Hampton Roads,
Album Review
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Imagine a manic New Orleans second line funeral band, screwy circus orchestra, crazed drum and bugle unit and the Looney Tunes orchestra all mashed up, and that’s the sound found on this heated “Balkan Brass Battle.”
In the tradition of Serbia’s legendary Guca Brass Festival, this unique record pits rural Romania’s 12-man Fanfare Ciocarlia in a heated and pitched throwdown against Serbia’s baker’s-dozen Boban & Marko Markovic Orchestra. The airtight performances are so frenzied one imagines smoke wafting from the instruments after each “bout.”
Recorded in Transylvania, this session features each group blowing its stuff, along with four collaborations full of call-and-response. This splendor in the brass includes a riotous version of the James Bond theme, two versions of the jazz classic “Caravan” and a number of blaring, skittering Eastern European pieces. Drums, percussion, and whoops and chants from the musicians energize each rollicking sonic rumble.
08/08/11
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