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Bir li Lagr ne

Dominique Di Piazza

Dennis Chambers

Reviewing this sort of album is not an easy task. When you get such renowned and celebrated musicians making a recording together all one can hope to do is offer the odd interesting remark about the musicians' histories and make a stab at describing the result with a smattering of superlatives more informative than "great" and "super" and "fantastic". The gems on this album may not prove to be your favourite style of music, but one thing you can't disagree with is the wonderful musicianship on show in a trio to rival many, that gives us some of the most beautiful melodies this side of Time Remembered.

Bir li Lagr ne is the virtuoso guitarist who has been playing since he was four, recorded his first album at fourteen sounding like a reincarnated Django Reinhardt, unsurprisingly toured with St phane Grappelli, recorded several similar albums, and has since toyed with Brazilian styles, synthesiser effects and has ventured into more diverse forms with Larry Coryell, Al Di Meola, Mike Stern and Jaco Pastorius before returning to a home base of hard bop and Django-inspired interpretations of standard tunes and Frank Sinatra hits. If that isn't enough he's a dab hand at bass, piano and violin too!

His recording relationship with Larry Coryell in some way mirrors JM's. JM collaborated on Spaces, Bir li Lagr ne on Spaces Revisited. Spaces contains Rene and Spaces Revisited has Blues for Django and St phane. Again echoing JM, Bir li Lagr ne is comfortable in any number of musical settings, moving and adapting his approach to suit rock-blues, big band, fusion and acoustic music. His album Acoustic Moments is a similar crossroads acoustic statement to My Goal's Beyond, just less unusual nowadays, but it does reflect the same sense of quest.

Bir li Lagr ne and JM's paths have crossed several times. Bir li Lagr ne replaced Al Di Meola in The Guitar Trio for a concert in Freiburg (17/06/87). From 1990-2 Dominique Di Piazza toured with JM and participated in recording Que Alegria (Germany, 29/11-03/12/91) interchangeably with Kai Eckhardt. Dennis Chambers is of course that incredible drumming force behind The Heart of Things and Live In Paris, and is the only drummer I've seen since John Bonham playing a half-an-hour solo with his bare hands. They all featured at the International Guitar Festival in Seville (1991). Interestingly, Dennis Chambers was sporting a Miles Davis t-shirt playing on the same night as JM, which turned into a Miles Davis tribute occurring shortly after his death. JM first played In A Silent Way in the Tribute to Miles with the stage band, including George Duke and Dennis Chambers. Later, Paco de Lucia introduces The John McLaughlin Trio with Trilok Gurtu and Dominique Di Piazza playing his Warwick 5-string bass. The Trio plays Que Alegria. After that, JM duets with Paco de Lucia on Ziryab. At the end of the show, JM joins George Benson, Larry Coryell, and Stanley Clarke to play Eighty One. Of that festival Dennis Chambers remembers, "I met John McLaughlin in Seville, Spain. He said he was a big fan and had a lot of records I'd played on. I was blown away. He said, "Hey man, we've gotta play," and smiled, so I knew something was up. Sure enough, two years after that I get a phone call and he says, "Man, are you ready to play?" I said, "Sure. What about Trilok?" [Trilok Gurtu was McLaughlin's previous drummer]. He said he was going to put that band on hold because he wanted to play electric guitar again, and he was trying to get hold of Joey DeFrancesco to put together an organ trio." [Modern Drummer, Sept.'94].

Front Page throws together American funk and gypsy jazz into a slick melting pot of virtuosity. Some tracks are on the cool side, others rock. Dennis Chambers never really does much more than tickle the skins, but a tickle from Dennis would probably put Tyson on his back. Dominique Di Piazza's bass bubbles, solid yet fluid, accentuating the melodic line with punctuating slides. A perfect partner for Dennis Chambers' bass drum. Bir li Lagr ne swings Hot Club style, finding sublime solo runs that lift the melodies and would put a smile on the face of a deceased depressive. His vocalisations are pretty uplifting too as are the shared entries during the heads of most songs, which are executed with the harmony of JM and L. Shankar.

The faster tunes are catchy and the haunting slower ballads reach the hairs on the back of the neck. The writing credits are fairly evenly shared between Bir li Lagr ne and Dominique Di Piazza with Dennis Chambers getting a look in on a couple of tracks. JM guests on the final track providing a far weightier guitar tone than what has preceded. It's a fine tune but it's position and more gentle-aggressive sound distances it from the rest of the album. Nonetheless there are some fiery moments and it rocks to the album's close. You would be hard pushed to find close knit trio than Front Page, and this has been recognised by their winning the award for "Jazz album of the year" from Victoires de la Musique in 2001. Since then Dominique Di Piazza is rumoured to have considered Christianity in favour of musical enlightenment. Hopefully this won't stop him being involved in collaborations like his term with JM, or the one that made this "great" and "super" and "fantastic" album.