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Masters Of Persian Music (World Village)
Faryad
$19.99 (2 CD set)
Mohammad Reza Shajarian (vocals), Hossein Alizadeh (tar), Kayhan Kalhor (kemancheh) and Homayoun Shajarian (tombek) certainly qualify for the tile of 'masters'. This 2 CD set of live recordings is a brilliant follow-up to their astounding Without You and a wonderful companion to the live recording by the Ghazal ensemble (that includes Kalhor).
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From the pages of fRoots: For Faryad ('Cry' as in 'shout' rather than 'weep' captures a sense of the Farsi word), the Masters Of Persian Music consist of three of the most outstanding Iranian classical musicians of our day and somebody I believe to be a recent addition of major promise. They comprise the pre-eminent vocalist Mohammad Reza Shajarian, whom I first heard on a milestone album in contemporary Persian classical music, The Abu-Ata Concert (Kereshmeh Records, 1996) with tar (long-necked, plucked lute) accompaniment by Mohammad Reza Lotfi. Once heard, forever a follower. Hossein Alizadeh, the tar player here, has recorded extensively for Kereshmeh while their much travelled kemancheh (spike fiddle) player Kayhan Kalhor has made his mark in both strict Persian classical contexts such as Night Silence Desert (Traditional Crossroads, 2000) with Mohammad Reza Shajarian and through his work with the sitar player Shujaat Hussain Khan in Ghazal, the Kronos Quartet (Kronos Caravan, 2000) and Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble's Silk Road Journeys (Sony, 2001). The last member of the ensemble is the tombek (goblet drum) player and vocalist Homayoun Shajarian, whom I first heard on the Masters' previous album, Without You (World Village, 2002). So much for background, yet if any of those names mean anything to you, it means that the Masters of Persian Music come brandishing the credentials of a sure thing. Faryad is a double album, like Without You, from an unspecified live source (subsequent releases should do posterity the courtesy of providing dates at very least) and it is on concert stages where the magic of this form of Persian delight descends. Quite simply Faryad is majestic. The performance that closes the first disc is a rush of pure artistic adrenalin, a composition forged in the furnace of improvisation and spontaneous creativity. It spits out that the next time you hear this piece, the source of the album's title, it will sound quite different. All the building blocks will be the same but next time in the heat of performance its shape may be very different. Sharjarian deserves to be a voice whispered with the same sort of awe-filled respect as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan or Alim Qasimov. Take his vocal artistry as a given. He has the whole grammar of the centuries at his disposal. Even for people who do not speak the language he brings Tehran to town. The bilingual English and French notes will ground anybody in the literature of this music, while the lyrics themselves come in Farsi, English and French translation. "You, kinder than leaves under the kisses of the rain/You, the brightness of stars reflected in the stream/Come back to me." How could anyone turn down a cry from the heart such as that? This is music, not merely art music, that would melt any heart of stone." - Ken Hunt
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