Jan Garbarek - Rites (1998)

11 Jul, 14:55
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Artist: Jan Garbarek
Title: Rites
Year Of Release: 1998
Label: ECM[ECM 1685/86]
Genre: Jazz, Contemporary Jazz
Quality: FLAC (tracks + .cue,log,scans)
Total Time: 01:38:15
Total Size: 478 MB(+3%)
WebSite: Album Preview

Tracklist

CD1:

1 Rites
2 Where The Rivers Meet
3 Vast Plain, Clouds
4 So Mild The Wind, So Meek The Water
5 Song, Tread Lightly
6 It's OK To Listen To The Gray Voice
7 Her Wild Ways

CD2:

1 It's High Time
2 One Ying For Every Yang
3 Pan
4 We Are The Stars
5 The Moon Over Mtatsminda
6 Malinye
7 The White Clown
8 Evenly They Danced
9 Last Rite

personnel :

Jan Garbarek - Soprano Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Samplers, Percussion
Rainer Brüninghaus - Keyboard, Piano
Eberhard Weber - Bass
Marilyn Mazur - Percussion, Drums
Bugge Wesseltoft - Synthesizer/Electronic Effects

Since the late '70s, Jan Garbarek has been carving out a place within jazz for the folk and spiritual traditions of the indigenous peoples of Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and finally of those people all over the world. Rites, a double CD, is his attempt at forging a synthesis that takes improvisation into the heart of ritual music and creates a new form of spiritual from them both. Using a strategy for each of the discs, the first one digs deep into the spiritual and mystical side of his language. Garbarek plays soprano and tenor as well as synthesizers, drum machines, and samples -- always understated, always elegant -- and utilizes the talents of some of his running mates as well as new ones. Rainer Bruninghaus appears sporadically throughout, as does bassist Eberhard Weber, and drummer/percussion wizard Marilyn Mazur is ubiquitous. The music is slow, tenuous, and repetitive. It hardly matters -- on disc one, anyway -- which of the pieces are being played. All of them have spare, chant-like melodies that are lifted by myriad percussion instruments and keyboards, which provide a spacious ambience in which to enfold them both. Even Garbarek's trademark icy saxophone -- usually made more so by Manfred Eicher's production -- is warm, watery, and deeply entrenched in this warm mix that falls over listeners like a fine meditation blanket; like that blanket, it begins to stir emotions from deep within the heart of the listener. While these songs all segue into one another, it is worth noting that Garbarek recut "It's OK to Listen to the Grey Voice" for this collection, where it's performed with deeper conviction and fits better than it did on the album it was named for. Disc two of Rites is a bit of a different story. While the music is indeed intended for ritual, it comes from the celebratory side of the aisle rather than the contemplative one. Here are dances, Garbarek's versions of gospel shouts, processionals, festival waltzes, and all manner of joyful ceremonies completing the circle. On one collection, listeners get music for prayer, contemplation, and grief, as well as a funky European read of indigenous music for moving to and celebrating. Clearly this is what sets Rites above Garbarek's other recordings, him taking that balance he possessed so early in his career back again and putting it to work in a near-sacred setting.~Thom Jurek

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