The Rough Guide To World Jazz

LP00790

UPC: RGNET1385LP

You could argue – and many have – that jazz has always been a world music. This particular compilation sits well enough in a post-Joachim Ernst Berendt frame of “jazz meets the world” but with a much more seamless integration of material than sometimes marked the projects of the late German producer.

Largely modal, the music is attractively programmed, embracing freshly configured classical as well as folk, Nordic as well as Arabic, Eastern as well as Western elements and with some extensive melodic improvisation distinguishing the 16-minute, part Mahavishnu Orchestra-like, part Shakti-touched Mystical Morning, featuring Hindustani slide-guitar virtuoso Debashish Bhattacharya and John McLaughlin (on electric guitar).