CD Review: Sarathy Korwar and the UPAJ Collective - My East is Your West .

(Review by Steve T)

Bit of a blindfold test with no accompanying notes, so only scant info on the disc to go on, followed up with a good old google. 

Track listing includes The Creator Has a Master Plan and Journey in Satchidananda from Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane respectively, so no surprises there, with both artists part of the Coltrane oeuvre, where eastern music, religion and philosophy were so prominent.

Mind Ecology was instantly recognisable and swiftly identified from the John McLaughlin/ Shakti masterpiece Natural Elements, so another piece in the puzzle, and always welcome to see the Mclaughlin star in the ascendancy.  

Without liner notes to check on the proper terms, there's a thorough mixing of Indian and western instruments, including acoustic guitar, flute, tablas, Indian percussion, drum kit, (electric) bass (I think), piano and sitar. There's also quite a lot of sax, but I'm not always certain whether it's tenor or alto (or both), and at one point I think there's a bass clarinet but later I think there's a baritone; maybe there is or maybe they were both the same thing, The baritone sound is reminiscent of early Mothers and I think it entirely consistent that a musician would listen to both McLaughlin and Zappa (who toured together but later had a very public disagreement). There's also a drone which is more or less a constant in Indian Music.  

Applause confirms it's live and Google that it was recorded at the Church of Sound in London. The two-part piece that ends the first disc/set is an ancient raga called Makauns, 

The second set/disc features more of the same, but with some konocal singing and perhaps even some scant lyrics. Earth starts with a slow bass which reminds me of the Temptations’ Papa Was a Rolling Stone throughout its almost fifteen minutes. I thought this might be another McLaughlin piece but have found no trace. There's also a track named Haij after an annual pilgrimage to Mecca, a Ravi Shankar piece called Mishrank and an encore written by Don Cherry called Utopia and Visions, which more or less fits with the general direction of the music.

Sarathy Korwar is an American born percussionist/composer, raised in India, where he trained in classical tabla, but now lives in London.    

   

The album will be out on November 16 and if you have any interest whatsoever in Indian Music or the fusion of Jazz with Indian Music, you really must check it out.

Steve T.

Buy/samples.

Sarathy Korwar - tabla, drum kit 
Domenico Angarano - double bass, electric bass 
Aravindhan Baheerathan - bansuri (flute) 
Giuliano Modarelli - acoustic guitar 
Al MacSween - keys 
Tamar Osborn - baritone sax, flute 
Jasdeep Singh Degun - sitar 
John Ball - santoor, tabla 
Jesse Bannister - alto sax 
Aditya Prakash - vocals 
B C Manjunath - mridangam, kanjira