Playing for Change

Introduction

If the concept behind this album sounds familiar, that's because it is.

Late last year I reviewed the second album/DVD package from 1 Giant Leap, who've been all around the world to work with musicians both known and unknown. Playing for Change is essntially the same thing, only with a slightly more bold political statement behind it, "to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music".
 

 
Playing for Change began a decade ago, the brainchild of Grammy-winning music producer and engineer Mark Johnson. "I was in a subway in New York on my way to work, and I heard these two monks playing music," he recalls. "They were painted head to toe, all white, wearing robes. One was playing a nylon guitar, and the other was singing in a language I didn't understand. There were about 200 people who stopped to watch, didn't even get on the train. And it occurred to me that here is a group of people that would normally run by each other, but instead they're coming together. And it's the music that brought them together."

The PFC team have travelled from New Orleans to South Africa, from the Himalayas to Jerusalem, recording music and musicians wherever they went. This CD/DVD package is the first instalment of their work.
 

 

Video and Audio

This is a CD/DVD package. On the DVD there's a excellent 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer (in NTSC as this is an American release). Nothing to complain about. The music all sounds fine.
 

 

Conclusion

A nice little package of songs, most of them very well performed and enlivened by a plethora of artists and different sounds from around the world.

You have to be careful when taking on much loved classics such as Stand By Me (Ben E. King) and One Love (Bob Marley), but here they are treated with respect and given a new shape and direction. Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution is probably the only song that doesn't work, since you can't out-Chapman Tracy Chapman, so the vocalist should have tried a totally different style instead. I think my favourite performance is Love Rescue Me (the U2/Bob Dylan collaboration from Rattle and Hum) sung by a choir from Sligo.
 

 
The DVD is a welcome addition as it brings video performances for five of the songs (why not all of them though?) as well as a couple of brief videos about PFC itself.

If you like the idea behind PFC, like "world music" or just like to hear new interpretations of old songs, you might just enjoy this. And it's all for a good cause too since the profits go to the PFC foundation, which is bringing music to communities around the world.
 
This theme of "change" is becoming increasingly popular in the first of what historians will probably call "the Obama years"...