jazzwest (jazzwest.com) Ian Dogole, "Night Harvest" (Global Fusion Music) With an exotic mix of Middle Eastern melodies, South American and African instruments with straight ahead jazz, percussionist Ian Dogole weaves an intriguing blend of world beats on his second CD. Dogole has effectively moved percussion from the back of the band to a front line presence, and yet has managed to maintain a high degree of Middle Eastern authenticity within a Western jazz and bebop framework. With the addition of many local and international musicians to share his vision, Dogole offers many original tunes that speak of another time and place: "Mbira Swatch" and McCoy Tyner’s "Message from the Nile" are two examples.

The CD begins with Tyner’s tune as a Nubian song sung by Hamsa el Din, who also plays the oud, and slowly transforms into a straight-ahead reading of Tyner’s classic, with strong solos by Sheldon Brown and Paul McCandless on saxes. The CD is at its most fun when giving a new take on standards such as Monk's "Bemsha Swing"; the rhythmic drive is supplied by Dogole’s use of the cajon, a Peruvian box drum now popular in many Afro-Cuban bands. On other tunes, the percussionist uses the African thumb piano, or kalimba, to dance and swirl intricate patterns through Orca Stroll and Mbira Swatch. He plays no less than five different percussion instruments on this CD. Other musicians on this date include Hafez Modiradeh on sax, John R. Burr, Gary Fisher or Bevan Manson at the piano, Bill Douglass on bass and bamboo flute, Eric Golub on viola and Dmitri Matheny on flugelhorn for one track. If John Coltrane were alive and recording today, he'd likely be producing music in this idiom, combining jazz with world beat and Middle Eastern modalities, further pushing the boundaries to new ways of listening. (Michael Handler) Back to Press