Huong Thanh - Dragon Fly

Год/Year: 2001
Стиль/Style: World, Jazz
Страна/Country: Vietnam, France, Espana
Качество/Quality: 320 kbps
Размер/Size: 95 MB



Track List

1. Ten Reasons for Loving You (Traditional)
2. Bakida (Nguyên Lê)
3. Dragonfly (Nguyên Lê)
4. What the Bird Says (Nguyên Lê)
5. Two Sisters (Nguyên Lê / Hong Nguyên)
6. The Betel Tray (Nguyên Lê)
7. Graceful Bamboo (Nguyên Lê)
8. Crossing the Valley (Nguyên Lê)
9. Drums in the Night (Nguyên Lê)
10. Scent of my Childhood (Dominique Borker / Van Hong Nguyên)

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Huong Thanh - vocals
Nguyên Lê - electric & acoustic guitars, synthesizers & computer,
Duong Chi Tam - 16-strings zither (dàn tranh), moon shaped lute (dàn nguyêt), 2-string fiddle (dàn nhi), cai luong gtr, monocorde (dànbau), woodblock (song lan)
Hao Nhiên Pham - sao transverse bamboo flute, lutes, zither, sapek clappers
Dinh Cong Tuyên - pi thiu vertical flute
Richard Bona - vocals, fretless bass & percussions
Renaud Garcia-Fons - pizz & arco acoustic 5-string bass
Tino di Geraldo - cajón, frame drum
Paolo Fresu - trumpet & flugelhorn
Etienne Mbappé - fretted & fretless bass
François Verly - percussions (shaker, tibet bowl, tuned bells, gongs, chimes & brushes) & tablas
Dominique Borker - acoustic piano
The Barbès Deluxe strings:
Raphaëlle Pacault - violin
Martin Rodriguez - viola
Sophie Lechelle - cello

"Dragonfly: The word carries with it a variety of meanings that conjure up unexpected comparisons, connections, and enigmatic relationships. In the title piece, "Dragonfly", the unforeseen culminates in a sensitive duel between the Vietnamese-Parisian Huong Thangh and the Cameroon-New Yorker Richard Bona. It was necessary that such a mythical creature as the dragon, a symbol for good luck in Asia, lift itself up and over the chasm that separates the different styles, the disparate geographic and historic terrain, thus bridging the gap between musical cultures.
And the same goes for the entire album: magic lies in this alchemy, which combines the distinctive purity and tradition of the Vietnamese instruments and vocals with the sudden presence of the electronics, the grooves, the string instruments, and the African vocals. And so we climb onto the back of the dragon and fly with him into the distance."
Nguyên Lê

The album title Dragonfly has a variety of meanings. It stands for the delicate insect that because of its grace and femininity is called "Demoiselle", or young maiden, in French. It could be thought of as "flight of the dragon", and in Vietnam, the dragon plays an important roll in the land’s creation myth - Vietnam is denoted as "the land of the children of the dragon and the immortals".
Singer Huong Thanh is from Vietnam; she has lived in Paris since 1977. Her ‘99 debut album "Moon and Wind" has already accommodated Western ears to the exceptional. Her newest work "Dragonfly" seamlessly ties together the fascination of Western rhythms and melodies with Far-Eastern music traditions. Through ten titles, the participating musicians revel in the music that lies between the traditional and the modern, between various playing styles and concepts, between the beguiling voice of Huong Thanh and the many subtleties created by the compositions’ variety of instrumentation.

Sweeping, expressive synthi-sounds join up with warm, measured guitar sonorities, and a wistful-sounding muted trumpet; they are all slowly propelled by an unobtrusive, pulsating bass and polyrhythmic drums, as they fall into a relaxed groove. The love-song "Graceful Bamboo" is a wonderful example of the tasteful blending of a sensuous Vietnamese song into the many-faceted tonal world surrounding Huong Thanh’s gentle, tender voice. Dragonfly offers a colorful kaleidoscope of ground-braking World-Music. African background vocals from the New York-Cameroon bassist Richard Bona intermingle with the sounds of Zither, flute, and bass, as they groove into a rollicking stroll ("Crossing the Valley"). On the title piece "Dragonfly" the charismatic Richard Bona once again takes over the vocal parts, picks up the bass, derbouka, bongos, and shaker, and thus lays out continents of music, music that with the addition of the cajón, the traditional rhythm instrument of Flamenco, extends into Southern Europe.

Vietnamese guitarist Nguyên Lê lives in Paris. He arranged and produced this album, the compositions of which are for the most part based on traditional themes. Lê has a deep understanding of the musical culture of Vietnam; thus the arrangements retain the authentic character of ist traditions, while carefully expanding on that character. Lê is not afraid to intertwine old structures with jazzy lines and other influences from all over the world. Typical Vietnamese instruments pair themselves with modern electronic instruments as if such unions were obvious. Huong Thanh’s spellbinding voice joins with the wondrously functioning melange, as they and the dragon sail gently and weightlessly through the air.

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