It is interesting that even before the vocals kick in on this double album’s track ‘Arti (Prayer Song)’ – the first track on Paul Horn In Kashmir – it is clear that the vibe between these two albums, both originally released on Dick Bock’s World Pacific label in 1967, is quite distinct. These were keystone recordings in Paul Horn’s Hindustani-inflected canon and their sonorities reflect his imbibing the subcontinent’s culture. Record Collector’s jazzwallah Charles Waring’s excellent CD booklet notes are greatly informed by original interview material from Paul Horn. They are stronger explaining the jazz and historic sides than the Hindustani music and Indian aspects of these two albums. There is no musical context for, for example, ‘Tabla Solo in Teental’; in fact, Horn is playing lehara, a performance convention for which a melody instrument takes a subordinate part to percussion. It reverses the usual order. Tangentially, In Kashmir ties in philosophically, with the flautist’s embracing of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s teachings. Horn crossed over to the Indo-jazz path with Ravi Shankar’s modestly titled Portrait of Genius (1964). These two albums arguably wrenched Horn into a Hindustani orbit. Of the two, Paul Horn In India hits the spots better for me. In part that is because he has the guiding presence of Devendra Murdeshwar on it. He was son-inlaw to Pannalal Ghosh, the most innovative bansuri or bamboo flute maestro – big, deep breath – of all time. Ghosh transformed Hindustani art music and elevated bansuri into the modern world, as it were, from folk dirt to concert dais. Murdeshwar’s fingerprints are sticky on Paul Horn In India in particular. The other aspect is that on &In India Horn is jazzier, less inculcated in Hindustani musicology. He is new blood and the tonal palette is more daring. For example, Gopal Krishnan’s unfretted stick zither, vichitra vina on Horn’s interpretation of rag Tilang has the nature and radiance of a small glory of a thing (meant as high praise). Things changed with Cosmic Consciousness – Paul Horn In Kashmir. There was an understandably greater striving towards authenticity as far as ragadom was concerned. What this truly remarkable double-set does is grant us the opportunity to access two long-lost, semi-precious gems of Indo-jazz fusion, companion pieces to the already reissued InsideThe Taj Mahal I & II (originally released in 1968 and 1988). One of the finest reissues of 2013.