Live at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Santa
Cruz, California, 3/27/99, produced by Snazzy Productions.
Reviewed by Steve
Palopoli.
Just when you thought Bob Brozman The
Amazing Musical Mapmaker had run out of uncharted musical
territory, along comes this new passion for the sounds of
India. Okay, well, I know it's actually been a long time
coming, but I love how his increasingly intensive work with the
superhuman Indian slide master Debasish Bhattacharya (it is so
sick that I don't have to look up the spelling of that guy's
name anymore) has brought a much more pronounced Indian flavor
to his style.
At
his Kuumbwa show March 27, you could hear that even some old
favorites had spent some time in Brozman's new clay oven, and
the results were fantastic. He's more than ready to get down
and dirty in the Delta (R//M),
bust out Aloha style or go Calypso on your ass, but it's
fascinating and very entertaining to hear Brozman's deepening
relationship with Indian traditions worm its way into an
already overstuffed musical suitcase.
You may think, in the back of your cynical
mind, that I'm exaggerating the width and breadth of Brozman's
suitcase; but no. "I can't help wondering what would have
happened to the Oom-pa-pa music of Germany had Germany been
colonized by a very aggressive African country," he mused
before a number early in the set. "Would they have been able to
keep that Oom-pa-pa up under all that oppression? We're
going to find out, right now … (R//M)."
It also amazes me that his unmistakable
style -- powerful and organic and based on things like the
guitar's distance from the microphone and the angle at which
it's tilted -- only gets more precise. And when he spent a few
songs with always inimitable percussionist and frequent
collaborator Rick Walker, Brozman got a little room to breathe
and fool around musically the way only he can; for my money, no
musician can inject a sense of humor and playfulness into a
song as flawlessly as he can. Consider this song intro:
"This
is a song," he began innocently, "that is a kind of
metaphorical, philosophical and metaphysical exploration of the
poetical possibilities that one can entertain in one's mind
when trying to draw a very weak analogy between techniques of
cinematography and Human Sexual Reproduction." And off they
went (R//M).
And one more thing. He's a strong vocalist
too. Either of these last two excerpts make that
case.
Judging from the jumble of countries and
projects on this guy's schedule, we can expect further
surprises by the time he makes it back to the Kuumbwa, which
has long been his sort of home base for performance. I've
learned enough about him to realize I can't possibly guess
where he'll take his music next, but wherever it is, I want to
be there.
(Excerpted material recorded at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center on
3/27/99. Mix by Julie Rix. Recorded by Dave Nielsen of
Technica Gratia Artes.)
