Album: Re-Orient

Song Title

Time

Blessings

Pharaoh's Dream

In Candlelight

Way I Feel, The

Seven Wonders, The

Taal Manjari (Flowering of Rhythm)

Fruit

Water Colour

Spirit of Joy

Album: Re-Orient

Song Title

Time

Blessings

Pharaoh's Dream

In Candlelight

Way I Feel, The

Seven Wonders, The

Taal Manjari (Flowering of Rhythm)

Fruit

Water Colour

Spirit of Joy

Performer Notes

Re-Orient/Baluji Shrivastav: Baluji Shrivastav (sitar, tabla); Andy Sheppard (soprano saxophone); Chris Conway (synthesizer).
Like an extended jam session post-Coltrane, this album fuses Indian sounds primarily with a saxophone in a relatively free manner. Baluji Shrivastav has been around the fusion scenes of London for some time, and with Re-Orient, aka Jazz Orient, he's been one of the go-to performers for ARC Records when some contemporary Indian is called for. Here, they fuse jazz and Indian music, along with elements from Middle Eastern music (Hossam Ramzy provides some Egyptian percussion throughout that often mirrors the Indian percussion). Guy Barker and Andy Shappard provide the brass for the fusion, always capably adding in the accentuation needed for the piece at hand. With the palette of sound roving from genre to genre rather often throughout the album, the overall effect is a piece of nice ambient music. It never gets too terribly daring, but it never quite falls flat either (even the elevator music of "The Seven Wonders" comes off as nostalgic exotica more than kitsch). Worth a listen for fans of jazz fusion in a less serious tone than the old John McLaughlin recordings. ~ Adam Greenberg

Professional Reviews

Global Rhythm (Publication) (p.45) - "[I]t is the warmth and good humor of the basic trio, and of Strivastav's musical vision, that make this album worth investigating."