A South Asian Suite is only the third release under Arun Ghosh’s name since Northern Namaste (2008). Originally commissioned by Manchester’s Mega Mela, it received its premiere in July 2010 at that festival. Since then it has pupated, benefiting most notably from Zoe Rahman’s pianism and input. Attempting mentally to strip out her phrasings and ripplings on ‘River Song’ or the adrenalin rush of ‘The Gypsies of Rajasthan’ is an impossible mission. You can walk into Jaipur’s Chand Bazaar (‘Moon Market’) and buy any assortment of Rajasthani vegetables, chillies and spices, but the chances of you successfully replicating local dishes are highly unlikely. One of the strengths of this sinewy suite is that it is impressionistic, realistic rather than authentic. The typographically attuned will note the small print – as in point size – in the track titles. The bigger point size indicates a hinge composition. Those six pieces are ear-worms that repay revisiting. Going back to follow an individual instrument’s lines is a prerequisite.

Jazzwise spoke to Arun Ghosh about the album

How do you feel about the relationship between A South Asian Suite and the wellspring, the body of traditional songs of the land and of the people?

That’s exactly it. That’s what this is about. In terms of this wellspring I think the classic example, for me, is ‘River Song’. That’s one of the things I’m proudest of on this album because that is inspired by the bhatiali [boatmen’s song] style. You can hear the melody without the words. It could be the same combination of notes as from another musical culture but when you hear that in a Bengali context you know exactly what it is and where it’s come from. I think one of my proudest feelings about this album is I wrote ‘River Song’ and it’s like Dylan said: ‘Here’s a folksong I wrote.’ That’s what that one is. I think I really captured that bhatiali style well on there. That’s also something Zoe and Idris are great for.

Let’s call it ‘applied sonorities’. You take an instrument’s voice and you apply that voice to what you play on a different instrument. Has that worked out that way here?

People have said that about that in terms of me and the shehnai [shawm]. I can’t deny that in terms of its influence on my sound and my thinking. It’s a horn player thing, isn’t it? As a horn player, that sound we make is so important.

How much has the Suite changed since its debut?

What you have are the six main pieces. Those are ‘Gypsies of Rajasthan’, ‘After The Monsoon’, ‘River Song’, ‘Sufi Stomp’, ‘Mountain Song’ and ‘Sufi Stomp’. It used to be a six-movement suite. When we first did it I was very much playing around with using South Asian instruments so I had Carnatic violin and sitar. I deliberately didn’t use any South Asian percussion. Slowly it started to develop. I realised that actually for me to feel the right way about these tunes, for me to be able to improvise in the way I want, for them to have the right swing ultimately I needed to bring both the tabla and the dholak [barrel drum] in. We started introducing it and that’s when I think it really started to blossom.