SIGNATURE EDITION 1

First ever French-Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le compilation (in 2 x CD form). Even if I (as many) usually don't like compilations, this one attracted my attention. The main reason Le, being an original and very professional musician, isn't so wide known, and his albums are rare outside of France.

I own few of his studio works, and I really like them. So - such a compilation is a great possibility to listen his works retrospective (he released 10 studio albums till now). Again, whenever I know his music only fragmentally, it's impossible for me to evaluate how representative this compilation is.

Double CD with 24 songs - big amount of music. It is for good and for bad. There is enough space for many compositions from different albums. But - bigger part of works there is kind of world (Oriental) fusion, and listening to this long release in moments I felt a bit bored. Unhappily, not every composition is such different , and after few similar ones in line I caught myself I feel like listening one long soundtrack to film about Viet Nam.

To be honest - not the all music is Oriental fusion. There are enough jazz and jazz-rock moments on this album as well. Nguyen guitar is influenced by Hendrix and US fusion guitarists, he is often minimalist, but adding big portion of SE Asian tunes and techniques he always sound original.

Possibly most interesting compositions are with Oriental vocal and heavy Vietnamese folk influences. More traditional fusion and guitar jazz numbers sound competent, but not very original.

Still his specialty is Oriental fusion. For those searching more classical jazz rock I would recommend Nguyen studio album "Purple" (Tribute to Hendrix). Nice work, but I believe that one CD format would be more focused and concentrated.

My rating is 3+.