Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble: Sing Me Home (CD review)

Yo-Yo Ma, cello; The Silk Road Ensemble. Sony 88875 18101 2.



Silkroad, as you probably know by now, is the nonprofit organization cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded back in 1998 to encourage a multicultural artistic exchange of study and ideas. World Music Central and The Irish Independent described Silkroad as an "arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences around the world" and "an initiative to promote multicultural artistic collaboration." Yo-Yo Ma took his inspiration "from the historical Silk Road trading routes and using the Silk Road as a modern metaphor for sharing and learning across cultures, art forms and disciplines."



Sing Me Home is the seventh album The Silk Road Ensemble have released since 2001, and if you like the kind of ethnic music they perform, you'll no doubt like this latest issue. Its producers describe it as "the companion album to the Morgan Neville documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble, and they call it "the artists' most-personal album to date." Ma says the album is "a tribute to how culture helps us all to meet, connect, and create something new."



The program presents a varied assortment of world music, some of it new, most of it traditional, representing a wide variety of cultures. Here's the playlist:



  1. "Green" ("Vincent's Tune"), featuring Roomful of Teeth

  2. "O'Neill's Cavalry March," featuring Martin Hayes

  3. "Little Birdie," featuring Sarah Jarosz

  4. "Ichichila," featuring Toumani Diabaté and Balla Kouyaté

  5. "Sadila Jana," featuring Black Sea Hotel

  6. "Shingashi Song," featuring Kaoru Watanabe

  7. "Madhoushi," featuring Shujaat Khan

  8. "Wedding," featuring Dima Orsho

  9. "Going Home," featuring Abigail Washburn

10. "Cabaliño," featuring Roberto Comesaña, Anxo Pintos, and Davide Salvado

11. "St. James Infirmary Blues," featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Michael Ward-Bergeman, and Reylon Yount

12. "If You Shall Return...," featuring Bill Frisell

13. "Heart and Soul," featuring Lisa Fischer and Gregory Porter

Yo-Yo Ma

The Silkroad Ensemble varies in size and personnel depending on the nature of the material and the availability of the artists involved. In addition to the featured performers above, the players this time around include Silk Road Ensemble members Kinan Azmeh, Jeffrey Beecher, Mike Block, Shawn Conley, Nicholas Cords, Sandeep Das, Haruka Fujii, Johnny Gandelsman, Joseph Gramley, Colin Jacobsen, Eric Jacobsen, Kayhan Kalhor, Yo-Yo Ma, Jessie Montgomery, Cristina Pato, Shane Shanahan, Mark Suter, Kojiro Umezaki, Wu Man, and Wu Tong, with help from Lisa Fischer, Bill Frisell, Black Sea Hotel, Rhiannon Giddens, Sarah Jarosz, Shujaat Khan, Martin Hayes, Gregory Porter, Roomful of Teeth, Rustica, and Abigail Washington. It's a formidable group.



Because the performers are tops in their field, the music sounds immaculate. More important, they play with an infectious enthusiasm, which combined with the precision of their talents creates an atmosphere of joy throughout the proceedings.



The opening track, "Green: Vincent's Tune," arranged by Wu Man, becomes a little raucous but it's undeniably infectious, too. The following item, "O'Neill's Cavalry March," couldn't be more different, an Irish number, and just as infectious.



And so it goes.



As I say, we get a varied selection of tunes, mostly characterized by string and percussion instruments, with occasional solo and choral vocals. The ensemble's Colin Jacobsen came across "Little Birdie" while listening to a collection by Pete Seeger and loved it. "Ichichila" is another highlight of the program, a song of the Tuareg people; it's delightful.



The flawless precision of the Silk Road Ensemble ensures that every item on hand sounds better than the last. You think, my, wasn't that fun, when along comes another just as good or better. Interestingly, the songs slow down considerably as the program goes on, reaching a dirgelike state by "St. James Infirmary," and end with a sweetly flowing rendition of Hoagy Carmichael's "Heart and Soul" with Lisa Fischer and Gregory Porter. The album offers one newly discovered charm after another.



Producers Johnny Gandelsman, Kevin Killen, and Cristin Canterbury Bagnall and engineers Jody Elff, Kevin Killen, and Xabier Olite recorded the album at MSR Studios and Avatar Studios in New York City, with additional recording at Zone Dolce, NYC, Africa Studio, Bamako, Mali, and Son Natural, Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. Sony Music released the disc in 2016.



As with most popular albums, the engineers give us a fairly close perspective, yet it's one that displays a good deal of separation among the instruments and a reasonable amount of depth to the ensemble. Wide dynamics, strong bass, and a warm, smooth frequency balance help to produce a good, natural sound. There is nothing hard, bright, or edgy here, so expect a relaxed listening experience.



JJP



To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click on the forward arrow:

A Playlist Without Borders (CD review)

Yo-Yo Ma and the
Silk Road Ensemble. Sony Masterworks 88883 71092 2.

Remarkably, as of this writing the Silk Road Ensemble has
been in business for some fifteen years. 
How is that possible? I just reviewed their first album only...some
fifteen years ago. Anyway, as you probably know, and quoting from their Web
site, “Inspired by the cultural traditions of the historical Silk Road, the
Silk Road Project is a catalyst promoting innovation and learning through the
arts. Our vision is to connect the world’s neighborhoods by bringing together
artists and audiences around the globe.”

They are “an internationally minded performing arts
nonprofit with cultural and educational missions to promote innovation and
learning through the arts. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded the Project in 1998 taking
inspiration from the historical Silk Road trading routes and using the Silk
Road as a modern metaphor for sharing and learning across cultures, art forms
and disciplines.”

Further, “The Silk Road Ensemble draws together
distinguished performers and composers from more than 20 countries in Asia,
Europe and the Americas. Since the Ensemble formed under the artistic direction
of Yo-Yo Ma in 2000, these innovative artists have eagerly explored
contemporary musical crossroads. Their approach is experimental and democratic,
founded on collaboration and risk taking, on continual learning and sharing.
Members explore and celebrate the multiplicity of approaches to music from
around the world. They also develop new repertoire that responds to the
multicultural reality of our global society.”

There have been up to sixty members of the Silk Road
Ensemble, but most of them do not work together at the same time. The lineup of
musicians on the current album, A
Playlist Without Borders, includes Kinan Azemeh, clarinet; Jeffrey Beecher,
bass; Mike Block, cello and voice; Shanir Ezra Blumenkranz, oud, acoustic and
electric bass; Nicholas Cords, violin; Sandeep Das, tabla; Patrick Farrell,
accordion; Johnny Gandelsman, violin; Joseph Gramley, percussion; Colin
Jacobsen, violin; Siamak Jahangiry, ney; Kayhan Kalhor, kamancheh; Dong-Won
Kim, percussion; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Wu Man, pipa; Cristina Pato, piano, gaita;
Shane Shanahan, percussion; Mark Suter, percussion; Wu Tong, sheng, bawu,
suona; and Kojiro Umezaki, shakuhachi.

Obviously, the program of A Playlist Without Borders contains varied items representing
varied countries and cultures. There are seven items involved, totaling a
healthy seventeen tracks and seventy-six minutes of music. You may not like all
of it, but there’s a little something in here for everyone.

The first selection is one of the longest, "Playlist
for an Extreme Occasion," an eight-movement piece by jazz pianist and
composer Vijay Lyer. It begins with a vibrant rhythmic thrust and then moves on
to a number of other dance forms and variations. Lyer says he wanted the music
"to connect with audiences in any situation and communicate a real joy in
creating music in the moment." Thus, there is a sort of infectious
improvisational jazz style to the largely up-tempo tunes. They're easy to like.

"Night Thoughts" by Wu Man uses several
percussive and wind instruments to produce a distinctively airy and meditative
sound. "Saidi Swing" by Shane Shanahan uses a traditional Arabic
rhythm that is quite invigorating. And so it goes through the rest of the
tracks, with traditional Turkish, Iranian, Gypsy, and even Cajun music.

The final number on the program, called "Briel,"
is by avant-garde American composer John Zorn. It's one movement from his
longer "Book of Angels," and while it is hardly what we might call
"classical," it has a definitely cinematic feel to it, beginning in a
kind of Native American mode and then turning to any number of other influences
including Jewish klezmer and conventional jazz. It is probably the most joyous
track on the album. I'd liked to have heard more of it.

The Silk Road Project, Inc. made the recording for Sony
Masterworks at Futura Studios, Roslindale, Massachusetts in March 2013. The
sound is relatively close and well delineated, but not exactly natural in terms
of width or depth. It's a little more pop oriented than that. Still, the
definition is fine, without being forward or aggressive, and there is a
pleasantly warm acoustic bloom around the instruments. Frequency response,
dynamic range, and transient impact seem adequate to the occasion.

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP