Jazz breaking news: The Song Goes On – Anoushka Shankar Tour Continues Tonight In Edinburgh

Now 30, Shankar, the daughter of the great Ravi Shankar, began studying the sitar as a young girl and debuted when she was 13 releasing an album for the first time under her own name with the disc Anoushka when she was still in her teens. Essentially a classical Indian musician, with all embracing ears, Shankar has also experimented with broader world music and her latest album, Traveller, her seventh studio release, came out earlier this year focusing on a fusion of flamenco and Indian music. Featuring a dozen flamenco and raga-flavoured tracks the album marks her debut for the revered Deutsche Grammophon classical label. Last year Shankar featured on arguably the strongest and most jazz-rooted track of Herbie Hancock’s 70th birthday year album The Imagine Project, ‘The Song Goes On’, also featuring Hancock with KS Chitra, Chaka Khan and Wayne Shorter, a track that was recorded in Mumbai.

On tour Anoushka Shankar is performing with her band of vocalist Sandra Carrasco; percussionists Pirashanna Thevarajah and El Piraña (who appeared to acclaim with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra at the Barbican in 2009); shehnai player Sanjeev Shankar and guitarist Melon Jimenez.

Following the Usher Hall concert tonight the Music Beyond Mainstream promoted tour continues tomorrow at the Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (Wednesday 23 November); Royal & Derngate, Northampton (Thursday); Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool (Saturday); Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (Sunday); Sage, Gateshead (Monday 28 Nov); Colston Hall, Bristol (Friday 2 December) and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London (Monday 5 Dec).

– Stephen Graham