DAVID BYRNE: The Forest.  [No producer credit; Andy Waterman, Edu Meyer (engineers)] Warner Brothers 9 26584-2. CD. (ADD).

JOHN MCLAUGHLIN: Mediterranean Concerto, Guitar and Piano Duets [Steven Epstein, John McLaughlin (producers); Bud Graham (engineers)] CBS MK 45578. CD. (DDD).

DAVID BYRNE/JOHN MCLAUGHLIN

by Siegfried P. Duray-Bito

      "Warners wants you to know this album contains orchestral music."  This label, printed on the upper left corner of the CD package for The Forest, rings out like a government warning on cigarettes or liquor.  It seems the thought police now think that orchestral music may cause cancer and adding this label can limit their liability.

     That people don't listen to orchestral music anymore is no surprise.  First, labor costs have made an orchestral event akin to driving a car that gets eight miles to the gallon.  Second, the riffs used in orchestral music take longer to learn and our instant gratification society doesn't have the time.  Third, in today's jack-hammer world, you need pounding drums to draw attention to the fact that a musical event is even taking place.

     In this view, it's sort of odd that two heavily electric-based musicians would bother with this kind of anachronism.  In the liner notes for The Forest, David Byrne writes that he has attempted to "take stock" of what it means to be of European descent and to live with the legacy of the big machines of the Industrial Age.  He claims he has tried to draw a lot from the Romantic composers and has used the ancient epic of Gilgamesh as his theme.

     Buried in the liner notes is the fact that some of this music was used in a theater piece.  Unfortunately, this is exactly where Byrne has revealed his 80s poseur attitude.  The music in The Forest was written as backdrop for a performance art piece and, as such, comes off sounding no better than a soundtrack.

     Even with considerable help from Jimmie Haskell's orchestration, the music is rather one-dimensional.  Tempo is unvaried throughout and the allegiance to Romantic composers exists only in the CD's dark, bass string-inspired tone.  Bryne's wailing voice during several cuts provides some emotional fodder, but the overall sense of The Forest is flat and lifeless.  Perhaps Byrne could have benefited by listening to Beethoven's Seventh or the second movement of Bruckner's Ninth for a little more pep in his orchestral writing.

     It would have probably been much cheaper for Byrne to rejoin his old friend Brian Eno in the studio rather than hiring two separate orchestras in Europe and America for this project.  The sonic window has absolutely no relationship to music recorded in a real space and I'm convinced Eno could have created similar textures with today's best synthesizers and processors.  Every acoustic instrument on this album (save perhaps the accordion) sounds like it was synthesized in some way.

     So, the warning label on The Forest really isn't necessary.  For most music listeners who couldn't tell the difference between a violin and a viola, Byrne's effort could easily have been stacked in the New Age racks and no one would know the difference.

     Not so with John McLaughlin's Mediterranean Concerto.  There's John on the cover, seated in a classical pose looking ever so much like a leonine Romero or Segovia.  With the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by a bona fide conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, McLaughlin's flirtation with orchestral music is from a more grounded, traditional perspective.

     The Mediterranean Concerto draws heavily from Rodrigo's guitar and orchestral work.  McLaughlin's virtuoso guitar work leads the orchestra down a colorful, snappy path that's very engaging.  As a student of musical phrasing and dynamic contrast, McLaughlin manages to instill some drama into the work through well-conceived cadenzas and Prokofievian tuttis.

     Those familiar with McLaughlin's quick, dense solo style that astounded the guitar world twenty years ago will find it here - in spades.  McLaughlin eschews traditional concerto ideals of interplay between soloist and orchestra and plays almost continuously for the full 36 minutes of the piece.  While this is an impressive virtuoso achievement, a little more restraint would have resulted in added musical value (just ask McLaughlin's mentor, Mr. Davis).

     McLaughlin adds duos for guitar and piano with love interest Katia Lebeque to round out the CD.  These little miniatures benefit from the rousing keyboard technique of Lebeque and serve nicely as chamber works for the 90s.  More so than with the concerto, McLaughlin skillfully meshes virtuoso jazz guitar with classical piano in these duets.

     Sonically, this all-digital recording creates a reasonable sense of real instruments - strings on the right, bass on the left, horns in the center.  While a little bass-shy and suffering from the usual digital truncations, such as muted extreme top frequencies and poor definition at the edges of the stage, the sound is no worse than any other contemporary classical digital recording.  McLaughlin's lightly reverbed guitar integrates reasonably well with the orchestra and the only glaring anomaly is the MIDI Grand Piano's utterly synthetic middle registers.