“TRAYVON MARTIN SUITE” DMG REVIEW 2015

BILL COLE / JOSEPH DALEY - Trayvon Martin Suite (Joda Music 003; USA) 
Featuring Bill Cole and Joseph Daley collectively on tuba, didgeridoo, 
balaphon, nagaswarm, wooden flutes, ocarina, sona, sousaphone, euphonium, 
etc. The collective consciousness here in the US has been suffering from 
the news we all hear about every day. Trayvon Martin is just one of many 
black youths who have been unjustly murdered over the past few years and 
way before that as well. We all feel the anger, frustration, sadness, 
confusion and hopelessness in the air and it just keeps getting worse. Is 
it an artists' or a musicians' job to help us deal with these feelings? 
Perhaps. Here is a disc that illustrates these feelings. It was recorded 
live at the University of Virginia in March of 2012. 
  The first piece is a duo of didgeridoo (Aboriginal drones) and balafon 
(large marimba-like), both ancient, ritualistic instruments from different 
parts of the world (Africa & Australia), that sound perfect together. The 
music has a sublime, warm, somber, earthy and prayer-like resonance. The 
second piece, "Evening Passage to Store" for ocarina & wooden flutes 
creates a playful, joyous, innocent vibe. "Stalking Nightmare" features a 
nagaswarm (Indian double reed) and synth, the vibe is quite nightmarish, 
the way many of us felt when we heard about this unfortunate injustice. 
Each piece does a great job of capturing the spirit/vibe of what transpired 
that night and the mixed feelings we are all still dealing with due to too 
many other similar, continuing tragedies. This is an important, strong and 
immensely timely work that should be heard by many folks everywhere. -

Bruce Lee Gallanter, DMG