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 (Shock)
A banjoist, tabla player, and bassist walk into a bar …
The Melody Of Rhythm, a new collaboration between banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, tabla master Zakir Hussain, and double bassist Edgar Meyer (hailed by the New Yorker as about the best thing to happen to that instrument), almost has the same structure as a well-worn joke: a banjoist, tabla player, and bassist walk into a recording studio … The three instruments are notable for their differences in technique, timbre, and especially origin: the banjo from America (via the African ngoni, or spike lute), the tabla from India, the double bass from Europe. The three musicians are notable, too, for their recognised virtuosity in each of the instruments; as a collaboration, therefore, The Melody Of Rhythm has a because-we-can feel about it. None of this is to cast aspersions about Fleck’s, Hussain’s, or Meyer’s abilities with their chosen instruments – each player is breathtakingly good at what they do, and their skills are on full display here – but it is to ask a fundamental question about why these musicians chose to collaborate. Judging by the pleasantly anodyne output, there’s some chemistry here, but no burning need to unleash this music on the world. (Similarly, the Detroit symphony orchestra seem to be ringed in to provide appropriately dramatic crescendoes in the final movement of the title composition, and little else.) Both punk and house music have taught us that a lack of musicianship is no impediment to making good music, and, unfortunately for Fleck, Hussain, and Meyer, that’s a lesson that works in the obverse, too.
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CHAD PARKHILL
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