In review--Standing together
Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Bahrami Fard I Will Not Stand Alone World Village I have a small pile of CDs sitting next to my laptop in which Iranian spike-fiddle player Kayhan Kalhor appears. Since reviewing Ghazal’s Rain on ECM in 2003, in which Kalhor performed in a musical exchange with sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan, I have come across a recording each year featuring Kahlhor in collaborations with Iranian, Turkish, American (Brooklyn Rider, a string quartet and Yo-Yo Ma), and Indian musicians. And in each of these recordings, the spike fiddle player (aka kamancheh), offers a transcendental performance. If you see Kayhan Kalhor’s name gracing the cover of a CD, make sure you give that recording a good listen. Otherwise you pass up an opportunity to hear truly exotic music fired by the heart and soul of its performer. The most recent recording, or musical chapter, I Will Not Stand Alone , brings its listeners a ray of hope, but only after having suffered the torme...