This release marks the 25th anniversary of the New York mostly percussion ensemble
Bang On A Can (the
All-Stars mentioned here include collaborators like clarinetist-composer
Evan Ziporyn). The group's lasting popularity and influence are further attested to by the more than 5,000 memories the band received after offering free downloads from the album to anyone who sent them one. This double-album set might serve the curious as an introduction to
Bang On A Can, which fearlessly proclaimed the connectedness of musical traditions generally thought to be separate when it came on the scene in the late 1980s.
Ziporyn's
Music from Shadow Bang reflects the composer's study of Indonesian percussion traditions.
David Longstreth's cheekily titled
Instructional Video,
Matt Damon, and
Breakfast at J&M reflect the interface between
Bang On A Can and the world of alternative rock, while kinetic pieces by
Julia Wolfe,
David Lang, and
Michael Gordon hark back to the group's "downtown" origins. A piece by
Louis Andriessen shows the group's ability to take on a more severe modernist idiom, while
Conlon Nancarrow's
Four Player Piano Studies, arranged by
Ziporyn, put a new, non-mechanistic spin on those works. All these pieces coexist cheerfully, and the sheer range of the group's expertise and enthusiasms ensures the music is anything but boring. A good place to start with this group, which seems likely to notch a second quarter century of performing and recording. ~ James Manheim
