This is the third and final album in Blue Note's Charles Lloyd-dedicated ‘Trio of Trios’ series, with the orchestrally-resourceful guitarist Julian Lage joining mindbendingly multi-tasking percussion legend Zakir Hussain in conversation with the 84 year-old US reeds maestro.

Sacred Thread represents the Trio series' most radical departure from the freeboppish or bluesily grooving soundscapes of its predecessors Chapel, and Ocean – a more open global-musical trip, as well as an homage to Lloyd's decades-long devotion to the spirituality of the East. Mutual empathy is plain from the opening ‘Desolation Sound’, with its deep-hooting tenor ballad statement punctuated by the leader's characteristically fast-wriggling fills spinning off dolorous long tones. Hussain's reverentially tender singing is shadowed by Lage's chord chimes on ‘Guman’, 'Nachekita's Lament' is a meditation for billowing flute tones, slow chanting and brooding guitar rejoinders that becomes a catchy tabla-driven canter. Lloyd plays the mournful soprano sax-like tárogató on ‘Saraswati’ (mostly with only gentle gong-sounds fitful tabla-rhythm flickers for company), Hussain's voice and Lloyd's vaporous flute share the initially ballad-like ‘Kuti’ before a groove much more suggestive of the hi-life star of the title emerges to draw a boldly skidding break from Lage. ‘Tales of Rumi’ invites an enthralling Hussain long intro of racing rhythms and whoopy voicelike accents before it becomes a tenor-led folk dance, and a quietly impassioned Lloyd-Lage dialogue on ‘The Blessing’ wraps up a real gem, even by the octogenarian California jazz guru's standards.