 Tony Scott I originally bought this CD in an earlier edition back in my Zen phase, which more and more I think I should get back to. I don't meditate, and most of the music I've been listening to lately is plain noisy. I have enough stress in my life, it's time to bring back the green tea and koans. And of course the soothing music on Music For Zen Meditation, which very well may be the absolute mellowest album ever recorded. Clarinetist Tony Scott improvises along with Shinichi Yuize on koto and Hozan Yamamoto on shakahachi, making for a constantly changing soundscape that is minimalist and somehow suspended in time and space, quite like the Paul Horn records Inside the Great Pyramid, Inside the Taj Mahal, and Inside Big Brutus, the World's Largest Electric Stripping Shovel, West Mineral, Kansas. Actually, I'm fairly certain that Paul Horn never recorded that third album, though the masses still clamor for it. See, if I were still down with Zen I'd write much more concisely and keep tangents like that away like the illusions they are. Back to the topic: this album is still a great favorite, and works instantly when you want to put something on to immediately take the edge off. I used to abuse barbiturates for this purpose, but I've found that a good, super-mellow CD works nearly as well, and I black out far less frequently. The blend of clarinet, bamboo flute, and the gentle harp-like pluck of the koto is a spacey, wonderful sound, one that erases all concern for the real world and settles the listener into an inner space quite contemplative and joyful (very unlike the film InnerSpace, or for that matter, any film with Dennis Quaid). It's a marvelous CD, very static and understated. Very quiet and serious, unobtrusive and simply pure pleasure to listen to. More jaded listeners will probably immediately make some remark about "Kung Fu," but anyone with a leaning toward Eastern philosophy and music will love this disc to pieces. Scott's Western training fits in perfectly, and although this is really a global fusion effort, it really feels traditional. It's not even an album so much as just the best mood ever. Verve has reissued it in a nice cardboard digipak with new liner notes, with more spacious sound. If everyone listened to this CD the world would be a better place. Although the Top 40 charts, I suppose, would be REALLY boring.
Review by Wimpempy Tarlisle |