Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Cartwright/Oppenheim: A Mumbai of the Mind

56

Cartwright/Oppenheim: A Mumbai of the Mind

By

View read count
Cartwright/Oppenheim: A Mumbai of the Mind
Harmony and modality can make for strange bedfellows. The blending of Indian and Western music is not easy, given the streams from which they spring. The parallel streams in which the two flow becomes apparent on this recording when the Indian musicians bring their own rhythm into play, and Katharine Cartwright and Richard Oppenheim invest a Western attitude that for the most part does not assimilate.

Vocalist Cartwright and sax man Oppenheim recorded the music in Mumbai, India (aka Bombay) and gave it final shape in New York. The poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti was another inspiration, and so were unusual time signatures. They start well enough. “Johnny Nolan” brings in an appropriate stance, the sound in compact cleave with the rhythm. Cartwright’s wordless improvisations and Oppenheim’s bending of the notes get to the sensibility of the mode, and when Cartwright flexes the phrasing, she slips in compactly with her overdubbed vocals adding to the impress. Her singing impacts “Poet Like an Acrobat” and Oppenheim brings in a raga feel to the sax.

On the other hand, “Peacocks Walked” does not come off. Cartwright has a beautifully expressive voice, but the straight line she treads does not sit in well with the percussive rhythm, as is the case when Oppenheim comes in with a darkly modulated sax that would have had great impact given the right ambience. The rest of the tunes nestle in a groove that lends the posit to Kipling and what he felt about the meeting of the East and the West.

Track Listing

Johnny Nolan; Poet Like an Acrobat; Peacocks Walked; The Dog; Kafka

Personnel

Katharine Cartwright

Album information

Title: A Mumbai of the Mind | Year Released: 2004

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.