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Reviews: Reza ~ Ray of the Wine
Posted on Saturday, June 04, 2005 @ 06:50:05 PDT
Topic: Reviews
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Artist: Reza
CD: Ray of the Wine
Home: New York by way of Persia, now living in Tehran
Style: Jazz and Funk-Influenced World Music
Quote: "The wide range of instruments and influences allow us to circle the globe on waves of sound without digging our heels into any one particular place."
By Jennifer Layton
Be careful what you wish for. As a reviewer, I get lots of folk/rock, lots of singer/songwriters, lots of acoustic experimentations, and I often wish I could hear something so completely different that it wipes the mental slate clean. Something that clears out all the clutter of what I'm used to hearing and fills my mind with color, magic, and dreams.
Now that I've found such a CD, I have to write a review, and I have no idea how to convey what has kept me under a spell for the past hour. If I had an unlimited budget, I'd simply buy a few thousand copies and mail them to everyone on our subscriber list. But until then, I'll give mere words a shot.
Imagine if Prince came from the Middle East, playing a sitar. Imagine Stevie Wonder riding a camel in from the Arabian Desert, singing over a mystical, wind-swept vibe. Seriously, I can almost hear Stevie singing over the fifth track, "Masnavi," as multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Reza lightly breathes over a narrow, hollow reed: "Teachers, keep on teaching, Preachers, keep on preaching, world keep on turning ... "
Reza is introduced to us by none other than former Doors drummer John Densmore, who provides percussion and production on this CD. Densmore also helps us connect with songs in which no English is spoken by offering beautifully poetic descriptions of how the songs were recorded and even offers English translations of some of the lyrics:
Hey you (saqi), blaze our cup with the ray of the wine, Musicians!
Play the song ...
The world is ours today
We have seen the Beloved's face in our cup
The ignorant ones have no idea why we are intoxicated ...
Reza, while heavily influenced by American funk, knows how to swirl a jazz tapestry around his listeners as well. The title track captures the lush, enveloping effect of sipping red wine, and I just wanted to melt into each textured note. I'd probably end up in an entirely different world with no boundaries. The wide range of instruments and influences allow us to circle the globe on waves of sound without digging our heels into any one particular place.
Take the third track, "Zhaleh," which features both the swampy didgeridoo and the elegant-sounding, stringed Kamanche. (I looked it up online. It resembles a fiddle.) The combined sound keeps you floating between the balcony seats of a performance hall and the steamy jungle outside. It feels like the earth has become an orchestra. Side note -- I don't know which instrument is doing this, but one of them actually whoops and says "wow" here and there. Not too loudly. It's being mischevious. The muted exclamations whoosh out of the left speaker faster than I can blink.
Ray of the Wine is a playful, magical, globe-encircling dream of a CD, and I am grateful to have it in my collection. This may sound over the top, but I want to thank John Densmore for the gracious introduction of this multi-talented and hypnotic artist.
I may not be able to buy it for you, folks, but I can promise you that if you scrape a few bucks together and take a chance on this one, you won't regret it.
http://www.henhousestudios.com
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