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Listener
Reviews: Indiscretion,
by Djolé
(Please
Email your comment or review to: webmaster@channeleau.com)
Indiscretion
Naomi
DeBruyn - Editor, Linear Reflections: www.linearreflections.com
Victoria,
BC, Canada, 5 / 2002 E.V
.
Indiscretion
was a Juno Award nominee in 1995 for "Best Global
Recording," and two songs from this disc are featured in the
multi-award winning Canadian film director Anne Wheeler's
"Suddenly Naked."
A
wonderful beginning for this Victoria based quartet who specialize in
"world beat chamber music."
Djolé is pronounced "jo-lay" and it is the word which the Mandinka
people of West Africa use to describe the joy of life.
This is
something that is captured in the music which they perform.
Djolé is comprised of Niel Golden, Joby Baker, Doug Galbraith, and
ScottSheerin.
Between
them, these talented gentlemen perform on the following instruments:
kora (21 string West African harp/lute traditionally used by the
Mandinka griots, or storytellers), tabla (tuned, paired hand drums
used throughout North India in classical, sacred, and folk music),
nylon string guitar, soprano saxophone, steel string guitar, bass
flute, electric bass, silver flute, porcelain flute, wine bottle,
synthesized keyboard, Egyptian tambourine, shakers, tamboura, and the
sruti box.
This entire disc is a wonderful journey through what could almost be
called spiritual, music from distant lands.
On this
disc Djolé attempted to "create a timeless sound interwoven with
jazz influences."
I would
have to say that they succeeded, and admirably so.
The disc opens with a traditional piece entitled "Kema Bourema,"
with the arrangement done by Djolé.
According
to the liner notes, this is an old kora piece dedicated to 19 year old
Salifu Kouyate, a member of a respected griot family who taught the
song to Doug while he was in Senegal.
The
band included a melodic line which was written by Joby.
There
are vast depths to this piece, all of which may never be fully
explored no matter how many times one listens.
"Indiscretion" is the title track, and a live improvisation.
It features Doug on the Kora, Scott on the soprano saxophone and
porcelain flute, Niel on the tabla, and Joby on the bass, kick, and
keys.
It's a
moody piece, almost teasing in some places, then quickly spinning away
to hit a different tone.
I seriously had to laugh at the liner notes description of "Jazzy
Jig," "A simple, lively tune that reminds us of Hindu
hillbilly rock."
This
was a description that just didn't want to fit together in my mind,
until I actually listened to the piece.
It
truly is an apt description, no matter how incongruous.
This
track was written by Scott Sheerin and Niel Golden.
If you are looking for something different, something culturally
diverse, something energized and alive, then look no further.
Indiscretion
provides some serious listening pleasure, and Djolé shows their worth
as consummate musicians with this disc.
Local band's
first disc nets major attention
Adrian Chamberlain -
Victoria Times Colonist - 3/25/1995.
(excerpt)
Members of the Victoria music
ensemble Djolé were stunned when their first recording was nominated
for a Juno Award in the Best Global Recording category.
When Scott Sheerin sat huddled
in a clothes closet 13 months ago, he had no inkling he was helping
create a Juno-nominated album.
But sure enough, the debut
disc by Victoria world-beat / jazz ensemble Djolé has been nominated
in the Best Global Recording category for the 1995 Juno Awards.
The ceremony will be televised Sunday from Hamilton.
"I was excited when I
found out," said Sheerin, 41, interviewed this week in a local
coffee bar.
Djolé's debut disc, Indiscretion,
is a startlingly original mix of West African, Brazilian and East
Indian sounds fused into a jazz groove inspired by the likes of Miles
Davis and Weather Report.
More dynamic than new age,
more delicate than world beat and more exotic than anything on Top 40
radio, Djolé (African for "the joy of life") is an unlikely
success story.
To their surprise, the band -
together only three months when the recording was made - was one of
five chosen to be nominated from 40 submissions in the Best Global
Recording category.
It's little surprise to anyone
who's heard the disc or seen Djolé perform.
Percussionist Niel
Golden, who plays Indian hand drums called tabla, provides a gulping,
hypnotic backbone.
Doug Galbraith plays the kora, a lute-like
instrument native to Senegal, and Brazilian influenced guitar.
Contributing the jazzier sounds are Sheerin, a Berklee College of
Music grad, and Joby Baker on bass and synthesizer.
All play
with virtuosic skill and artistry.
Sheerin is a jazz
renegade. His love of music is rooted in late '60s jazz-fusion,
particularly Miles Davis' influential Bitches Brew
recording.
Like the late trumpeter, Sheerin rejects the notion
of traditional jazz improvisation. For him, the
"rules" of music are made to be broken, as they are in Djolé.
"When jazz started, it
was tired old bricklaying black guys that would sit out on the back
porch after working all day and they played what they felt - there
weren't any rules. I'm still in that camp."
One selection on Indiscretion is a live improvisation called
Phox & Pheasant.
The instrumentation, documented in the liner notes, includes a
"wine bottle." Sheerin's explanation says something
about his approach to music.
Sheerin noticed a carton
containing bottles of Greek wine. Reasoning he'd had a tough
day, he opened one and took a sip.
Soon the musician was making
spontaneous music by blowing across the opening of the bottle - it
made the final recording.
"We don't necessarily
need rules," said Sheerin, "we play what we feel."
Otherworldlies
The Financial post Magazine -
12/1994.
As New Earth they played for
Canada at Expo 92 in Seville, now as Djolé (an African word for the
joy of life) they sound as appealing and energetic as any ensemble in
this or many other lands.
Propelled by four well-tuned engines:
Niel Golden's tabla, Doug Galbraith's kora, Scott Sheerin's flutes,
they undertake original and traditional rambles - to Senegal and
Switzerland, Tanzania and Brazil, Vancouver Island and Maine.
These are Jazz tapestries with world-beat underpinnings.
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