Edgar Meyer

Chronique

Edgar Meyer is one of the few musicians to have achieved success in both the classical and country fields, performing virtuoso double-bass repertory on one hand and appearing on albums by the likes of Garth Brooks on the other. He has composed attractive works for other performers (notably Hilary Hahn) that give an idea of what Copland's music might've sound like if Copland had lived long enough to witness the emergence of progressive bluegrass. Meyer has nurtured a lot of projects, something that no doubt recommended him for the MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant that he received in 2002. This, his first solo release, shows what he's been up to with the proceeds: he's installed a home studio, stocked with a variety of equipment and musical instruments. The 10 selections on this album (plus four short, fairly similar "Interludes") are performed by Meyer in their entirety, playing half a dozen different instruments and then mixing the individual tracks together.
Meyer is at his best here when he sticks to his country and jazzy-bluegrass roots and puts the bass, by far his best instrument, front and center. The delightful Please Don't Feed the Bear fills both these conditions and also contains a unique effect that Meyer apparently stumbled on accidentally -- recording a mandolin and a viola da gamba together, and slightly out of phase, he produces a magical hammered dulcimer sound. Catch and Release, track 10, is another innovative track, with the bass in a pizzicato role against a pair of mandolins; the piano enters with quiet rock-anthem chords that are slowly merged with the string material as the bass switches to arco playing and takes a more active role.Woody Creek, track 12, will also appeal to lovers of the Appalachia Waltz project, in which Meyer was a key participant.
Many of the tracks with prominently featured piano are less satisfying. There's too much of a smooth new age arpeggiation mode, but that's not really the problem. A one-man-band project of this kind needs some kind of inner compulsion to justify itself -- some kind of loner's struggle within the mind to make sense of musical material. That doesn't quite happen here -- there's nothing about most of this music that requires its removal from music's natural social sphere. Meyer is undoubtedly a distinctive crossover talent, but he seems to be noodling around here more often than not.

© TiVo