VA - Master Musicians Meeting Club (Volume 1) (2002)

Highly successful music from a troupe of African, Greek and Indian players. A Malian kora player meets a Greek clarinettist and a clutch of North Indian musicians. It could be a God-awful mess, but it’s musical poetry. That makes sense. Firstly, these are top artists: Ballake Sissoko is one of West Africa’s top kora (lute-harp) players and a clarinet-playing friend of mine considers veteran Greek player Petroloukas Chalkias one of the greatest in the world. The quartet of Indian musicians includes Rakesh Chaurasia (nephew and disciple of the legendary Hariprasad Chaurasia) on bansuri flute, alongside Rabindra Goswami (sitar), Devashish Dey (vocals) and Subhankar Banerjee (tabla). Secondly, this is a project with history. The Greek Saraswati label has, since 1998, produced five Greeks & Indians recordings, which are quite brilliant in the way they bring styles from the two countries together. This is music of rich and varied textures – the airborne, breathy sound of the bansuri contrasting with the dark Greek clarinet – all underpinned by the muscle of the tabla. The disc opens with short solos on the principal melodic instruments – kora, clarinet, bansuri – each bringing its own distinctive character, before they tumble into a laid-back West African tune with some inspired kora and bansuri duetting. The music is delightfully easy to listen to but always fresh as the players take musical cues from each other. It ends 70 minutes and six tracks later with an ecstatic Indian-style consummation of this extraordinary marriage...