Australian Art Orchestra
CD

For Sophisticated Listeners

Review of Into The Fire

This CD is a "unique collaboration" between Paul Grabowsky's Australian Art Orchestra and some of India's leading musicians. The publicity further describes the music as "an exciting convergence of radically different cultures and the result is a unique musical tapestry" drawing from the traditions of western jazz and South Indian classical music."

It features the Sruthi Laya Ensemble and Karaikudi R. Mani "the preeminent exponent of the mridangam, India's most popular drum". Grabowsky is indubitably a musician of great talent, technique and breadth of imagination, and this session has been enthusiastically greeted, as in The Indian Express, Mumbai. After discussing the basis of the music and the fusion of Indian music and rhythms and a big-band sound it said, "The effect was very stunning as the horn section provided the dimension of grandeur to the Indian passages which perhaps no other Indo-jazz fusion group has ever achieved".

While I respect and enjoy Grabowsky's work in more mainstream music I found this CD heavy going. But obviously my inability to get my ears around "eastern", as in middle-, near- and far-, sounds is a handicap. This is why I have offered other opinions, and the suggestion that those with different, perhaps more-sophisticated, tastes should listen for themselves.

- Canberra Times (Michael Porter), June 2000

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