| Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet | 
 enlarge | List Price: $17.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 10 reviews)
Sales Rank: 948
Category: Music
Artist: Abigail Washburn
Publisher: Nettwerk Records
Studio: Nettwerk Records
Manufacturer: Nettwerk Records
Label: Nettwerk Records
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 30792
UPC: 067003079228
EAN: 0067003079228
ASIN: B00175G7DQ
Release Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Overture | | • | Fuller Wine | | • | Strange Things | | • | Great Big Wall in China | | • | Taiyang Chulai | | • | Oh Me, Oh My | | • | Captain | | • | Kazakh Melody | | • | Banjo Pickin' Girl | | • | Kangding Qingge/Old-Timey Dance Party | | • | Sugar & Pie | | • | It Ain't Easy | | • | Journey Home |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
Digipak of self titled album by Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet. Abigail Washburn has created a new sound that crosses global and cultural lines, personified in the raw, transcendental music of the Sparrow Quartet. The all star collaboration features banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck, acclaimed cellist Ben Sollee and Grammy nominated fiddler Casey Driessen. The artistry of Abigail is her love of both American roots musics and the Chinese culture she has been exploring for over a decade. Produced by Bela Fleck, the music was composed and arranged by the foursome. The unprecedented mixture of two banjos (clawhammer and three finger style), cello and fiddle unfolds like an otherworldly chamber suite.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 I expected better August 18, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was interested because Bela Fleck was in the group. There was not enough of Bela, and far too much of Abigail whose voice and songs totally turned me off.
 Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet August 17, 2008
Fabulous creation! Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck are two of my favorite artists, so when I heard they had recorded together, naturally I hurried to Amazon to listen to some tracks. Each track is unique--her voice is splendid--musical accompaniment virtuoso, of course--some pieces are haunting, some jolly, and the Chinese influence gives an exotic yet clean flavor to the tracks demonstrating it. This CD fits no category--just a glorious experience.
 Bela Fleck's involved. How can it be bad? August 8, 2008
The first cut I heard from the CD (and why I bought it) was A Fuller Wine. I recognized Bela Fleck's banjo immediately, but the progressions hooked me. The remakes on traditional songs with the New Grass feel are fresh. The Chinese Folk songs aren't my bag, but on the overall, a good listen.
Something Completely Different July 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Centuries ago in many a Silk Road caravansary, traveling musicians from various lands learned songs and instrument design from each other, and they also jammed. This album is the contemporary equivalent of those exchanges, for traditional bluegrass banjo and fiddle and European classical cello instruments, and Western avant-garde art music and old-time lyrics, are cast with Chinese language and East Asian tunes. Indeed, in one track, the tremolo of Abigail Washburn's double-stringed banjo mimics a Chinese pipa. The album varies on almost every song, taking us on a strange sonic journey from Kazakhstan to Appalachia, from a Central European salon to a New York experimental music club, yet not being anywhere because this is a peculiar fusion. It is entirely within the character of the wide-ranging Bela Fleck to produce, perform in, and help engineer this highly inventive exploration. The team was involved in the earlier, more coherent, and thereby better, album of Washburn, Song of the Traveling Daughter. In fact, that album was the seed for this elaboration. Yes, it is a pioneering blend of bluegrass sensitivity and timbre with occasional Asian melody, but it is also an echo of the past on the Silk Road. I like this album and hope that there will be even further developments.
Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet July 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I heard this group for the first time at the Vancouver Island Musicfest and was blown away. I've been listening to this CD over and over again since. Imagine an otherworldly blend of bluegrass, Chinese traditional, and 20th-century classical symphonic and imagine it done artfully, tastefully, beautifully. This kind of music experience lifts you out of the ordinary into another realm. Absolutely superb, surprising, refreshing, original. With this kind of talent out there doing this sort of thing, why would anyone buy the mass-produced pablum that seems to have gained dominance in the commercial music world? I am in love!
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