Enj Sociiety

Adderley has evidently found a soul mate in alto saxophonist Vince Herring, with whom he works once more on this 1990 date. Herring's voice has grown more impressive with each release, and he now offers more than just dazzling lines and phrases; he's constructing and completing confident statements. Pianist Rob Bargad, another regular, is on board, with bassist James Genus and drummer Billy Drummond.

Enja Records presents Ballads 4 - The World. Chet Baker, Abdullah Ibrahim, Jenny Evans, Dusko Goykovich, Walter Norris, Maria João and others.

Enja Records presents Ballads 5 - Take Five. Dizzy Gillespie, John Scofield, Coleman Hawkins, Dusko Goykovich, Ferenc Snétberger, Céline Rudolph and others.

Odd Times is Rabih Abou-Khalil's first live album. Since it would be impractical to assemble all of the guests he has had on his albums over the years, Abou-Khalil has gone in the other direction and pared his ensemble down to what is for him the bare bones: himself on oud, Howard Levy on harmonica, Michel Godard on tuba and serpent (an antique form of the tuba), Mark Nauseef on drums, and Nabil Khaiat on frame drums. Most live albums contain well-known pieces from the artist's studio repertoire; in contrast, Odd Times is mostly new material. In general, the album is a mix of shapeless, overlong attempts at atmosphere ("Elephant Hips") and fairly bouncy and fun items ("Q-Tips")…

Oud master Rabih Abou-Khalil continues to break new boundaries with this recording, Journey To The Centre Of An Egg. Even many of the most singular and iconoclastic musicians will establish a foundation niche upon which they construct their adventurous explorations. Rabih refuses to be bound even by his own previous designs. With Journey To The Centre Of An Egg, his 11th Enja production and the second to be licensed to Justin Time for North America (following up on the heavily acclaimed Morton's Foot), Abou-Khalil brings the piano into his unique musical world for the first time on record. Most appropriately, he has chosen the extraordinary German pianist/composer Joachim Kühn, one of Europe's most accomplished and respected jazz musicians since he arrived on the scene in the early 1960s.

In a satisfying stylistic experiment, Lebanese composer and oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil has decided to put together an album of jazz numbers with no Western instruments other than Glen Moore's standup bass. There is Yassin El-Achek on violin, but the violin is almost as much a Middle Eastern instrument as a Western one. El-Achek usually remains in the Middle Eastern style of playing, but occasionally, as on "Wordless," he double-stops and trills like Paganini.
The tracks are nicely constructed, and the improvisations are not allowed to run amok or become shapeless. The tunes are, as usual with Abou-Khalil, Middle Eastern melodies with phrases and turns that nod at Western notions of what "Oriental" music sounds like…

Of the many exceptional world music projects by the Lebanese oud master Khalil, this is one of the more intriguing cuts used from the soundtrack of the Yilmaz Arslan-directed film Yara. Though the verbose liner notes by Harry Lachner extensively describe music in movies, it gives little clue as to how this music connects to the flick. But the music of Khalil does stand beautifully on its own, generally of a very patient construct, the oud player joined by violinist Dominique Pifarely, cellist Vincent Courtois, and Nabil Khaiat on the frame drum. Selections flow freely into each other, much unison playing between the string instruments is prevalent, and Khalil takes the bulk of the lead, but Pifarely and Courtois have many opportunities to contribute melodically…

One of Rabih Abou-Khalil's earlier albums, Between Dusk and Dawn features stellar sidemen such as master percussionist Glen Velez and jazz saxophonist Charlie Mariano. In places it exhibits that ecstatic melding of jazz and Arabic music that was later perfected on Blue Camel. But in other places it gives us long patches of noodling and less-then-engaging playfulness. An example of the former would be the first track, "Dusk." At just over 14 minutes, more than half of this piece is devoted to a shapeless and tiresome prelude for percussion and oud (Arabic lute). An example of the latter is the aptly named "The Thing That Came Out of the Swamp," which features everything but the kitchen sink, including Glen Velez's overtone singing, in a fantasy that sounds like Stravinsky crossed with Steve Reich…