Cosmopoly
Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider has always fallen just shy of brilliance. An underrated harpist, he rarely lets his flights of string fancy loose on his albums. And as a conceptualist, he usually paints himself into exotic, Gaudi-esque towers, without an exit.Cosmopolyprovides that exit, but Vollenweider rarely takes it. On this album of collaborations, a jam with jazz piano legendAbdullah Ibrahimis as tentative as a first date, and Vollenweider is swamped in the mournful bath of Armenian doudouk masterDjivan Gasparyan. The harpist followsBobby McFerrin's lead in a dance of vocal pyrotechnics and his jams with trombonistRay Andersonresult in the most superficial hipster clichés.Carly Simon's rendering of a section of James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake" is strictly an arty star-turn for the singer, a longtime fan of Vollenweider's.Vollenweider fares better with his own band on the riveting melody of "Stella." Here, as well as in his writing for the Solis String Quartet and on a languidly dolorous duet with Brazilian singerMilton Nascimento, Vollenweider reveals the tuneful melodicism that flows out of his fingers like water from a spring.--John Diliberto