André Jaume

In 1995, master reedist André Jaume went to Java to record the experiment of a lifetime: a jazz album that paired the reeds and woodwinds -- saxophones, clarinets, flutes, etc. -- with the gamelan ensemble assembled by Javanese maestro Sapto Raharjo. Raharjo assembled a gamelan and percussion quintet to accompany Jaume; the results are virtually unlike anything ever heard in the jazz or improvisational world. Like his mentor Jimmy Giuffre (to whom the album's first track "Pluie Sur Gumuk" is dedicated), Jaume is a consummate improviser, one who portends to a seamless sound world. The most remarkable thing about this record, as opposed to so many world/jazz fusion attempts, is that it is at once fully a gamelan record and fully a jazz record -- simultaneously. This synthesis is achieved whether the tune be a retooled Cuban mambo like "Ratu Boko Mambo" (which has Jaume blowing like Gato Barbieri while the ensemble creates rhythms and tonalities that transcend worlds), a heartbreakingly beautiful rendition of Steve Lacy's "Blues for Aida," the New Orleans stomp "Yogya Nova" (transmuted by the centuries into a rhythm and harmony fest of uncommon clarity and melodic invention -- not to mention harmonic innovation), or the traditional gamelan symphony that comprises the title track. Jaume adapts his timbral palette and concentrates on opening Western scale to accommodate this vast array of tonalities and harmonic combinations, just as the gamelan ensemble with Raharjo focuses on the syncopated specificities of the blues. Far from ending up as an exotic oddity, Borobudur Suite is a necessary addition to Jaume's catalog, and showcases just how diverse and lush the world of the gamelan really is. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide