Shankar, Garbarek, Hussain, Gurtu - Song For Everyone (1985)

As noted last week, Jan Garbarek and Zakir Hussain's first collaboration was back in September 1984 and the recording sessions for this album.  Song For Everyone was captained (and wholly written) by Tamil violinist Lakshminarayana Shankar, who was on his third outing with ECM (the first had featured Hussain, the second Garbarek).  Completing this lineup was percussionist Trilok Gurtu, who'd made appearances on the label back to the late 70s.

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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Zakir Hussain - Making Music (1987)

This post starts with a thankyou to commenter Doug who jogged my memory about this album, back when I posted the Hariprasad Chaurasia album.  Not sure why I'd let this gorgeous recording from December 1986 sit on the shelf for so long - perhaps it didn't catch my mood when I first picked it up.  In any case, here's one of the vast collection of ECM experiments when a handful of musicians came together and struck gold.

Indian percussionist Zakir Hussain had already worked with Jan Garbarek a couple of years prior to this session (that's coming next week), and Hussain and Chaurasia had also collaborated on more traditional Indian music.  Completing the lineup was John McLaughlin, playing understated acoustic guitar throughout.  After the lengthy title track introduces everyone, some tracks highlight the musicians in pairs or trios and Chaurasia's sublime flute sounds take a starring role almost everywhere they appear.  Garbarek gets a wonderful feature on Anisa, followed by a Hussain solo, and McLaughlin's fleet fingers are highlighted on the all too brief You And Me.  One of the most underrated ECM treasures, not least by me up until now.

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