Malicool

Roswell Rudd | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 4, 2003)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sunny Side
• ASIN: B000086B9B
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,112 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Completely blew my mind, February 7, 2003

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Malicool (Audio CD)

If you're at all familiar with my reviews on this site, you know that I'm a huge fan of what I call world jazz or jazz beat. This, simply, is the meeting of an authentic jazz orientation with a genuine world music sensibility. Some of the best examples of this kind of music are Vira Loucos by Cyro Baptista, Sanfona by Egberto Gismonti, Beyond the Sky by Yusef Lateef and Adam Rudolf, Nascer by Peter Epstein, Alight by Safa, and Peace Pipe by Ben Allison.

With Malicool, however, I believe we have something truly new. Whereas on Peace Pipe, the brilliant "downtown world jazz" album by Ben Allison, Malian kora player Momadou Diabate is thrust into a hip Western jazz setting, with generally very satisfactory results, on Malicool free jazz maestro Roswell Rudd does the opposite--he travels to Mali and inserts himself (and his jazz aesthetic) into traditional Malian string music. In his liner notes Rudd observes that he had to radically adjust his trombone playing, from a chromatic concept to the natural octave setting of Malian music, from a drum-oriented understanding to a more naturally flowing percussive direction, but especially from a sound-impact standpoint. The tonal weight of the trombone could have easily overwhelmed the delicate string interaction typical of this music. Thus, he had to totally redesign his approach tonally and spatially.

Does it work? Magnificently. It strikes me that this is almost some new kind of music--a unique blending of Malian and jazz sensibilities into something greater than the sum of its parts. What we've got here is the timeless, static-like quality of West African music joined to the restless exploratory character of jazz to produce a music that is at once meditative and ecstatic, mournful and joyous, still and dynamic.

This is perhaps best illustrated by two tunes: "Jackie-ing" and "Ode to Joy," the first a well-known jazz composition by Thelonius Monk, the second, of course, the famous Beethoven composition. Each sounds totally natural, even familiar, though surely like nothing else one has ever heard before. There's an inherent playfulness to Monk's music which this cross-cultural amalgam perfectly captures, all the while maintaining what can only be described as a completely alien--to jazz, at least--musical aesthetic. "Ode to Joy," here called "Malijam," is something else again. Reharmonized, rhythmically deconstructed, it still manages, somehow, to perfectly capture the essence of Beethoven.

Highest praise to Roswell Rudd for even attempting such music. Kudos to all involved for bringing it off so spectacularly.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trombone and kora? It works!, September 4, 2005

By 

Maxim Candries (Belsele, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Malicool (Audio CD)

The last couple of years have seen a great number of crossover albums. Not all of them are very good, but this one certainly is.

Here, the jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd has teamed up with the kora player Toumani Diabaté. At first it sounds a bit strange to hear a trombone in this setting, but I've listened to this album repeatedly and it has really grown on me ; I think the music is fascinating. 'Jackie-ing', in particular, is one of the most interesting versions of a Thelonious Monk composition I've heard in years. 'Sena et Mariam', on the other hand, is so gentle and beautiful that it almost made me cry.

Perhaps, not as accessible or as good as the collaboration between Farka Touré and Ry Cooder but this is definitely a very good CD. Were it not for the rather silly Beethoven coda, I would have given 5 stars - as it stands I give 4.5/5.