Find an exponent of Siberian yak yodelling, slap some programmed drum’n’bass on top of it, and babushka’s your uncle — “world fusion”. Well, that’s the standard formula. It’s a rare pleasure, then, to come across an album that uses the mixing desk to weave something challenging and original from traditional music.Canadian guitarist/producer Michael Brook is well known to world music enthusiasts for his past collaborations with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Djivan Gasparyan. Assembly (Real World), his latest offering in this vein, builds a majestic cathedral of sound on the instrumental and vocal skills of Tanzanian thumb-piano maestro Hukwe Zawose.The album’s strength is its variety. Each track mutates through a series of multilayered movements using a palette of keening vocals, choral polyphony, syncopated ensemble brass, programmed rhythms and Brook’s subtly understated lead guitar. Interwoven with these, without ever obtruding, are the twangs, buzzes and natural reverb of the thumb-piano and the nasal plangencies of the zeze (a traditional fiddle). Listen, also, for the pygmy-style glottal stops of Zap Mama Mary Daulne, drafted in as vocal back-up.Roots Magazine considers Assembly a masterpiece. It certainly feels like a landmark album, perhaps the best of its type since Geoffrey Oryema’s magisterial Spirits.
Natalie Cole: Ask a Woman Who Knows (Verve)
Reunited with Unforgettable producer Tommy LiPuma, Cole impresses with a selection of soulful, jazz-flavoured pop, backed by an all-star cast including Roy Hargrove (trumpet) and Lewis Nash (drums). The sounds range from big band (It’s Crazy) to upbeat and sexy (Nina Simone’s My Baby Just Cares for Me). Cole also duets with Diana Krall on Better than Anything. No need to ask — this woman knows what’s she’s doing. — Riaan Wolmarans
Bill Frisell: Selected Recordings (ECM)
Bill Frisell released a delightful bluegrass trio album this year, but the ECM label’s :rarum project (compilation albums of the company’s biggest stars, including Keith Jarrett and Jan Garbarek, using the artists’ own choices) featured an essential retrospective for Frisell’s jazz public. The collection preceded the guitarist’s solo debut for the label (the 1982 In Line, with bassist Arild Andersen) with episodes from adventurously musical Paul Motian bands featuring Joe Lovano, including his insinuatingly appropriate presence on Jan Garbarek’s Wayfarer album, and extensively featuring work from his own Rambler and Lookout for Hope sessions. — John Fordham; Â