Vietnamese Traditional Dan Bau Music CD

Internationally acclaimed dan bau player, Pham Duc Thanh was born in Ninh Binh, northern Vietnam, in 1956. Displaying a remarkable musical aptitude as a child, Pham was already playing the dan bau (monochord) as well as the dan tranh (16-string zither) and dan nhi (two-string fiddle) by the age of six. In 1974, Pham moved to Hanoi, where he studied at a popular traditional theatre school and joined the leading Hat Cheo theatre group as a dan bau player. After attending Saigon's Research Center for Music, he went on to become one of country's top dan bau players of traditional and contemporary music. In August 1990, Pham and his wife, singer Lieu Nguyet Lan, left Vietnam and moved to Germany for several years before emigrating to Canada in 1996. Today, the Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist is known as one of the world's leading exponents of traditional Vietnamese music. Besides his solo work, Pham has also appeared on over 20 internationally released CDs including the movie soundtrack for Tony Bui's Three Seasons, winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

The dan bau is a traditional Vietnamese monochord instrument made of a single-steel string stretched over a gourd. One end is attached to a piece of wood equipped with a flexible handle. The player plucks the string at its harmonic nodes and uses the handle to vary tension -- and thus pitch. Now, Pham Duc Thanh has more than one string to his bow and this is by no means a solo dan bau disc, although the instrument does get the leading part on all 12 tracks. But Thanh also plays a wide range of Vietnamese instruments, from flutes and lutes to percussion. His interpretations of Vietnamese folk songs are very personal and don't exclude elements of Western music. "Fishing," for instance, features a rocking rhythm section played on small percussion instruments that resemble the junk percussion occasionally found in Tom Waits' songs of the '90s. The multiple an bau parts in the same piece are also strongly reminiscent of Hans Reichel's daxophone "operetta," Yuxo: same mischievous melodies, childlike fun and genuine invention. "Work Song" also stands out thanks to some very wild note bending. The sounds of Vietnam are found everywhere on this disc, but they haven't been mummified, they live and thrive in a stimulating environment. In short: Thanh's music manages to sound rooted in folk yet feel modern, without sacrificing to the Gods of Modernity or Music Market. Highly stimulating, fun and rewarding. ~ François Couture