But nothing in Zakir Hussain’s canon compares to, or matches Distant Kin. This all-instrumental project grew out of Celtic Connections’ commission for a hybrid, cross-cultural collaboration involving Indian and Celtic musicians to premiere at that Glaswegian festival in January 2011. Distant Kin was recorded at SFJAZZ Center, the purpose-built jazz venue in the Hayes Valley neighbourhood of San Francisco’s Western Addition district and it captures the project at an important stage of its development. In May 2015 London had its chance to witness the suite at the Alchemy Festival’s Pulse of the World, but its building blocks were already tried and road-tested when Distant Kin was recorded in the spring of 2015. Distant Kin is magnificent. Listening to it, it is plain to hear that it is riddled with places conceived as jumping- off points for improvisation. This applies in varied South Asian senses of the word improvisation but also in Scottish, Irish and Breton folk music senses. It is a major work of groundbreaking, thought-provoking stature in the East-West canon. The encore ‘Making Music Revisited’ may have most of the title of Hussain’s 1987 album in it but how the ensemble deftly weaves in the Scottish folk themes of ‘St. Kilda Wedding’ and ‘The Hawk’ takes it to places undreamt of when Hussain, Rakesh Chaurasia’s father Hariprasad Chaurasia, McLaughlin and Jan Garbarek recorded it. Totally inspirational.