HERITAGE

I will admit it. I collected Michal Urbaniak's albums back in the seventies not for his performance, although he is a fine violin player, but for his wife's vocals. Urszula Dudziak is an amazing performer, an exceptional scat vocalist with a four octave range, and a flair for the bizarre that falls somewhere between Yoko Ono and a space alien.

Urbaniak writes and plays nice, but not spectacular fusion pieces, and has a nice flair on his violin (although he's no competition for the likes of Jean-Luc Ponty). His band is good, as well, although they sound like a hundred other seventies fusion combos.

It's Dudziak who raises the music above the normal. Whether she is just adding background vocal percussion, or taking the lead, she dominates the pieces with her weird vocal brilliance. One question though: Why does Cucu's Nest appear on so many albums?