Album opener Paper Nut, which Garbarek would return to for several years afterwards, kicks into high gear with a flurry of Shankar's electrified strings and a drum machine backing. The longest track, Watching You, is in a similar vein, with pieces based on more traditional percussion interspersed. Garbarek is in fine form throughout, carrying a warm breeze through the lovely title track and proving an ideal melodic/harmonic sparring partner with Shankar elsewhere. Drum machine tracks aside, the two percussionists are a wonderful base for a great album.
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pw: sgtg
Dear SGTG, thank you for another fine vintage edition of contemporary Manfred-ness :) Got two vid references for you, this time. The original line-up is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLulzOZLxSQ and here they are again, minus Hussain and plus Naná Vasconcelos (that'll do for a swapsie) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd5QaBBwr00 , heating things up some behind the Iron Curtain. The pre-millennial mind boggles... Highly recommend BTW Shankar's "Vision" w/ Garbarek again and Palle Mikkelborg. Namaste, FA.
ReplyDeleteFantastic, many thanks for the links!
DeleteWhole album is great, but "Watching You" is definitely the one.
ReplyDeleteAnd to say, "OK - I'm gonna get Hussain AND Gurtu - and THEN I'm ALSO gonna use a drum machine..." - and then to make it work like it does...that takes a special kind of genius there. "Larry" (as FZ was reportedly fond of calling him) knew what he was doing.
If you dont know the depth of L. Shankar u should look. Let him lose Gurtu and Garbarek, I dont know his stuff that well but the more "western" he gets the less powerful. Just him and Zakir Hussein could get into The Spirit even more deeply than the duets of Coltrane and Rashied Ali (I dont know the Zappa stuff but for instance 'Touch Me There' seems to me to be garbage compared to Shankar's potential) I would love to see him with Hariprasad Chaurasia... I dont know if such recordings exist.
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