Customer Reviews

Claude Chalhoub

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Claude Chalhoub's recording, produced by Michael Brook who also produced many of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's works for the Real World label is a beautiful piece of work. While there is Arabic influence in this work (Chalhoub is Lebanese), this album also has a lot of Indian influence and is a fresh take on modern sounds blending with music from different parts of the world. People with a purist taste for traditional music will not like this, because this work is cross-cultural and modern. Tasteful, evocative, and beautiful, I would not hesitate to recommend it to all those interested in cross-cultural music.

I know little of Near Eastern or South Asian music, and little of music composition theory. However, after buying this CD on a whim, I have found I enjoy listening to it very much, and find Mr. Chaloub's violin playing and use of rhythm to be extremely compelling. It seems to me that Mr. Chaloub use of sources from many lands is driven not by a desire to engage in abstract experimentation or fit a specific commercial niche in world music, but by a desire to create beautiful music. I think it works.

We seem to be experiencing a profusion of brilliant East meets West discs lately. One thinks of the glorious Safa and Nascer, Dhafer Youssef's mind-blowing Digital Prophecy, Karsh Kale, the estimable Intercontinentals, Omar Sosa's incredible catalog of jazz beat discs, Amos Hoffman, Anthony Brown and the Asian American Orchestra's spectacular Monk's Moods, Malicool, Ben Allison's brilliant Peace Pipe, Pharoah Sanders's wailing With a Heartbeat, the Go: Organic Orchestra's incredible In the Garden, Kali Fasteau, and many others. Claude Chalhoub continues this trend with his fabulous eponymous release. Doing something that hasn't often been tried, and hasn't usually succeeded--that is, blend East and West classical musics (John Mayer's Indo-Jazz Fusion, Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road, and the Indica Project come to mind)--Chalhoub's approach succeeds mainly, I believe, because he has such deep roots in both, because he has big ears, and because he took special care to assemble just the right musicians.

What really makes this music special is its ability to be fresh and ancient, accessible and arcane, traditional and innovative, hidden and translucent, dark and light, Romantic and Neo-classical, serene and street-wise, all at once. In a move similar to what some of the better practitioners of what I call Nu Jazz have done, Chalhoub combines traditional materials (in this case primarily Lebanese musical sensibilities) with South Indian percussion, synthesizers, jazz improv, Western classical music, and ambient sounds to achieve a unique soundscape. The more western-influenced classical pieces strike me as the weakest, seeming almost naïve and static (although there are some lovely moments in "Two Angels"). The real action takes place on the more sonically rich and diverse palettes, such as "Red Desert," featuring nine instruments plus string octet, "Melancholia," with its incredibly atmospheric, mesmeric sound signature, and the two takes of "Don't Wake Me Up," with their brilliant melding of East-West classicism, flamenco guitar, drone, ambient sounds, and insistent rhythmic figures.

I agree with others that the production is not the best, though I wouldn't go so far as some have and regard it as trash. Yes, there is a regrettable and annoying loss of detail, clarity, and sound image. It would be something to hear what Jan Erik Kongshaug and Manfred Eicher, or François Houle and Tony Reif (the producers of Safa), could've done with this music. I am not a fan of producer Michael Brook, and wouldn't have bought this disc without the further information that is provided by the Amazon.com reviews. Perhaps Tchad Blake, who performed sonic wonders on the Bad Plus's These Are the Vistas, was brought in to do what he could with what was obviously an inferior production job. Brook's notes about the production, which he describes as "fresh, raw, energetic, slightly chaotic," sound like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. His further defense, that many in the music business bemoan the fact that more music doesn't retain a demo-like sound that would give it the emotion and excitement which get lost as music is refined and perfected to make it a professional product is simply pathetic. The very successful ECM label, which specializes in ravishingly refined and perfected music, gives the lie to this nonsense.

Which brings up another annoyance--the almost complete lack of information as to what style of music this is on the outside of the CD package. Why didn't Teldec provide customers with a clue about this music, such as who plays on it and some description of the type of music offered. As it is, from the packaging alone, one has no idea whether this is classical, new age, Bulgarian wedding music, ambient, drone, trance, or solo violin. One wonders if Chalhoub is the new Nigel Kennedy. Or perhaps a disciple of John Blake or Jenny Scheinman or Rob Thomas or Mat Maneri or Yehudi Menuhin or L. Subramaniam or . . . ? Really, people, how are we supposed to make an informed buying decision? Just trust Teldec? What if, like me, buyers have never heard of Teldec?

But forget these minor annoyances. Something very special is going down here; something that not even less-than-perfect sound production can vitiate. Don't miss out.

Claude Chalhoub gracefully melds the traditional and classical music of India with the European classical tradition he was trained in, peppering it with a little jazz and rock influence, and the result is a style of music all it's own with the best from each tradition. The Indian instruments contrast and yet blend with the violin, sometimes driving the lead instrument and sometimes following.

The pieces here vary from the meditative, sometimes melancholy, to the energizing, and the variety is very listenable. I do admit that my ears are untutored. I have listened to Ravi Shankar and other exponents in Indian music, but I am not expert. I just know what sounds good to me, and analyze only to the extent that I hope will help you to judge whether or not to give this CD a try.

There are excesses here and maybe some rough edges. For me, this makes the music more accessible than it would be if it were polished to perfection. I give it four stars because it seems to me that it does lack that polishing. However, the music reaches out and should please those like myself who respond to the energy and not the precision of the performance.

Even if you're not used to the sound of Eastern music, the western influence is strong enough that I suspect you'll be able to relate to this sound. It may take several listens so that your ears are more accustomed to the sound, but the enjoyment to be gained through a little effort is worth it.

A friend turned me on to this Cd and I really do love it. I bellydance and I especially love violin taqsim, and Chalhoub provides several moody, hypnotic set-pieces ranging from dramatic ( Red Desert) to light-hearted ( Don't Wake Me Up). Don't Wake Me Up is my favourite, because in 4 short minutes it moves through a range of rhythm changes and layered intrumentals, including tabla and guitar. I dance to this one a lot. I hope Chalhoub is planing a new release... I'd also love to hear him live!

I bought this album after hearing it on National Public Radio, and was disappointed. The parts of the cuts they played were the exceptional parts of the album. As mentioned in the liner notes the album had been in progress for a very long time, but had to be recorded in a hurry - and you can tell that it was. This man has great promise, especially when one considers how young he is - but just as impulsiveness swindles many a young person of their self and wealth, the feeling that an album must be cut at any cost still boils down to impulsiveness. And the album suffers. A fan of World Music of all kinds which includes a fondness for Fusion Music, it hurts me to say that this album does a great disservice to a very talented man. The musicianship is fair, the spirit exceptional, and the mixing very poor, almost crass. Three stars because two are unfair, and four would reward poor engineering and mixing. The man has great talent and vision. Perhaps his next album will show better judgment in understanding the process of recording. The compositions are good, the recording is poor. And it is a shame that the artist must suffer because the impulse to record forced a poor rendering good music and great talent.

Lebanese violinist/composer Claude Chalhoub chose to blend Western classical influences (including Erik Satie's Gnossienne No. 1) with Eastern (Indian and Arabic) classical, thereby creating a debut album of startling depth and colour, filled with raw energy.

Unlike many failed fusion attempts, Chalhoub succeeds in creating a lush, seductive soundscape that refuses to be categorized. The rhythms are mainly Indian and Arabic, with tabla, darbouka, harmonium and bansuri flute underscoring the melody. A string octet provides a Western backing on most songs, and Western melodic influences are evident in Gnossienne and Two Angels (based on the 2nd movement of Sonata Breve by Boghos Gelalian). Chalhoub's weapon of choice is a Stradivarius violin, from which he draws out impassioned, melancholy, sometimes otherworldly sounds. Canadian producer Michael Brook (who also collaborated with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) takes the helm here, as well as playing guitar on a number of tracks.

My favourite track would be the haunting Baddour, written in memory of Chalhoub's sister, with vocals by Qawwali singer Forroukh Fateh Ali Khan, brother of the late great Nusrat. Other favourite moments include both versions of Don't Wake Me Up (the album's bonus track is the Spring Mix of the song), featuring a tender, dreamy Latin guitar solo, the melancholy waltz of Gnossienne, and the ghostly notes of Kaa, which finds the Stradivarius imitating a bansuri flute, the melody floating over edgy ambient sounds and a sparse harmonium backing.

Chalhoub's eponymous debut is a simply gorgeous tribute to two different outlooks on classical music, infused with Eastern spice and sensuality. This is an album to be savoured with mint tea in a moonlit Persian garden.

I found this disc to be an amazingly successful debut. It shows a wonderfully eclectic musical personality at work-someone with an appreciation for the possibilities of diverse musical cultures converging who still has the artistic charisma to infuse his work with a distinctive individual sound. Chaloub's music on this disc has two particularly admirable qualities: it sounds both spontaneous and inevitable.

To keep it short, let me just say that this is exactly the kind of young recording artist who needs to be supported. Chaloub's stuff is original and compelling-music making that feels generous and always sincere. Check this disc out!!!

My ears detected something very new when I listened to this debut recording from Lebanese violinist Claude Chalhoub. And I liked it.

Classical undertones fused with Arabic overtures, leaning towards the abstract but never disjointed, sometimes dark, brooding, and melancholy, other times sophisticated and rhythmic, pave the way for smart listeners who are willing to appreciate something that is slightly off the beaten track in world music.

Heavy use of percussions from India are intermixed with his blended style which at times sounds more like classical with sprinklings of ethic tones and at other times the complete reverse. The more you listen the more you will appreciate his contribution and hopefully it will connect people across cultures. This is a really wonderful mix of music.

Looking for something exotic, mysterious, reflective, and oddly enticing? This CD manages to incorporate classical style with boldly arabian themes and a touch of modern mixing technique. It seems to answer the question, once and for all, of whether or not pre-fabricated boy bands can actually be considered "music". It may not have sequins or come wrapped in a snake at the MTV video music awards, but it puts on a show nonetheless. The imagery that this masterfully composed CD evokes completely removes you from your office, your home, or your car and takes you to the far away and long ago places only hinted at in 1001 Arabian Nights. It conjures dreams of desert journeys, forbidden love, the brazen sun at noon above the marketplace, a secret midnight rendevouz. I've listened to this CD roughly 1001 times since I've purchased it, and it's still as original and compelling each time. "Red Desert" and "Baddour" are absolutely amazing tracks. If you feel considerably spicier than the vanilla world around you, this CD is a must have. Rarely have I heard so much talent and potential on one CD.