Nine Decades: Volume 1 is the inaugural CD release from the Ravi Shankar Foundation's archives. It comprises three tracks. Of least interest are the concert-goers’ vox pop responses to a US solo recital – interesting only if they weren't on a CD. ‘Durga Suktam’ and ‘Mahishasura Mardini Stotram’ is Vedic chanting from 1968. Musically recondite and detached as it is from any cultural or lyrical explanation Jazzwise's non-Sanskritspeakers should treat it as padding. Keeping the best to last is the 1968 opener. ‘Gangeshwari’, named after the river beside which they recorded this raga, is a composition of Shankar's. It is no hi-fidelity recording as occasional signal drop-outs attest. It does have masses of presence and atmosphere. As the piece unfolds, you grasp the nature of the moment with Shankar captured on microphone breathing and murmuring and the sheer physicality of Alla Rakha Qureshi's playing. Melodicism and rhythmicality meld to create a cohesion of the rarest kind.