Vishwa Mohan Bhatt / Jerry Douglas / Edgar Meyer – Bourbon & Rosewater / Alison Brown – Quartet
Simply because the dobro and the banjo have traditionally been employed in country settings does not mean thats all theyre good for. Bourbon Rosewater has the distinction of being the only disc in memory dedicated both to Bill Monroe and Baba Allauddin Khan (Ravi Shankars late guru), and to have a cover endorsement from George Harrison. Meanwhile, Alison Brown has taken New Grass Revivals ideas about string-jazz to a logical conclusion.
Jerry Douglas (dobro), Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (mohanvina), and Edgar Meyer (bass) set off to explore the shared voices of American country and Hindustani folk musics. The result has its elegantly blue moments, is peaceful and repetitive enough to pass for new age music, and is complex enough to resemble the compositions of Philip Glass. The result is soothing and elegant, a gliding kind of sound almost utterly without edge.
Alison Brown is a deft banjo player who seems determined to pursue New Grass Revivals jazz experiments. Quartet is very much a straightforward jazz record, typical of the bland easy-listening music which now passes for that once dangerous and seductive music. It is distinctive only in that the principal instrument is a banjo, though Brown plays almost entirely without syncopation, and the band wouldnt know how to swing if they were on a playground.