Zarbang Persian And Middle Eastern Percussion CD

A collection of percussionists, primarily Iranian (though mostly expatriates) with an Afghani master thrown in for good measure. Here, they do a fair amount of improvisation along with a few original compositions. The various percussion of the Middle East provides a colorful palette to work with in itself, but on top of that base coat, they include some Spanish percussion (primarily the cajon and congas), the santur (which adds a massive melodic ability to the proceedings), and a couple of wind instruments. By including the additional instruments, they break out of the mold of purely dombak-dominated Middle Eastern percussion, but by remaining improvisatory and exploratory, they don't fall into the set dastgah modes and the like. Musically, one of the better percussion-based albums of the last few years. Not solely "world music," but the additional instrumentation does tend to keep the album in an extra-cultural mode. A great example of what can happen when a couple of cultures come together musically, but neither politely defer to one another nor simply dominate the affair. ~ Adam Greenberg