Lopez plays around 20 instruments on the album, such as oud, hurdy-gurdy, santur and banjo, and several guest artists provide percussion, flutes, bagpipes, vocals and bowed string instruments. They are inspired by diffferent traditions, and sometimes specific geographic places, from Turkey, France, Greece, Portugal and other regions. Since then I have been a big fan and have enjoyed many of the countless groups and artists that he has performed and recorded with, including the brilliant Ross Daly, Lopez’ current medieval band Evo, the wonderful trio with Stelios Petrakis and Bijan Chemirani, and his collaboration with medieval music giants Oni Wytars.Ģ015 saw the release of Efrén Lopez’ very first solo album, El fill de llop, which includes almost only his original compositions. I first heard Efrén Lopez more than a decade ago, when I discovered the wonderful medieval group L’Ham de Foc where he and singer Mara Aranda were the core members. On his website around 70 (!) string instruments are listed and pictured, and Lopez has also studied many different musical traditions and styles from southern Europe, Western Asia and the Middle East. He is a multi-instrumentalist in the greatest sense of the word, meaning he does not play ”just” three or four instruments but several dozens. There are some artists that are truly one of a kind. Other guests on this project include Salif Keita, David Crosby, Susana Baca and Charlie Hunter.Ī new year has begun, so I’d like to present to you my favorite record that was released in 2015. Some of the videos are on youtube, and this one featuring vocalist Becca Stevens and the legendary Swedish folk band Väsen is really cool. 2, where an extended version of this already rather massive band performs with different guest artist on each track. Snarky Puppy has just released their most recent project, the DVD/CD Family dinner vol. The radio piece is almost twice as long as the video, and I recommend watching/listening to both as it’s very enjoyable to see the band on stage. The fine radio channel NPR Music recently made a video and radio documentary about Snarky Puppy, one of the busiest jazz-related bands around, playing up to 200 shows a year! Several live cuts from a gig in Dallas, near where the group was originally formed, are combined with documentary sections where band leader and bassist Michael League talks about his way of composing and where his inspireation comes from, among other things. Därför, och inte minst tack vare starka låtar och mycket skickliga musiker, är detta en alldeles utmärkt skiva. Månmors gästabud är inte folkmusik som kompas av ett storband, inte ens upplevs det som att det är två olika grupper som spelar tillsammans, utan här smälter verkligen rösterna och BRO samman till en enhet. Variationen är mycket stor, från den inledande, suggestiva Genom jorden, vars sångstämmor slingrar sig om varandra, till den kraftfulla Davaj, med tunga rytmer och rått nyckelharpsspel.ĭe tre systrarna Grüssner som utgör Ulvens Döttrar är huvudsakligen sångerskor, men deras inslag av bland annat mungigor smälter oväntat väl ihop med storbandet, och just det utgör även en otippad klangbotten till basklarinettintrot i en låt. Botnia Rhythm Orchestra är ett finsk-svenskt storband som är verksamt på båda sidor av Östersjön, och folkmusikgruppen Ulvens Döttrar hör hemma mitt i densamma, närmare bestämt på Åland.Īll musik i detta samarbete är nyskriven, huvudsakligen av en av trions medlemmar, och ypperligt arrangerad. This also includes a song that is not on the album.ĭet är långt ifrån alltid det blir särskilt lyckat när exempelvis folkmusik kläs i storbandsdräkt, men så är verkligen inte fallet med Månmors gästabud.
These videos are from a concert at the jazz festival in Umeå, Sweden. The songs on this album are all written by the sisters, except two compositions, and arranged by the artistic director of the big band in a brilliant way. In fact it does not even sound like there are two bands at all, but rather like one big unit. What’s so great about this is that I don’t get the impression that one band is accompanying the other.
One project that I really like is the collaboration between the Finnish-Swedish big band Bothnia Rhythm Orchestra and the three singing sisters that make up the folk music trio Ulvens Döttrar from the Åland islands in the Baltic sea. Some of those have been really good, others not, but often they take the shape of the solo artist/band being accompanied by the big band. There have been countless collaborations between big bands and artists from other genres, from pop to folk music.
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