{"id":1982,"date":"1998-11-29T15:39:06","date_gmt":"1998-11-29T21:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevetibbetts.com\/?page_id=1982"},"modified":"2022-06-11T20:35:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-12T01:35:37","slug":"isthmus-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevetibbetts.com\/isthmus-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Ch\u00f6–Isthmus Review, 11\/20\/98"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"Steve<\/a>

Photo by Brian Ebner<\/p><\/div>\r\n

Like A Prayer<\/h3>\r\n

At the Barrymore Theater, Tibbetts and his nuns open a window onto bliss<\/h5>\r\n

Madison-bred guitarist Steve Tibbetts has always had his admirers.<\/p>\r\n

On self-produced discs from the mid-\u00ad’70s and modestly budgeted efforts for the ECM label, he displayed a talent for mixing progressive jazz-rock guitar with Eastern rhythms and modes.<\/p>\r\n

However, nothing in his long career really prepared his admirers for Ch\u00f6<\/strong>, his deft 1997 collabo\u00adration with the Tibetan Buddhist nun Choy\u00ading Drolma and a choir of nuns from her Kat\u00admandu monastery.\u00a0 The title of the set (which translates as “cutting<\/a>“) refers to a body of ritual practice in which the nuns en\u00addeavor to sever their attachment to the self. Their chants aren’t really intended for the concert hall, and it’s to Tibbetts’ credit that he’s refrained from turning the nuns’ prayers into secular grooves.\u00a0 Last Sunday at the Barrymore Theatre, Tibbetts and his longtime percussionist, Marc Anderson, continued to display admirable restraint as they backed Choying Drolma and two other nuns who’d traveled from Nepal to tour Ch\u00f6<\/strong>.<\/p>\r\n

Dressed simply in saffron robes, the close\u00adly shorn nuns sat between the musicians on a raised platform.\u00a0 Before them stood a row of small votive candles that flickered each time they accompanied themselves with the hand bells and small, brightly colored drums.<\/p>\r\n

Choying Drolma’s full, rather deep voice really has very little in common with the gruff, horripilating drones of Buddhist monks, and in concert she conveyed a plain\u00adtive innocence that’s only hinted at on Tib\u00adbetts’ recordings.\u00a0 On most tunes she sang a quavering lead line, then pulled back into the music as Tibbetts and Anderson mapped out ambient textures that occasionally riffed off her melody. Each time she and her sister nuns picked up their bells and tam\u00adbors, the music took on a stately quality that at points was reminiscent of Chinese court music.<\/p>\r\n

Even without the benefit of the choral backing that appears on the disc, the nuns’ music had considerable spiritual heft.\u00a0 The lulling cadences of “Ngani Tr\u00f6ma Parts 1 & 2” were particularly affecting, and left am\u00adple room for Anderson to provide global ac\u00adcents with his tablas and tree of shiny gongs.\u00a0 There was no encore, and, frankly, none was needed.\u00a0 The window onto bliss that Tibbetts, Anderson and the nuns offered was treat enough.<\/p>\r\n

(Tom Laskin’s<\/a> review of the album, February 14, 1997, Isthmus)<\/p>\r\n

Back in the States, he added guitar, bouzouki, percussion, and a variety of other instruments to their songs, taking care not to obscure the religious, at times celebratory, quality of the music. \u00a0The global fusion disc that resulted from his efforts is mesmerizing, but not in a chill-out kind of way. \u00a0Even Choying Dolma’s quietest solo pieces radiate a calm self-confidence, and Tibbetts deflects any notion that this is a New Age album by placing several of the nuns’ quavering chants in stately musical settings.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“There was no encore, and, frankly, none was needed.\u00a0 The window onto bliss that Tibbetts, Anderson and the nuns offered was treat enough.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,81],"tags":[11,12,97,17,22,102,42,44,46,51,60,62,64,65,72],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCh\u00f6--Isthmus Review, 11\/20\/98 · Steve Tibbetts<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stevetibbetts.com\/isthmus-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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