NGYUEN LE & NGO HONG QUANG - Ha Noi Duo
Nguyen Le: guitars, programming; Ngo Hong Quang: vocals, Vietnamese fiddle, monocorde, lute, jews harp; Paolo Fresu: trumpet, flugelhorn; Mieko Miyazaki: koto; Prabhu Edouard: tablas, kanjira, pocket shaker; Stephane Edouard: udu, shaker; Alex Tran: cajon.
Recorded April to August 2016 by Nguyen Le at studio Louxor Paris Barbes
There is a lovely phrase that French guitarist Nguyen Le uses to describe the music in this set; ‘Asia without borders’. Immediately, looking at the collection of instruments here, you can see how the music spreads from Japan to India, centring, of course, in Vietnam which is the homeland of the two members of the Ha Noi Duo. This is particularly apparent in track 2, ‘Five Senses’, which pulls in koto and tabla to complement a jazz tune. Between the two of them, Le and Quang span a wide range of attitudes and approaches to music-making, but each endeavour to ‘express and share the soul of Vietnam’. For Le, this involves working the electric guitar to create not only sounds and phrases that will be familiar to jazz fans but also ways of suggesting traditional Vietnamese tunes and rhythms. This is something that he has been developing over his career and recent recordings have seen him working with traditional musicians, such as Quang. Whereas earlier works had seen Le reimaging traditional Vietnamese folk-songs, this set takes inspiration from that traditional and mixes it vigorously with a host of others to produce a combination that it difficult to categories.
A good example of how this mix of styles and sounds works is the opening track ‘Cloud Chamber’, which features chimes that might come from a temple in the countryside together with gentle guitar lines, and then the tranquillity is burst by hammering rhythms and full-on rock guitar. Around half of the tracks also bring in Fresu’s lyrical horn playing and, whether on trumpet or flugelhorn, he has a brings a richness and warmth that pulls together the duo’s sounds and styles into a satisfying whole that manages to mix both the very old with the very new.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
Nguyen Le: guitars, programming; Ngo Hong Quang: vocals, Vietnamese fiddle, monocorde, lute, jews harp; Paolo Fresu: trumpet, flugelhorn; Mieko Miyazaki: koto; Prabhu Edouard: tablas, kanjira, pocket shaker; Stephane Edouard: udu, shaker; Alex Tran: cajon.
Recorded April to August 2016 by Nguyen Le at studio Louxor Paris Barbes
There is a lovely phrase that French guitarist Nguyen Le uses to describe the music in this set; ‘Asia without borders’. Immediately, looking at the collection of instruments here, you can see how the music spreads from Japan to India, centring, of course, in Vietnam which is the homeland of the two members of the Ha Noi Duo. This is particularly apparent in track 2, ‘Five Senses’, which pulls in koto and tabla to complement a jazz tune. Between the two of them, Le and Quang span a wide range of attitudes and approaches to music-making, but each endeavour to ‘express and share the soul of Vietnam’. For Le, this involves working the electric guitar to create not only sounds and phrases that will be familiar to jazz fans but also ways of suggesting traditional Vietnamese tunes and rhythms. This is something that he has been developing over his career and recent recordings have seen him working with traditional musicians, such as Quang. Whereas earlier works had seen Le reimaging traditional Vietnamese folk-songs, this set takes inspiration from that traditional and mixes it vigorously with a host of others to produce a combination that it difficult to categories.
A good example of how this mix of styles and sounds works is the opening track ‘Cloud Chamber’, which features chimes that might come from a temple in the countryside together with gentle guitar lines, and then the tranquillity is burst by hammering rhythms and full-on rock guitar. Around half of the tracks also bring in Fresu’s lyrical horn playing and, whether on trumpet or flugelhorn, he has a brings a richness and warmth that pulls together the duo’s sounds and styles into a satisfying whole that manages to mix both the very old with the very new.
Reviewed by Chris Baber
