Back in the 70s, the fusion of jazz with electronics, rock and world sounds was not only the most popular music in the jazz genre, but it was part of the pop mainstream, with groups like Return to Forever and Weather Report filling up large theatres. Here, you have a concert that was recorded at the Orion theatre in Baltimore, MD with a collection of artists from Central Asia that sound what these fusion bands, or Miles Davis of Bitches Brew era, would have sounded like if they had come from a different continent.
You get a team of Sundanese percussionisist Endang Ramdan and Erlan Suwardana along with metal percussionist Cucu Kurnia creating a thick sauce of rhythm. The puls is supplied by Rudy Zulkarnaen/s bass and mood and lyrical textures ebb and flow along with Riza Arshad’s Fender Rhodes electric piano. Tohpati’s electric guitar carries the brunt of the lyrical lines and melodies along with Western-styled solos. All of the songs range between 11-18 minutes with complex Indian rhythms mixing with electronic guitar solos sounding like John McLaughlin forming a new vision of his orchestra on the complex “Throwing Words” or the thunderous and dramatic “For Once and Never.” There’s a Ina Silent Way eeriness on “This Spirit” which slowly develops into a groove, while some tunes like “Disapih” and “5,6” come across as curried jams, with lyrical and intense guitar solos veering in and out of the keyboard musings like a car weaving out of a Bangalore traffic jam. Exciting mix of moods, mayhem and music.
Moon June Records