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Title: One of the better East-meets-West ventures
Review: Not quite on a par with my very favorite examples of jazz/East Indian discs (I feel John Wubbenhorst's Facing Beloved and Martin Speake's The Journey surpass it), this is nevertheless a very fine example of world jazz. The key is that all parties to the proceedings (leader John Handy, alto sax; Pndit Prakash Maharaj, tabla; Vikash Haharaj, sarod; Gunther Paust, tanpura; and David Friesen, Oregon bass) have wide experience in both East Indian and jazz stylings. Thus, they have no trouble combining the sensibilities of these related but quite different musics and coming up with, not just a patched together tapestry, but a genuinely new-sounding soundscape that both retains and expands the best of each sensibility while at the same time staking out virgin territory. ****1/2.
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