Purbayan Chatterjee: Abaad - Unbounded

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Antonio Sanchez (d)
Gary Husband (p, d)
Ustad Rashid Khan (v)
Ustad Zakir Hassain (tabla)
Pratibha Singh Baghel (v)
Purbayan Chatterjee (sitar)
V Selvaganesh (kanjira)
Jordan Rudess (ky)
Gayathri Asokan (v)
Shankar Mahadevan (v)
Mark Hartsuch (s)
Ustad Taufiq Qureshi (perc)
Thana Alexa (v)
Béla Fleck (bj)
Michael League (b)
Mame Khan (v)
ft. Anat Cohen (cl, s)
Javed Ali (v)

Label:

Sufiscore

November/2021

Media Format:

DL

RecordDate:

Rec. date not stated

As its English title suggests, this music heeds no boundaries of genre or geography. Abbad Unbounded has a dizzying reach, from classical Hindustani music, to Rajasthan folk, from contemporary jazz to timeless Prog. The dance between jazz and Indian musics in Britain goes back to at least the John Mayer/Joe Harriott Indo-Jazz fusions of the 1960s, so there should be no surprise at the alliances here. Notably Zakir Hussain, Shankar Mahadevan and others collaborated with John McLaughlin in Shakti and its various manifestations.

Another McLaughlin connection is Gary Husband, but here he contributes some of his all too rare but lustrous piano work. And of course Béla Fleck’s panoramic take on world musics needs no explanation. The to-and-fro between banjo and sitar on ‘Lalitha’ is as fun as it is breathtaking, with Chatterjee acknowledging the Corea/Fleck duos that influenced his early musical development.

Of course such scope opens criticism about diluting great traditions. But it is Chatterjee’s achievement to create something uniquely its own rather than a cut and paste collage. This is largely achieved through the joy of vox: the stylistic range of singing voices engaged here in such different styles (pop/classical/Bollywood soundtrack/folk) simply picks you up and buoys you along, notably on the extraordinary scat of ‘Sukoon’ or the ecstatic voicings of ‘Khula Asmaan’. ‘Intezaar’ sums up Unbounded starting with Cohen’s clarinet intro with its New York/Jewish intimations yet morphs into a stand off between sitar and clarinet via the very different vocal stylings of Pratibha Singh Baghel and Ustad Rashid Khan. Like Prometheus, go unbound. There’s nothing to lose and a world of music to gain.

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