Arga Bileg Ethno Jazz Band and Heiri Kanzig Quintet
Agula: Swiss-Mongolian Music Exchange Project (Musiques Suisses, 2015)
A Mongolian band and a Swiss jazz band? Sounds about as likely combination as peanut butter and cheese. That’s exactly what label Musiques Suisses has done with Agula: Swiss-Mongolian Exchange Project and the result is a polished, wildly entertaining collection of tracks.
This clever combo came about by the efforts of Musiques Suisses, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Mongolia and the Art Council of Mongolia, along with Arga Bileg Ethno Jazz Band pianist and composer Purevsuhk Tyeliman and Heiri Kanzig Quintet’s double bassist and artistic director Heiri Kanzig.
Mr. Tyeliman says of the collaboration, “I wanted to express the intellectual and the artistic similarities shared by Mongolia and Switzerland, but also their differences. Both countries share a similar geographical feature, namely high mountains – the Altai Mountains and the Alps – and they draw their artistic inspiration from these features. On the other hand, we are different in many ways. Nevertheless, we were still able to establish a strong friendship.”
Equal measures of Mongolian musical traditions and the sleekness of Swiss jazz, Agula shimmers with a savvy freshness. Music fans get doses of horse-head fiddles, zithers, throat singing, accordion, trumpet, flugelhorn, sleek percussion and lush vocals by Heiri Kanzig Quintet’s Karin Streule.
Opening with a delicious combo of throat singing and Ms. Steule’s vocals, “Agula Part I” makes it clear that this recording is a potent collaboration. Like horses racing over the hills, “Agula Part II” moves deeper into the interworking of these two musical groups.
Passing composing skills between Mr. Tyeliman and Mr. Heiri Kanzig, Agula works through lush tracks like the breezy Asian tinged “Happy May,” the delicately stringed “Oguulel” and the stylishly smooth “Air Train.” Equally good are the tracks “Night Breeze,” the smartly catchy “Friends” and the pair of fantasy track “Tosoolul Part I and Part II.”
Mr. Kanzig notes, “Today, the development of many conventional musical styles has reached an impasse. The liveliest, most refreshing music is often found in between styles and/or in encounters between different musical traditions.”
Redefining both musical traditions the Arga Bileg Ethno Jazz Band the Heiri Kanzig Quintet have happened upon a spontaneity that makes the possibilities delightfully endless.
Purchase: Agula: Swiss-Mongolian Music Exchange Project in North America
Purchase: Agula: Swiss-Mongolian Music Exchange Project in Europe
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
