Jan Garbarek
Rites

The journey promises well from the start: a dense fog of synthesizers, a foamy trail of percussion, a bass that rumbles constant and steady like an engine. The ship advances blindly through the fog and darkness, but suddenly a blast sharper than a siren cuts through the night and momentarily illuminates the place we find ourselves: it is a Norwegian fjord, from which we are departing for a long journey into the world's music, guided by a captain named Jan Garbarek. He plays the magical instrument capable of piercing even the thickest fog, gifting us with flashes of absolute transparency, a soprano sax with a sound seemingly cold and unnatural, which will reveal itself perfectly able to illuminate and color every kind of scenario throughout the journey.

"Rites", the first track of the eponymous double album, really gives that feeling of impatient anxiety that precedes an adventure, but the same theme proves to be equally suited to seal its conclusion in "Last Rite", in which it is easy to imagine the return to the fjord from which we started. Much has been said about Jan Garbarek, and not always positively: jazz purists reproach him for too formal, new age-like elegance, while new age enthusiasts find too much jazz in the freedom with which his sax ranges, starting from linear and impeccable melodies. Anyone intent on categorizing an artist into a genre will have a tough time with Jan Garbarek, because the Norwegian saxophonist encapsulates world music, jazz, new age, Nordic folk, and even electronic music, and surely there's some other genre that has influenced him. But let's leave the classification to those who specialize in it and focus instead on the substance, which in this specific case comes in the form of splendid melodies, singable but not banal, at times melancholically Scandinavian, serenely oriental, joyfully African or Latin. Jan Garbarek knows ethnic music like the back of his hand, and the sound of his instrument, even though it's "always the same", unmistakable, never seems out of place or excessive in any of the many tests it encounters. Credit also goes to the valuable background painted by his faithful companions, always in the background compared to the leading instrument, but indispensable in making it shine. Rainer Bruninghaus' synthesizers stand out, with their murky fog effect, but no less important are Marilyn Mazur's versatile percussions, shifting from a barely hinted ticking in the most languid "ballads" to a festive tribal racket in the most ethnic tracks, and Eberhard Weber's powerful bass, the engine of this imaginary ship. One of the most fascinating stops of this long and rich voyage comes right after departure. "Where The Rivers Meet" is not a geographical place, but rather a place of the soul, the meeting of various rivers of sensations, merged in the obsessive rumble of an African drum, which exalts a simple and captivating melody. It would not be out of place in a "ethnic" album by Peter Gabriel. We cross vast and desolate plains with the impressionistic "Vast Plain, Clouds" and its painful stabs of sax, to arrive at an intimate dialogue, almost chamber music in taste, between Garbarek and Bruninghaus on the piano in the sad yet beautiful "So Mild The Wind, So Meek The Water", potentially an ideal theme for the soundtrack of a dramatic film. The cheerful and whistling motif and the Latin percussion of "Song, Tread Lightly" momentarily break the tension, but new horizons of great wild expanses open up with "It's OK To Listen The Gray Voice", ideal for a documentary on the last pristine lands, featuring a clear piano solo, which for a moment steals the scene from the soprano sax. "Her Wild Ways", an interesting and pleasant mixture of Latin rhythms and fusion sounds, closes a perfect first disc.

Less perfect but more varied is the second, which starts with the overwhelming percussion of "It's High Time", supported by Garbarek with bursts of penetrating high notes. Completely opposite is the hazy delicateness of "One Ying For Every Yang", perhaps the album's most new-age moment, with its "caressed" percussion and the sweet phrasing of the sax. "Pan" is another pause for reflection, modeled in the style of the tenderest jazz "ballads", not without some classical influences in the piano part. It introduces what will be the most conspicuous digression of our journey, beginning with "We Are The Stars", in which an already precious musical fabric is enhanced by a celestial choir of boys' voices, resulting in a sublime outcome, more reminiscent of Fauré's immortal Requiem than a song of American Indians, from which the text is drawn. Next comes a concentrate of pure melody, "The Moon Over Mtatsaminda", where sax and electronic instruments fall silent to make way for the passionate voice of Jansug Kakhidze, accompanied by the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra (of which he is the conductor), giving us a small but significant insight into the hidden treasures of musical traditions unknown to us, such as the Georgian one. In "Malinye" we seem to be suddenly transported into the subdued and crepuscular atmosphere of certain ghostly Tom Waits waltzes, with a thin (electronic) accordion sound faintly supporting a sax that's less brilliant than usual for the occasion; similar, though just a bit fuller, is the sound of the subsequent "The White Clown". A sort of musical box made of keyboards and bells hypnotizes us during "Evenly They Danced", easing the inevitability of the return.

When the bass engine of "Last Rite" fires back up, it's a sign that this thrilling journey of nearly two hours of music is coming to an end, but inside us there is a fullness of impressions and colors, which will not soon fade.