(Jazz, Latin, Ethiopian, Avant-garde jazz) Either Orchestra - More beautiful than death - 2000, MP3 (tracks), 320 kbps

For their first album in four years, a renewed and re-personnelled Either/Orchestra dips into their own archives and also into the far reaches of ethnomusicology. Along with a half-dozen compositions by founder/leader/sax man Russ Gershon, the E/O have arranged a trio of popular tunes from Ethiopia into a disjointed suite which runs throughout the album. In the Brubeck-ian first installment, "Amiak Abet Abet," Gershon and longtime E/O trumpeter Tom Halter take vocal roles amid elephantine brass blasts. "Musicawi Silt" is a Hammond-tinged noir-y polyrhythm created by the band through a year of live performance. Gershon takes the lyrical line again for "Feker Aydelmwey," but the rhythm line is much more dramatic and responsive than in the other parts. The album's epic title track is more than true to its name, sweeping in with Gil Evans horns and tumbling drums then cooling to a slow swing. The second song, Number Three," is a funky doubled-bass number, while "Breaktime for Dougo" has a distinctive calypso flair. A high low point of the album is "All Those SOBs," a sluggishly bluesy tribute to the wonderful people who make the music industry what it is. And it all ends up with the appropriately titled ninth track, "Eighth Wonder," a slowly twirling combo of "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" with a touch of Little Stevie Wonder. ~ Matthew Robinson, All Music Guide