Joel Harrison and Anupam Shobhakar: Multiplicity Leave The Door Open

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Todd Isler (perc)
Dan Weiss (d)
Bonnie Chakraborty (v)
Hans Glawischnig (b)
David Binney (s)
Chandrashekar Vase (v)
Joel Harrison (g, dobro)
Anupam Shobhakar (sarod)
Gary Versace (accordion)

Label:

Whirlwind Recordings

June/2014

Catalogue Number:

WR4646

RecordDate:

December 2012

This Indo-jazz partnership brings together two US-based musicians playing in an assortment of styles. The title track with its tempo twists and turns finds the ensemble adopting the persona of John McLaughlin circa Inner Mounting Flame – with David Binney blowing hard in the same spirit and Shobhakar's chunky sarod. Here Harrison's electric guitar unleashes cascades of notes with, at times, his guitar applying colour like a palette knife. For Willie Dixon's blues staple ‘Spoonful’, Harrison takes to the National Steel. Anupam Shobhakar plays the subcontinent's short-necked steel-clad lute – so remarkably paired in the 1975 and 1980 with John Handy's saxophone to Ali Akbar Khan's sarod. Not all works well to these ears. While the lightness of touch of Bonnie Chakraborty's singing on the traditional Bangla-flavoured ‘Kemne Avul’ works, Chandrashekar Vase's more classical vocalisations on ‘Multiplicity’ feel hemmed in against Dan Weiss' kit drums. Nevertheless, an impressive piece of work.

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