Nagaswaram Tough

 
I'll toss this one up as the first post of April, 40 years old as it is today.

I'm trying to cover people I've never had on here, so today is a step in that direction.

It can get redundant after awhile, with these limitations where I basically only put up archival material.... that means only artists who have such material available somewhere in the aether and that means it's easy to only cover folks with multiple concerts around to choose from.

This can leave tremendously worthy subjects for here by the wayside, if they haven't been sufficiently aboveground to have been recorded live on the Westwood One Radio Network, or had France Musique feature them on a sick rebroadcast of a long-forgotten show.

If I had the resources, I'd fly around the globe raiding different radio archives for pre-broadcast gems, but for now this will have to do.

Anyway dig this hour of power from Charlie Mariano, who's been dead awhile but still finds his way into my playlist on occasion.

One of the alpha omegans of what is now called World Music, Charlie often had tabla and percussion in lieu of trap drums and this is one of those instances.

I love this set because if so deftly straddles the territory between realms, with one foot in a sort of Spiritual Jazz vibe and the other in the music of North India.

To that end, look out for tabla deity Ustad Amir Khan and a hello from (later in the 1980s) New Age curly haired harp stroker Andreas Vollenweider, plus CM's oft-co-conspirator, keyboard whiz Jasper van't Hof.

Charlie Mariano Quintet
Studio 10
NDR Funkhaus
Hamburg, Germany
4.3.1981

01 Easter
02 One Day
03 Kansas
04 Dance
05 Nagaswarup

Total time: 53:41

Charlie Mariano - saxophones, flute & nagaswaram
Jasper van't Hof - keyboards
Andreas Vollenweider - harp
Ustad Amir Khan - sitar & tabla
Pedro Haldemann - percussion

master HiFi VHS capture of a German FM broadcast
326 MB FLAC/April 2021 archive link

I'm trying to return Monday with all kinds of Jazz snobbery, but do enjoy Mr. Mariano and his cohorts in ecstatic drone mode, taped 40 years ago tonight and still tasting right!--J.

11.12.1923 - 6.16.2009