Cope Records
John Sund & Acoustic Sense : New Gems (DK,2003)****
Acoustic guitar master John Sund leads this all-acoustic Fusion group with some members contributing in various ways with their own backgrounds. Ghanian Ayi Solomon for instance, plays on all kind of handpercussion instruments like udu, shells, berimbau, djembe. He follows mostly the jazz-line, but he gives it extra exotic touches inspired from different origins. One track, “Pulse Chant” (Bushman’s Cry) is a co-composition with African roots, with an acoustic guitar and footstep arrangement by John Sund. The Serbian accordion player Lelo Nika, has a background in Gypsy music, but, like Ayi Solomon succeeds to focus this completely into jazz fusion territories. He adds melodic interwoven worlds into the compositions. Swedish cellist John Ehde, has a classical background but is able to improvise perfectly and smoothly along. One seagull-like cello improvisation seems to be derived from an idea from another John Sund composition. Thommy Anderson plays acoustic bass on 5 of the 12 tracks, while Yadam Gonzalez as a guest player plays acoustic bass on the first track.
Overall the compositions are melodically rich. They’re not just lead overall by the acoustic guitar, because all instruments share their part in building up the composition. Here and there a more open crafty evolution, but mostly it is the compositional forces coming from one or more instruments which lead logically into compositions. A fine jazzfusion release with an all-world music open attitude.
