demo 
Satabdi Express : Rough mixes (US,2006)****
Satabdi Express is Dave Cipriani, band leader, 19-string Indian slide guitar, classical guitar & hollowbody electric guitar ; Adam Hopkins : upright bass ; Chris Lerch : drums.
Dave Cipriani studied classical guitar under lutenist Scott Horton, jazz with the late jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd, and with a master class with classical guitarist Christopher Parkening, then Hindustani classical music on slide guitar, with sitar master Jay Kishor, and with Indian slide guitar master Pandit Barun Kumar Pal. He currently plays the 19-string guitar that originally had been custom built for Barun Kumar Pal.
Adam Hopkins holds a master's degree in double bass from Michigan State University, while Chris Lerch has played drums for many groups in the Baltimore area.
The trio surely developped a strong sound with convincing results, where Adam Hopkins and Chris Lerch form the rhythmic jazz fundament core, and Dave Cirpiani is the experimenter rooting in Indian Classical music (like on the very beautiful raga with jazzy drum/bass, "Indian Melody"), in crossovers with Indian style as reference ("Norwegian Mood", a wonderful and perfect song interpretation, with Indian crossover swinging jazz style, but also the pop song reference) but also with a bluesy, funky influence (like on "Funky A-Rab") as long as it can get everwhere that extra 'classical jazz' flavour with the other styles. The classical guitar styles must have had a numurous kind of style influence, which makes it harder to place how the mix came to form itself because it never is purely one traditional form (on "Goodbye Donkey", "Sorry Charlie"), which is another strong, inspired point, even when the drum/bass on such tracks become more improvised on the moment, the rhythmic skills are attractive enough to convince of its momentual action, in an interesting jazz way. "Wayne's Bane" with classical guitar, is a more poetic once more almost flamenco-rhythmic classical excursion, with the inevitable for the trio, inner jazz swing, followed by very fitting "Baba" a melodic improvisation and excursion with comparable inner fire and inspiration. This track has an attractive bowed double bass solo. The "Chase" is played on Indian slide guitar, and is a bluesy Indian crossover style with its inner jazz swinging, as if part of a raga highlight. Last track, "Dirt Man" is a countryblues slide guitar improvisation played on the Indian instrument.
Recommended. I look very much forward to hear the final mix and see the packaged result.
