Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet

I was interested because Bela Fleck was in the group. There was not enough of Bela, and far too much of Abigail whose voice and songs totally turned me off.

Fabulous creation! Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck are two of my favorite artists, so when I heard they had recorded together, naturally I hurried to Amazon to listen to some tracks. Each track is unique--her voice is splendid--musical accompaniment virtuoso, of course--some pieces are haunting, some jolly, and the Chinese influence gives an exotic yet clean flavor to the tracks demonstrating it. This CD fits no category--just a glorious experience.

The first cut I heard from the CD (and why I bought it) was A Fuller Wine. I recognized Bela Fleck's banjo immediately, but the progressions hooked me. The remakes on traditional songs with the New Grass feel are fresh. The Chinese Folk songs aren't my bag, but on the overall, a good listen.

Centuries ago in many a Silk Road caravansary, traveling musicians from various lands learned songs and instrument design from each other, and they also jammed. This album is the contemporary equivalent of those exchanges, for traditional bluegrass banjo and fiddle and European classical cello instruments, and Western avant-garde art music and old-time lyrics, are cast with Chinese language and East Asian tunes. Indeed, in one track, the tremolo of Abigail Washburn's double-stringed banjo mimics a Chinese pipa. The album varies on almost every song, taking us on a strange sonic journey from Kazakhstan to Appalachia, from a Central European salon to a New York experimental music club, yet not being anywhere because this is a peculiar fusion. It is entirely within the character of the wide-ranging Bela Fleck to produce, perform in, and help engineer this highly inventive exploration. The team was involved in the earlier, more coherent, and thereby better, album of Washburn, Song of the Traveling Daughter. In fact, that album was the seed for this elaboration. Yes, it is a pioneering blend of bluegrass sensitivity and timbre with occasional Asian melody, but it is also an echo of the past on the Silk Road. I like this album and hope that there will be even further developments.

I heard this group for the first time at the Vancouver Island Musicfest and was blown away. I've been listening to this CD over and over again since. Imagine an otherworldly blend of bluegrass, Chinese traditional, and 20th-century classical symphonic and imagine it done artfully, tastefully, beautifully. This kind of music experience lifts you out of the ordinary into another realm. Absolutely superb, surprising, refreshing, original. With this kind of talent out there doing this sort of thing, why would anyone buy the mass-produced pablum that seems to have gained dominance in the commercial music world? I am in love!