HK's 10 Best CD's of 2000 East Bay Express Desperately Seeking Transparency... I've been thinking a lot about sound this year, about what actually communicates the magic in music from the player to the listener, and how the clarity and resolution of different recording and distribution media affect artists' ability to get through to their audiences. Let's look at four examples. Analog recording and phonograph discs have nearly a century-long track record of effectively allowing musicians to reach listeners' hearts through the recorded medium. Digital recordings and CDs have been, in many ways, comparatively problematic, obscuring the details of the magic by removing transparency and depth from our aural perspectives. The advent of the MP3 represents an all-time low in sound quality; even worse than old 8-track cartridges in car stereos. The MP3 medium lends itself to music as commodity and not as a transformational or even spiritual channel of communication. Those essences are nearly lost in the low sampling rate of the MP3 format. Bad news for music, I think, and not a hopeful development for what I value in sharing sounds and meanings. Most of the audience doesn't know what it's missing as the music's resolution gets worse and worse for the consumer. I worry about things like this a lot. But good news came to me this year as I experienced working with a brand-new recording and distribution system developed by Sony and Phillips for the archiving of analog tapes-the new Super Audio and SACD medium. With a 2.8-megahertz sampling rate (compared to the 44.1 kilohertz of CDs or the high compression ratios of the MP3), it restores a new sonic transparency to the gulf between a player in the studio and a listener at home. I found that SACDs are less tiring to listen to than CDs, and that much more magic and image were communicated-in fact, the difference is so dramatic that I want to give you a heads-up on this new technology. Right now an SACD player is too expensive for the average person-$2,500 or more-and not much is available to listen to on it. If Sony and Phillips have their way, SACD will win in the battle with DVD Audio and in four years every cheap CD player will be equipped to decode and play this new format. I think that would be very good news, and many more folks would finally hear that recorded music can be really life-changing. DEREK BAILEY: String Theory (Paratactile). File this with Neil Young's uncompromising ARC or with the sublime guitar feedback expressions of Jimi Hendrix and the late '60s Grateful Dead. The seventy-year-old master of guitar experimentation and improvisation has produced this CD of startling music consisting entirely of guitar feedback. As one would expect, he creates unprecedented music and calm but devastating sounds with his hollow-body Gibson ES-175 guitar.
STEFFAN BASHO-JUNGHANS: Song of the Earth (Sublingual). Basho-Junghans, an East German guitarist who discovered the American steel-string guitar tradition of Kottke, Fahey, et al. before the Berlin Wall came down, found a deep personal resonance and connection with the music of Berkeley's nearly forgotten eclectic guitar genius Robbie Basho. In fact, Junghans changed his name because he saw a philosophical line of progression from the Japanese poet Mitsuo Basho to Robbie Basho to himself. On this, his first American release, the German Basho goes for the same "sound before technique" virtuosity of the American Basho's best work and succeeds both guitaristically and metaphysically at a seemingly impossible task. What could be a creepy kind of necrophilia turns out to be beautiful music that transcends and connects with the same magic worlds explored by Robbie Basho and the Japanese master poet.
NELS CLINE: The Inkling (Cryptogramophone). My personal favorite among America's most creative guitarists collaborates here with drummer Billy Mintz, harpist Zeena Parkins, and bassist Mark Dresser. Much of the time Zeena's electric harp sounds like Nels' electric guitar, or Nels' nylon-string guitar sounds like an acoustic harp. This is the modern beyond-jazz tradition of exploration at its very best.
BUDDHADEV DAS GUPTA: Raga Chaya (India Archive). My pal David Lindley and I refer to the sarod player Buddhadev Das Gupta as "Mister Right Hand." This is because the rhythmic intricacy and eccentricities of his picking are the most complex, surprising, and impressive of any plectrum player on any instrument we know. Perhaps this is because his lesser-known school of playing owes much more to the complicated right-hand picking techniques of the Afghan rebab than does the Maihar gharana sarod stylings of the better-known Ali Akbar Khan. Das Gupta is a true master with an enormous range of expression to offer the listener. This rare raga performed here is peaceful and exhilarating at the same time. The 22 pages of comprehensive notes will tell you more than you probably need to know about this player and the fine music on this five-star recording. For the last few years the releases on the India Archive label have been just about the very best in terms of performance, recording, and documentation of the dozens of labels releasing Hindustani music. Its releases this year by Vilayat Khan are also worth your attention.
FRA FRA SOUND: Mali Jazz (Pramisi). Mali seems to be the happening musical place in Africa this year, and the wily Dutch world-beat band Fra Fra Sound knows it. During a 1997 tour of Mali, the band collaborated with an all-star host of Mali's finest including Toumani Diabate, Keletigui Diabate, and Basekou Kouyate, to produce what is truly a landmark in cross-cultural collaboration. Somehow a diverse range of African, Arab, European, and American idioms combine into something that really works and grooves. Perhaps the biggest surprise here is the kamal ngoni playing of Viex Konte. With his extended playing techniques based around bright and penetrating harmonics as well as dramatic cascades of notes, he seems like the Malian equivalent of Michael Hedges on his small hunter's harp. Cross-cultural collaboration and true experimentation doesn't get any better than this odd blend of Malian roots and American jazz meeting its blues roots.
SONNY LANDRETH: Levee Town (Sugar Hill). The Louisiana guitarist raises the bar for electric slide playing by several notches on this, his third solo effort. This is simply the best slide guitar that I have ever heard. Not only has Sonny transcended his influences in originality, technique, and expression, but he's also come up with a reasonable and entertaining set of Cajun rock songs that are well supported and not overshadowed by his slinky virtuosity.
TISZIJI MUNOZ: Presence of Truth-Presence of Joy-Presence of Mastery (Anami). These three companion releases by Coltrane-inspired guitarist Munoz are the farthest-out and most creative works of any Coltrane disciple that I know of. With fine sidemen such as Rashied Ali, Dave Liebman, Cecil McBee, Hilton Ruiz, and even Paul Shaffer, he explores a few Coltrane standards among a group of delightful originals. Munoz is one of the few who is not afraid to play the truth as he hears it.
EVAN PARKER, BARRY GUY, PAUL LYTTON, & MARILYN CRISPELL: After Appleby (Leo). Step into the post-John Coltrane and post-Cecil Taylor musical omniverse with this quartet. Marilyn Crispell brings a grounded spirituality to the three British improv masters. The dialogue between her and bassist Barry Guy near the beginning of the studio CD of this double set is an amazing conversation that is worth the price of admission. I still call this jazz and I call it the best jazz of the year.
JOHN TILBURY: Morton Feldman-All Piano (LondonHALL). Feldman's solo piano works are played by improvisational pianist Tilbury of the AMM group on this reasonably priced 4-CD set. Is an improviser perhaps more sensitive to tiny details of sound, timbre, dynamics, space, and touch than a traditional classical musician? This recording seems to answer that question with a resonant and mysterious yes, like an infinitely sounding, silent gong in some Taoist paradise beyond the sky. To my ears, Feldman's music has never sounded better.
VARIOUS: Alaap-A Discovery of Indian Classical Music (Times Music). All in all, $185 for a 20-CD set is a pretty pricey bargain for a comprehensive course in the classical music of North and South India. You also get a 275-page book as well as quite odd cardboard and burned-wood packaging. A polite, All India Radio voice leads you, in impeccable English, through all that you need to know about Indian music; with hundreds of examples from old commercial recordings by the greatest masters of the tradition. I took a semester-long Indian music appreciation course back in college, and this easily contains ten times the information that was offered to me there. It's a landmark product that opens the doors for enjoyment of both the vocal and instrumental traditions of the subcontinent. Such a wonder isn't carried in any of the normal record outlets, and so I had better tell you where to find it: at Shrimati's Ltd., 2011 University Ave., Berkeley. Shrimati's is also the best source for virtually all other current releases of Indian music.
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