Rothenberg, Ned – “Inner Diaspora” – [Tzadik]

Beautifully arranged (and engineered) music for reeds, guitar, strings, and tabla. Leaning toward harmony and texture rather than some of the skronkier Tzadik releases, this could have snuck out on ECM had Zorn been too busy. Rothenberg wrote all the pieces here, but there’s plenty of room for all the players to make themselves heard. This breaks out of the klezmer ghetto in a big way, and into the wide open spaces with the tabla especially adding some propulsion to what could have been a little too laid back otherwise. ((( crimes )))