Though it was George Harrison who first introduced Indian music to mainstream Western pop audiences through his sitar embellishment on the Beatles' ‘Norwegian Wood’ in 1965, followed by the sitar's subsequent sonic flowering in western form throughout 1967's psychedelic Summer of Love (where you could hardly move without it entwined around a hot new track), jazz and classical musicians had drawn inspiration from Indian music for over 100 years. It's a depth of influence as wide as it's deep, resulting in some forward-looking and timeless recordings that in turn have influenced more contemporary takes on east-west connections and collaborations. This intriguing mid-price three album set wastes little time in connecting the modal dots on CD One between Ravi Shankar's Morning Raga ‘Sindi Bhairavi’, John Coltrane's ‘India’ (the Live At the Village Vanguard take) and ‘My Favourite Things’ (from Atlantic's My Favourite Things), Ali Akbar Khan's Evening Raga ‘Yaman Kalyan: Teen Tala’, Dave Brubeck's ‘Calcutta Blues’ (from Jazz Impression Of Eurasia), Victor Feldman's ‘New Delhi’ (from a 45 rpm single) and Cannonball Adderley Quintet's interpretation of the same piece (from Plus).

These latter two cuts contrasting the flute-led theme on Feldman's majestic original with Cannonball's breezy alto reading. Disc two has a Swedish airshot of Eric Dolphy's ‘Left Alone’ followed by sarod player Sharan Rani, Sun Ra Arkestra's ‘India’ (from 1957's Super-Sonic Jazz), Ornette Coleman Quartet's ‘Lonely Woman’ (from The Shape of Jazz To Come); Paul Horn Quintet ‘Mirage For Miles’ (The Sound of Pau¡ Horn), Miles Davis' own ‘Milestones’ (the same take from the Milestones LP), Joe Harriott ‘Modal’ (Free Form) and Ustad Vilayat Khan ‘Miyan ki Malhar’. Why the compilers did not use a cut from Joe Harriot and John Mayer's ground breaking Indo-Jazz Suite is an annoying though probably economic decision as it's not public domain yet, while most of the tracks presented here are. The same goes for John Handy and Ali Akbar Khan's spiritual delight, ‘Karuna Supreme’. Disc Three swaps direction for election mixing Chico Hamilton and Yusef Latef, with Ravi Shankar's early Indo-jazz experiment ‘Pather Panchali’ with Bud Shank, (from Improvisations) alongside tabla solos, the Black Narcissus movie theme, exotica from Les Baxter's Orchestra and eastern-influenced classical pieces by Benjamin Britten, Ravel, Debussy and Bartók. The accompanying booklet provides a degree of background detail and laces together the diverse ends of this commendable project. Definitely one to listen too while reading Peter Lavezzoli's book, The Dawn of Indian Music In The West.