Search - Compostella :: Wadachi

It's difficult to fathom what the experience of witnessing a live show by Japanese trio Compostela would have been like. The slim liner notes call the trio "chindon" players (musicians who play at grand openings of pachinko parlors and supermarkets dressed as geishas and samurai). Listening to the group's sole U.S. compilation, Wadachi, is just as mind-boggling as visualizing that imagery. In these recordings from the early '90s, Compostela mixed klezmer influences with creative jazz instrumentation (tuba throughout, minimal percussion, pedal steel guitar, and mandolin on a few tracks) for a sound that can best be described as the Rova Saxophone Quartet meets Die Knodel. The music is soulful, moody, and--on a few tracks--even campy. A strange mix of covers (Sidney Bechet's "Petite Fleur" and Gilrod & Sandler's klezmer classic "Lebedik un Freylekh") make this album--created as a tribute to Compostela's late saxophonist Shinoda Masami--all the more haunting. --Jason Verlinde