New York City: Global Beat of the Boroughs
This collection makes a strong case that New York has a more  ethnically diverse population of musicians than any other city in the  world. In what other place can you hear Albanian shepherds' ballads,  Cantonese wedding marches, Irish fiddle tunes, and Haitian gospel  music, all within a few blocks of each other? This two-CD set includes  examples of all of these, as well as music from recent Indo-Caribbean  immigrants, a Trinidadian-style steel-drum band, and selections from  two separate tribes of Gypsies. The musicians range from  traditionalists like Gee Sook Baek, a Korean musician who is preserving  the ancient classical music of her homeland, to players like Luis Dias,  a guitarist and singer who blends rock attitude with the rhythms and  melodies of the Dominican Republic. Even thoughGlobal Beat of the  Boroughsincludes 31 tracks, it only hints at the phenomenal  variety of music played in New York City, but because the tracks are so  well chosen, the musical depth of the individual selections more than  makes up for the (relative) lack of breadth.--Michael Simmons