Caravan

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Total Tracks: 12   Total Length: 62:25

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Justin Davidson

eMusic Contributor

11.29.10
Celebrating a legacy of cross-cultural hybrids
2000 | Label: Nonesuch

The Kronos Quartet’s trajectory is a reproach to musical purists everywhere. “Authentic” traditions have always mingled, splintered and overlapped; nowhere with more promiscuous zeal than in the countries encircling the Mediterranean. Caravan celebrates that legacy of hybrids with a series of cross-cultural collaborations curated by the one-man-melting pot Osvaldo Golijov. Among the most startling tracks is “Turceasca,” a collaboration with the Romanian gypsy band Taraf de Haidouks, who are a high-intensity improvisational ensemble that changes directions in miraculous sync like a flight of starlings. Kayhan Kalhor, the globetrotting master of the Iranian kamancheh (a Persian string instrument) contributes “Gallop of a Thousand Horses,” which really does evoke a fleet and graceful herd. The album’s smorgasbord of scales and tunings and rhythmic structures is a vivid reminder that the technology of the string quartet originated in the Middle East and that musicians and instruments plied the highways and trade winds along with spices, warriors and religions.

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On their 2000 release, the Kronos Quartet has appeared with an album worthy of their name. On Caravan, the quartet uses songs from the world round, with all of them rearranged as needed to fit a string quartet. There are compositions from Yugoslavia (“Pannonia Boundless”), Portugal (“Cancao Verdes Anos” and “Romance No. 1″), India (“Aaj Ki Raat”), Mexico (“La Muerte Chiquita”), Turkey (“Turceasca”), Romania, Hungary, Iran, Lebanon, and Argentina. There are guest artists left and right on the album: Hindustani tabla great Zakir Hussain aids on the Bollywood work “Aaj Ki Raat” (Tonight’s the Night). Taraf de Haidouks, a gypsy ensemble, provides extra violins and accordions on “Turceasca” to make the work outright exhilarating. Lebanese nay player Ali Jihad Racy appears on his composition, as does Iranian kemancheh player Kayhan Kalhor. The Kronos Quartet has shown themselves to be quite adept at ethnic musics (though Westernized thoroughly by the time the quartet is through with them) since Pieces of Africa, and possibly even better than their American based works (see Music of Bill Evans album). That part still continues. They again use stunning virtuosity to make a tango play through smoothly on this album, as tangos almost seem to be a specialty for the group. There is quite a rough spot on the album on Terry Riley’s composition, “Cortejo Funebre en el Monte Diablo.” The work sounds like some kind of classicized version of a cross between industrial punk and video game background music — needless to say, not the greatest work ever done by the group. To end the album, the quartet takes on an interpretation of surf guitar king Dick Dale’s hit “Misirlou,” adapting it to their format with surprising efficiency. Overall, the music is for the most part relatively incredible, despite the rough spot on Riley’s composition. Kronos Quartet are occasionally on-again-off-again, but here, they’re almost entirely on. – Adam Greenberg

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