Paban Das Baul & Jonny Wartel
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PABAN DAS BAUL & JONNY WARTEL Paban Das Baul & Jonny Wartel
Gravitation

cd cover Paban Das Baul you'll know already, if only from his collaboration on Real World with Sam Mills. Here the expressively lazy-voiced Bengali singer and musician is teamed up with [Swedish] jazzers and improvisers and the results are mostly sensational. Even more so when you discover that it's an unscripted meeting - a spontaneous session, producing 9 varied pieces, that is on this CD in its entirety. There's barely a note out of place, even though some participants had never encountered Paban's music before.

Jonny Wartel is a world traveller who plays "every kind of saxophone there is". Some of his travels took him playing around the streets and festivals of West Bengal with the Bauls throughout the 1980s, clearly soaking up the shape of the music. He knows how to fly off and decorate like crazy, but more importantly he knows how to sit back and be part of the texture whenever it's appropriate, as does trumpet player Andreas Wartel. Add to that Gunnar Backman on a range of guitarry things, samples and electronica, finger cymbals from Mimlu Sen, and a rhythm section of bassist Per-Arne Pettersson and drummer Henrik Wartel - whatta lotta Wartels - and this is one mighty unit. Even when they build up to their densest wall of sound, they never seem to trip over each other. Seriously impressive. - Ian Anderson

Article is copright 2002 Southern Rag/fROOTS, and is used by permission
No reproduction is allowed wiothout the specific permission of the publishers.

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