Charles Lloyd – Sangam & Friends

Charles Lloyd pays homage to his dear friend and longtime collaborator Zakir Hussain with Sangam & Friends, an extraordinary document of the deep musical affinity between the legendary saxophonist/flutist and master tablaist along with their Sangam trio mate drummer Eric Harland. The album is built around studio recordings made in Mumbai in 2009 for an album that was begun but never completed featuring an expanded ensemble with Carnatic singer Vijay Prakash, Rakesh Chaurasia on bansuri, Sabir Khan on sarangi, Ranjit Barot on keyboard, and Niladri Kumar on sitar. — (via Label) — The pairing of classical Indian musicians with jazz reeds players has only a few precedents beyond Charles Lloyd. They include Bud Shank on the Ravi Shankar album Impressions (1961), Steve Lacey with Subroto Roy Chowdhury on Explorations (1987), and – most pertinently for a comparison with Sangam – Jan Garbarek with Zakir Hussain himself on Hussain’s magnificent Making Music (1987), which also featured Hariprasad Chaurasia on bansuri (Indian bamboo flute) and John McLauglin on acoustic guitar. The pairing of traditional tabla players with jazz drummers is even rarer, one notable instance being Rich à la Rakha (1968), featuring Buddy Rich with tabla master Ustad Alla Rakha (Zakir Hussain’s father), with Ravi Shankar on sitar, and – a jazz flautist again! – Paul Horn. The combination of reeds, tablas and western drums on this album is stunning, the trio pieces perfect companions to the earlier Sangam recording. Charles Lloyd has incorporated diverse global cultures into his music since the late 1950s, way before crossover “world music” acquired the label, and that comfort and familiarity are there in every note he plays; and Harland is the most supple of drummers – his duets with Hussain create polyrhythms of such intricacy that I could happily listen to a whole album’s worth. — (via UK Jazz) ↓ Label: Blue Note Format: Vinyl, LP Released: 2026 Genre: Jazz, Folk, World, & Country Style: Contemporary Jazz, Avant-garde Jazz File under: Blue Note ⦿