Album Review
Opening up with some violin reminiscent of some of the Soweto String Quartet's work, Glen Helgeson presents an album of mixed sounds, some on the mark and others not. After the Africanesque opener, the tone moves directly to straightforward smooth jazz, and off to a mambo-informed number with more violin goodness, courtesy of Gary Schulte. Helgeson pulls out the sitar for a touch of the exotic in "Red Moon," but the style of playing (Helgeson uses the sitar as a twangy guitar more than as an actual sitar) comes across as little more than a glorified harpsichord technique in portions of the track. This interplay between the exotic and the mundane is at the heart of most of the composition on the album, as well as the playing. There are touches of Latin, touches of African, touches of the Caribbean, all fused with jazz motives. This fusion is undoubtedly the intent, but the resulting mix sits in an uncomfortable place between the worlds, not quite living up to the ideals of either foundation in a given track, not quite embracing the possibilities of either foundation or their mix. The playing is generally great throughout, but it lacks an element of soul, as it were. One of the very few examples of world-jazz fusion, but may be worth passing up in favor of the Latin jazz masters, or Ravi Shankar's Tana Mana album.
