East West Music
Purvi Parikh, Girish Sanzgiri & Larry Porter Trio
featuring Paul Leake, Henning Sieverts : Rag Bagashree (D/IND,1992)***'
One of the finest releases I've heard from Larry Porter Trio is this unique concert of east/west fusion. It’s an improvisation in which two Indian classical music starting points can be recognised as a structure in medium 16 beats and another one with a fast 12 beats. The jazzy piano of Larry Porter starts the mood and sets the tone, with seemingly a harmonium drone in the background that creates a more jazzy mood. Purvi Parikh and Girish Sanzgiri are two Indian singers who were on tour at that time in Europe giving workshops in Indian classical music. At this instant meeting point both singers, -male and female-, in dialogue form, sing on top of the piano. Then the bass of Henning Sieverts joins in and the tabla by Paul Leake, building up a dialogue form with the piano until each participant sings and plays together, in a wonderfully build up communication. They deliberately change the speed a bit, followed by some piano, bass and tabla improvisation, and a conclusion with all participants. Then, an odd continuation as a seed comes out of the first theme, with a new change in direction and the second theme is developed. Here the rhythm of the tabla leads the cycle and the piano, bass, and vocal improvisations, follow this road, with some jazzy notes embedded, some repetition and its own suprising spontaneous freedom, all with some sense of humour. Half way through, the bass has a line to improvise a bit (with piano and tabla accompanying), until the whole piece ends and concludes very naturally. A very fine Indojazzblend recording !
