SPRING FLOWERS

One of the great Indian music masters primarily known for his virtuosic performances on the Indo-Afghan instrument called the sarod, which is a 25-string fretless lute in the same family as the sitar. VASANT was in fact a multi-instrumentalist and started his journey as a musician at the age of seven and eventually became proficient on not only the sarod but also the sitar, violin and flute. His life was short having died at the age of 43 in 1985 but RAI lived through the era when the interest in Indian music by the Western world had flourished.

RAI was the real deal, a glutton for all things music and studied and practiced at the house of Hindustani classical musician Ustad Allauddin Khan for eight years! Add to that he became a professor at not only the Alam School of Indian Music in NYC but was decorated with about every honor that could be bestowed upon him during the 1960s when oriental musical forms were becoming the fascination of many Westerners and increasingly incorporated into rock and other popular forms of music.

VASANT RAI released a number of albums during his short life in the 3D Earth plane but perhaps the best known and appreciated by Westerners is this 1976 collaboration with the American jazz-fusion band Oregon which featured a classic East meets West duality riding in the wake of the success of virtuosic performers like John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnu Orchestra that took the fusion possibilities to the masses in the early 1970s and later culminated with McLaughlin's Indo-raga prowess with Shakti. SPRING FLOWERS falls somewhere in between the purity of unadulterated Hindustani classical music and the all out assault of the senses that McLaughlin introduced with the rock energy heft in Shakti.

This album featured RAI on sarod, flute and tambura as well as guitar. Joining him was fellow Indian Dalip Naik on guitar along with Glen Moore (piano, bass), Paul McCandless (oboe, French horn) and Collin Walcott (tabla, congas, percussion, sitar, bass) of the US band Oregon. To add the connection with the great Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jerry Goodman played violin. This was certainly one of RAI's most colorful displays of musicality in his entire career with a set of seven tracks to match the bright bold beauty of the album cover art. Unfortunately the public's appetite for crossover Indian music had pretty much waned by the late 1970s and this little gem of East meets West was never re-issued after its initial 1976 release.

This is a beautiful album that falls more on the Indian side of the fusion equation but with all these excellent virtuoso musicians on board, you know you're in for a compelling journey into the world of classical Indian music with the crossover appeal that falls more into the world of jazz than rock however for whatever reason, these types of albums get tagged raga rock :/ This one is all instrumental much in the way most of Shakti's works were but this one is less frenetic than McLaughlin's works and is much more sensual and authentically connected to the traditions of Indian from a real Indian musician who spent most of his life studying the art form.

While the sounds on board are firmly rooted in traditional Indian music, the bass is what seems to connect this album to the West as it crafts a groove that connects it to the most progressive styles of rock up to the point. The wind instruments seem to evoke the world of jazz which makes sense considering Oregon was very much on the jazz side of its fusion equation. What's beautiful about this album is that it is a true gentleman's club of each musician complementing the other. There are no instruments that dominate the soundscape but rather a beautiful surrender to the source material inspired by RAI himself. What's called raga rock varied greatly from drug infused jamming sessions to this exquisite convening of master musicians. For my tastes i prefer these brilliant performances that allowed every musician to live up to his potential without derailing the music's authentic connection to the master plan.