For No Good Reason at All

The title of this album should be taken as fair warning to those who don't find the fusion of unrelated musical genres to be rewarding in and of itself. Why combine the 14th century flagellation tune "Alta Trinita" with the lovely Appalachian dance tune "Railroadin' Through the Rocky Mountains" in a medley? Why try to play the blues on the recorder? Why segue from "Sweet Home Chicago" into a set of 13th-century Spanish cantigas? The answer is right there on the cover: For no good reason at all. That's not to say that everything here is a musical failure; on the contrary, the cantiga that is paired with a nice rendition of "Little Sadie" actually works quite well, and the Cajun waltz "La Valse de Bombarche" goes surprisingly nicely with Tieleman Susato's 16th century dance tune "Ohne Fels," as does the French Canadian reel "Beatrice" with the otherwise unidentified "Ukrainian Tune," with which it is paired. But the recorder on "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me" and the traditional "Morning Blues" acts as a bracing reminder that sometimes you need a better reason for a musical decision than "Well, we had a recorder with us and decided, heck, why not?" Not bad overall, but too uneven for a strong recommendation.