Bollywood Brass Band Featuring Rafaqat Ali Khan - Chaiyya Chaiyya The London-based BBB may be no strangers to Day-Glo escapism, but this foray into the subcontinent yields some of their most joyous performances so far. The singer Rafaqat Ali Khan joins the Anglo-Asian team for a set that was recorded live at Oslo’s opera house, curiously enough. He brings authority and grace to anthems by the likes of RD Burman and AR Rahman, and gets down and dirty when the horn section revs up some New Orleans-style funk riffs. While the quartet of guest string players add a soupçon of romance, the thundering trumpets, trombones and sousaphone fuel the party atmosphere.
Mariza - Fado Tradicional In 10 years, Portugal’s queen of fado has graduated from playing to a modest gathering at Charlie Gillett’s Womad marquee to sellout shows at the Albert Hall. She turns inward here, with an austere collection from the heartlands, backed by an acoustic-guitar trio. Her voice is an imperious instrument, and numbers such as Dona Rosa instantly conjure up sultry nights roaming the poet Fernando Pessoa’s haunts in Lisbon, but, from an outsider’s point of view, there’s much less light and shade in the arrangements and the pacing. The effect is almost claustrophobic in comparison with her work with the great Brazilian cellist/arranger Jaques Morelenbaum on the classic album Transparente.