Kinsmen

Things have been quite busy lately, so, not much time to cook or post recipes. The flip side is that long hours in front of the computer screen means more time spent listening to music, and in some cases new music.

One of my first loves was guitar music and one of the first albums I remember buying is Joe Satriani's "The Extremist". That was followed by more Satriani, Steve Vai, Yngwie J Malmsteen and various other rock and metal guitarists. Along the way I discovered the world of Jazz guitar, and the fusion music of John Mclaughlin. His indian fusion group Shakti has had two incarnations. The original incarnation in the 70s and then a revival a few years ago. Searching for more John Mclaughlin music led me to "Friday Night in San Francisco", a truly magical live recording on which three of the leading gutarists of our time - John Mclaughlin, Al Di Meola and Paco De Lucia play acoustic guitar with no other accompaniment. It remains one of my favourite pieces of guitar music of all time.

But back to fusion music, and the reason for this post. Rudresh Mahanthappa is an indian american saxophonist who has been collaborating with Indian saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath to create a beautiful explosion of jazz fusion -- Kinsmen. I could go on about it, or I could point you to the new yorker article that introduced me to him.