Rites

Jan Garbarek's powerful 1998 double album is a magnum opus, and well titled. Rites suggests initiations, rituals, the archaic and the magical, but also "rites of passage", and the Norwegian saxophonist reflects, in his choice of material, on pivotal episodes and influences in his own life and those of his associates.

Pieces include a tribute to Don Cherry and reworkings of the Garbarek classics It's OK to Listen to the Gray Voice and So Mild the Wind, So Meek the Water. There are abundant references to scattered music of the world, from Norway to India.

There is also a setting, for voices and saxophone, of a Native American poem, and the surprise inclusion of The Moon Over Mtatsminda, sung by its composer Jansug Kakhidze with the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra. In total, this is the most comprehensive recording Jan Garbarek has made to date.