording to make an album that's relaxed, flowing and uncliched. Where his recent albums have used regulation rhythm sections, Homescape is based upon improvised duos with either trumpeter Paolo Fresu or oud player/ vocalist Dhafer Youssef, usually backed by simple, loops and samples. Le's post-production (all at home, too) has then crafted these performances into a piquant series of moving and thrilling world-jazz tracks.
Le gives plenty of space to his collaborators, but resists the temptation to be too self-effacing; this rhythmic electroacoustic melange is a sympathetic setting for his guitar solos, too. Fresu's trumpet playing is fleet and crisp, while Youssef's resonant oud-playing provides a great foil to Le's distinctive electric guitar parts, which evoke lands both further east and west. Youssef also delivers some passionate, wordless vocal parts, the one on Byzance taken from the recording of a live gig in Glasgow.
-- The Guardian
French Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le who never fails to impress with his new music, successfully mixing jazz and world music elements.
-- Abstract Logic
Nguyen Le is a masterful, inventive player who has cultivated a wholly unique voice on the instrument. He ranks right up there with Bill Frisell, John Scofield, Mike Stern, and Allan Holdsworth in the post-Hendrix world of jazz guitar.
-- JazzFM.com (UK)
In the main sunny and joyful, though not without some darker and more abrasive moments, the fifteen tracks—average length three minutes, a handful six or seven—resemble a series of round-the-world postcards sent by Le, who mixed and post-produced everything solo, to his collaborators. As a soundtrack to an evening communing with the big bamboo, the exotic and the very exotic drifting in and out of the mix, it's rich, colourful and beguiling.
-- AllAboutJazz
Check them out live here.
Nguyen Le – electric, acoustic, fretless, synthesizer, e-bow, Vietnamese guitars, computer programming & electronics.
Paolo Fresu – trumpet, fluegelhorn & electronics.
Dhafer Youssef – oud, vocals & electronics.
Tracks
01- Stranieri (Paolo Fresu - Nguyen Le)
02- Byzance (Dhafer Youssef - Nguyen Le)
03- Muqqam (Dhafer Youssef)
04- Mali Iwa (Nguyen Le)
05- Zafaran (Dhafer Youssef - Nguyen Le)
06- Domus de Janas (Paolo Fresu - Nguyen Le)
07- Kithara (Dhafer Youssef)
08- Chelsea Bridge (Billy Strayhorn)
09- Safina (Dhafer Youssef - Nguyen Le)
10- Des Pres (Paolo Fresu - Nguyen Le)
11- Thang Long (Nguyen Le)
12- Neon (Paolo Fresu - Nguyen Le)
13- Mangustao (Dominique Borker)
14- Lacrima Christi (Paolo Fresu - Nguyen Le)
15- Beyti (Dhafer Youssef - Nguyen Le)
Artwork, EAC log and CUE sheet included.
Audio format: FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
http://flac.sourceforge.net/index.html
Enjoy, seed and inhale!
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Pastafari Cubensis
Proud Member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
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