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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful introduction to the Kroke band, 11 Jun 2003
By A Customer
Nigel Kennedy inspires a wide range of responses in people, from great admiration to downright disapprobation. However, with this album you should set aside whatever you think of him. He doesn't impose himself on the Kroke Band at all - he merely soars above their fabulous eastern harmonies and textures in the appropriate places and vanishes when he is no longer needed; he compliments their music, rather than imposing himself upon it. If you are a fan, however, there is still lots to enjoy - you can sit back and admire his wonderful tone, particularly in the upper registers of the instrument where he really shines.
As soon as I heard a burst of this album on Radio Three, I knew that it was a real must-have; in fact, it is completely addictive. I cannot praise this disc enough - it will be on my stereo all summer.
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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous mix of musical genres. Brilliant., 25 Jun 2003
By A Customer
East is East is a fabulous collection of tracks. I first heard clip on Radio 4 just having returned from several days in Krakow where I spent time at Auschwitz and Birkenau and wandering around the old Jewish quarter of Kamierz. I was immediately struck by all kinds of memory and thoughts. I had just been in pre-World War feel restaurants in Krakow's main square, such as the famous Hawelka, and the atmosphere is well-preserved here in this cd, bringing with it the sadness of the vast plain traversed in either direction over centuries by Mongols, Tartars, Russians, and Germans between Vienna, Berlin, Kiev and beyond. The music is a wonderful mix of the Continental market-café style, East European Gypsy harmonies, and Jewish-Arabic quarter-tone. I had, too, just read Paul Celan's famous Todesfuge, a major theme of which is the dance music played by prisoners accompanying victims of the Holocaust while working and dying: 'He shouts dig this earth deeper you others sing up and play ... stick your spades deeper you lot there you others play on for the dancing'. Having been to Auschwitz, this great poem added for me a deep melancholic sense to the tracks particularly track 11, which is the outstanding one. Called 'Time 4 Time', it veers in and out of an Eastern quarter-tone melody but at the same time does something analogous in the rhythm - abruptly and brilliantly - before changing key and resolving tonally through the most unexpected and beautiful key changes. Sadness and joy. Think Bartok Rumanian dances, Continental café piano accordion, Jewishness, Polish village life, and all the land down and round to the Middle East. Nigel Kennedy plays unpretentiously and flawlessly. He has a genius for crossing boundaries, - like Paul Simon in South Africa - and listening to this music is an education in musical scale, the joy of melancholy, and the crossing of national, racial and geographical boundaries.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nigel Kennedy, fluent in music, learns new dialect!, 25 Feb 2005
I was introduced to this work by a cousin of respected taste. It is addictive! I was immediately reminded of the collaboration between Yehudi Menuin and Ravi Shankar, the results of which I first heard as a teenager 30+ years ago, (see East Meets West, available from Amazon).
Music is a universal language with each civilisation adding dialect. Nigel Kennedy has once again proved his versatility by adding another dialect to his knowledge of the language. Whatever the origins of the pieces, over which there is some contention, he has complemented the Kroke Band in order to produce a unique interpretation. You must hear this at least twice!
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