The Viola Holds The Key

Is it jazz ? Well, not really, although where do you categorise it if you are one who needs to have categories ? World music ? Ambient ? More the latter than the former I would suggest. What am I talking about ? In Praise of Dreams by Jan Garbarek. Garbarek has committed the cardinal sin amongst jazzers of being commercially successful ( relatively speaking of course, he hardly sells rock star quantities of albums ) His chosen instruments being the tenor and soprano saxophone, there remain jazz traces of course but there isn't much, if any, straight ahead improvising going on, the music being much more compositional. What gives this disk a particular individuality and attraction to me is the substantial contribution from viola player Kim Kashkashian, whose voice is often the most dominant and gives a soulful, yearning sense to the music and some much needed humanity. That feel is backed up by drummer / percussionist Manu Katche. Very much a typical ECM house style release and as such easy to parody but there is a musical direction and spirit that is rewarding when in the right mood to be receptive to it. Although not in the accepted classical sense, these short pieces could be called tone poems and portray a sense of landscape and the natural world of the north.