Editorial Review:

Album Description:
What if Marco Polo had owned a tape recorder? And what if his epic travels along the Silk Road had taken place not at the end of the 13th century, but at the beginning of the 21st? Far-fetched conjectures to be sure, but our compilation The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan offers a glimpse of the rich musical life that an intrepid and curious traveler like Marco Polo might find in the lands of the Silk Road today.

Amazon.com:
"What if Marco Polo had owned tape recorder?" This intriguing concept is raised in the liner notes to this impressive two-CD set, which wanders along ancient Asian trade routes known as the Silk Road. The first disc, Masters & Traditions, deals with formal styles performed by and for sophisticated connoisseurs. Meanwhile, the music on Minstrels and Lovers is played by amateurs who are part of daily life and thus reach a wider audience. The imaginary caravan passes through Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, and Afghanistan, encountering nomads, mystics, and bards along the way. The instruments are scratchy, pungent, and/or serene, while the singers weave a potent spell out of a millennium's worth of slow-changing rural and urban vistas. In the opening essay, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the project's artistic director, pleads for intercultural communication and empathy. This compilation provides an exotic, brave, entertaining first step in that direction. --Christina Roden

I found this cd to be both enjoyable and long. It seems to me that I really enjoyed some of the tracks very much, but sometimes right after an enjoyalbe one would one that I said "ugth get over it". I will listen to it from time to time, but be ready to have time for it all. I can't say it's not worth buying, but I years ago had a long playing album called music on the desert road and I think it spoiled me for any other travel music thru Mid-East and Asia.

Average Rating:

Rating: - its a long Silk Road
I found this cd to be both enjoyable and long. It seems to me that I really enjoyed some of the tracks very much, but sometimes right after an enjoyalbe one would one that I said "ugth get over it". I will listen to it from time to time, but be ready to have time for it all. I can't say it's not worth buying, but I years ago had a long playing album called music on the desert road and I think it spoiled me for any other travel music thru Mid-East and Asia.

Rating: - Just what I was looking for!
When I needed music from the Middle East and Asia, this was the perfect purchase. I especially appreciated the detailed descriptions in the booklet that accompanied the 2 CD set. It was so colorful, informative, and well done! There is vocabulary, maps and pictures from all over Asia.
What a fabulous compilation of musical goodness!

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Rating: - Be a Marco Polo of music
Its rather difficult to review this in the regular like it/don't like it way. This is the endemic music of the people along the silk road the runs across Asia. Some of it sounds very strange compared to Western music, like study for an Anthropology course, while some of it very enjoyable.

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Rating: - Northern Exposure
This anthology is an outstanding survey of the northern section of the so-called Silk Road, taking us from Turkey, Azerbaijan,and Iran, through Uzbekistan, southern Siberia, China, and finally to Japan, but not in order, as the CD set is organized instead by category of musical function and the localities seem random. Although there are significant gaps in the styles, and I particularly miss the sweet lyric songs of Kyrgyz women, the powerful mugham voice of Qasimov of Azerbaijan, and more examples of the kylkobyz fiddle of Kzakhstan, the set provides a fine introduction of the musics of inner Asia and particularly the instruments. A glossary of instruments is provided, but unfortunately their images are often lacking. All the examples are short by necessity, when many traditional pieces are far longer in duration. For the uninitiated, it will take repeated listening to distinguish the uniqueness of timbre and rhythm from one land to the other; but this similarity of sounds helps demonstrate the role of the trade routes in sharing instruments and styles, such that the Japanese biwa, the Chinese pipa, and the Arabic oud all are related. If you want to attain some feel for the musics of inner Asia, then certainly these disks will meet the requirement.

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Rating: - Sparse Great Songs
Some of the pieces on the first cd are "take away" great.
The secound cd is ...
I enjoy "world culture" music and sound however, the secound cd in this double collection was a monotonous let down.

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