Customer Reviews

The Goat Rodeo Sessions

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Of all the Sony recordings with Edgar as the common denominator (Appalachian Waltz, Appal. Journey, Short Trip Home, his solo effort, Melody of the Rhythm), this one is by far the best! My favorite instrumental up to this point was "Look Away" with Edgar, Chris and Joshua Bell. The Goat Rodeo album is very much in the same spirit as "Look Away." Overall, an incredible blend of Celtic, Classical and Jazz/Funk stylings topped off with 2 tracks that include vocals by that lady from 'Crooked Still' and Chris. The addition of guitar, piano and banjolin (I think) makes it stand out even more from the other ones. Way to go, Stuart, Yo Yo, Chris & Edgar! The new Fab Four!

Vibrant and varied, this album is a wonderful addition to the classical crossover genre. Some tracks made me want to get up and dance, others were melancholy and heart rending. The musicians are all world class, and the music is of original composition. The fire and drive of the bluegrass world meets with the clarity and class of the classical world, and something new is born.

Edgar Meyer and Yo-Yo Ma have collaborated successfully before on albums such as Appalachia Waltz and Appalachian Journey, but this album reaches new levels of musical interest and variety. In this collaboration, they've added two more fabulous musicians to the mix: Chris Thile on mandolin (originally of Nickel Creek fame) and Stuart Duncan on fiddle (session musician with the big names in Nashville). This album relies primarily on instrumental work, but each track has a unique sound. The album never sounds repetitive. At times, the musicians even pull out instruments we're not used to hearing them play: we hear Meyer on the gamba and piano, Duncan on the banjo and mandolin, and Thile on the guitar, fiddle, gamba, and vocals.

The album flows well, and I enjoyed it in its entirety. "Here and Heaven" and "No One but You," which both include vocalist Aoife O'Donovan, are particularly wonderful. I also thoroughly enjoyed "Less is Moi," with its catchy and surprising rhythm. I think my favorite track, though, was "Franz the Eagle" -- I can't get over the beauty of the piano and cello duet in this haunting and majestic piece.

This may be the best recording I have heard in 20 years... I say "may" because all four of these musicians have recorded other projects that I also enjoy immensely. As I listen my soul is refreshed. I will be waiting to see the Grammy acceptance speech for this project! Do not pass this up!

My first encounter with "The Goat Rodeo Sessions" was via an ad in The New York Times. At the time, I giggled over the title and made a mental note to check it out later.

Of course, I was picturing an actual goat rodeo.

I forgot about the album until I started up my Spotify a few days later and found it featured on the front page. After the first track, I decided the album needed its own playlist. By the time I'd listened to it all the way through, I was determined to own it.

Because this album is seriously great. It's technically classified as bluegrass, but it has a distinctly Celtic feel that tugs at all the right emotions and makes my heart sing. The songs are all so different (although you will hear variations on a theme through some of them), yet they all fit together and give the album a really nice arc from beginning to end. The first track, "Attaboy," has a wonderfully celebratory quality, and the music continues to build in raucousness like a seisún in a pub until it resolves to its original theme. "Where's My Bow," the fourth track, is dramatic and mysterious all at once and reminds me of the score for a period drama. "Here in Heaven," the fifth track, which features vocals by Chris Thile and Aiofe O'Donovan, has lodged itself so firmly in my head that I find myself humming it everywhere. And the final track, "Goat Rodeo," is Nashville personified by strings.

"The Goat Rodeo Sessions" has turned into my go-to album: I listen to it while I work, I dance around the kitchen to it when I cook, I put it on when I just want something pretty playing in the background. If I had a car, I'd probably love having it on while driving too.

In an interview, the artists explain that they chose the title from the Urban Dictionary, which defines goat rodeo as a situation that order cannot be brought to at any time, and how anything could have gone wrong with the production of this album. I think it's safe to say they got it right.

In this new CD Yo-Yo Ma collaborates with bassist Edgar Meyer, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and mandolin player Chris Thile. Ma has always been a fascinating musical personality, exploring music from across the globe, and this time it is the turn of the American South. Duncan and Thile are established Bluegrass players, and Meyer straddles both Bluegrass and Classical styles. For those of you unfamiliar with the term Bluegrass, it's a style of folk music from the Appalachian mountain area of the Southeastern US that features virtuoso playing on string instruments like the banjo, mandolin, and fiddle. It's sort of a jazzy, bluesy version of Country music with a Celtic influence, and a bit of old-time hymn singing stuck in for good measure. I have friends who have heard the Goat Rodeo Sessions and hate it because it isn't pure Bluegrass, but it seems to me that the heritage of Bluegrass is so diverse that adding a bit of classical, and even a bit of minimalism to the mix isn't a bad thing at all. Frankly, if it's got Yo-yo Ma in it and you're expecting Bill Monroe, your expectations are more than a little skewed in the wrong direction.

All of the pieces on the CD have a joint authorship by Meyer, Thile, and Duncan, and so tend toward the Bluegrass feel. Yo-yo Ma is definitely the odd man out, not a composer, unable to improvise along with the others, and somewhat unfamiliar with the idiom. It's this misfit that gave the CD its name--"Goat Rodeo" is a slang term for a situation of total chaos. To me, though, that is a wildly inappropriate name for this disc, because in spite of whatever difficulties the collaborators might have experienced in making the recording, the listener will only be aware of extremely beautiful, rhythmically tight virtuostic playing. Even though Yo-Yo doesn't improvise, it makes no difference--the improvisers in the group wrote out solos for him that sound improvised. All of the four principals are superb musicians--in particular I am in awe of Edgar Meyer's bass playing. It is as nuanced as Ma's cello, and often I think I'm hearing the cello when suddenly the line goes an octave lower than the cello can reach. Duncan and Thile not only perform beautifully on fiddle and mandolin respectively, but also cover banjo, guitar, gamba and mandola between them, and Meyer takes a turn at the piano.

While I am very enthusiastic about most of the tracks on this CD, there are a few that leave me unmoved, and lack the character and charm of most of the recording. The quartet is joined by a singer in two numbers, neither of which I find remarkable in any way. And the mysteriously named instrumental Franz and the Eagle, in which Edgar Meyer moves to piano, seems like any other bland new-age Celtic influenced piece. It's not that these pieces are bad; definitely not--but they aren't particularly good, either. Personally I want something more than `pleasant' in my music. Don't let these pieces put you off, though--I highly recommend 2/3rds of the CD as beautifully composed, played with obvious joy and verve, and superbly engineered--the sound on this CD is great. The final, title track, Goat Rodeo, is wildly nutty and especially full of fun!

I cannot give enough praise onto this album. I stumbled onto 'Attaboy' as the free download from Starbucks, and fell in love halfway through. In places it's blue-grass, it's jazz, it's classical, it's none of those things, it's all of those things at once. A brilliant effort by four gentlemen who, quite probably, never would have played together if not for this project. It is, in a word, wonderful.

I would not have come across this wonderful music had it not been for Stephen Colbert.

This music pleases the ears in such a way that it sweeps you away to the far-off lands that only exist in the imagination.

Truly a pinnacle of human consciousness!

Thank you, amazing musicians, for creating this album.

I totally loved this CD. An amazing group of musicians. It is a wondrous thing when you can get this many talented people together to create music together. Life is full of big egos especially in music, but it is obvious that was not a problem for this group who are talented enough on their own. Hope they will do more together in the future.

First time I heard of this "band" was on a talk-show, they performed one of their songs, and I liked it enough to order their CD just off that one listen.

The reviews pretty much agree that this is a great CD. I'm not a big fan of bluegrass, I think this is probably my first bluegrass CD, but I'm a fan of good music, so it's worth it for me.

The 4 artists on this CD are obviously amazingly good at what they do. The level of musicianship is quite high, which is part of the reason this works. But the song-writing is exemplary also.

Overall a firm recommendation. Give it a listen.

This album's gorgeousness just never abates. It should perhaps be no surprise that four such greats would produce a collaborative album of superlative quality; still, the gift of "The Goat Rodeo Sessions" is that its tracks will surprise and delight even high expectations. I myself was drawn in by Chris Thile's participation, and found his work herein to be my favorite since "Punch"; the playful beauty, the thoughtful tones, of "Goat"'s tracks recall the quality of "the Blind Leaving the Blind"'s introspective melancholy. Aoife O'Donovan's dulcet, honeyed voice lent to the two tracks with lyrics hurts nothing and adds tremendous charm to an already engaging collection. I truly feel that its only flaw is the somewhat incongruous, erm, pastoral crudity (?) of the title, though reasons for arriving at it are explained satisfactorily in the liner notes.

A certain treat for those who appreciate any of the four artists involved; certain, moreover, to pique curiosity in the work of the rest. :-)