By Barry Truter
Traveller is a smorgasbord of international offerings with a common theme: connection through music. With its interleaving of 10 nonfiction stories and 15 original songs, a sprinkle of poems, and a dessert of 8 instrumental pieces, this collection flows loosely from tales of land journeys to sea adventures and from short trips to long voyages while winding gently through times past and present. There are works to touch the spirit and turn the brain, test the heart and protest the way of the world. Anecdotes of encounters with fellow musicians sit comfortably with songs that range from the personal and political to the historical, environmental, and social. Musical styles run from ragtime, folk, and blues to Caribbean, rhumba, and swing.