I have heard and own a couple of other Bhatt releases on Water Lily and they are all fairly sublime recordings. There is an interesting disc featuring Bhatt and Taj Mahal which is quite nice and another Water Lily disc by the title of "Kambara Music in Native Tongues" comes very higly recommended. This features a couple of classically trained Indian musicians with David Hidalgo of Los Lobos and guitar maestro Martin Simpson performing a fairly unique East/West fusion, even throwing in a rather affecting cover of a Merle Haggard tune ('The Running Kind') for good measure. If you haven't heard the collaboration that Ry Cooder did with the African guitarist Ali Farke Toure ('Talking Timbuktu'), I'd highly advise that you do so. Also, inhabiting a more 'outside' musical region are the Suns of Arqa. The majority of their recordings focused on heavy rhythms and electronica, but always with the very distinct and direct influence of Indian musical idioms and instrumentation. On a couple of their discs, these musical influences came very much to the front to create a brooding and hypnotic blend of very deep dub produçtion applied to raga based jam sessions. Check out 'Kokoromochi' or 'Cradle'...both very nice. A number of jazz musicians and ensembles have incorporated elements of traditional African, Middle Eastern and Indian musics, and this is another region of musical discovery well worth digging into.
A meeting by the River....
Sayas here on Audiogon recommended a to me a CD called "A Meeting by the River" featuring Ry Cooder on Bottlenect Guitar and V.M. Bhatt on Vina. I found this recording to be facinating. It's a real cross cultural dialogue through music. Ry plays a bluesy riff and Bhatt compliments it with blues a la vina. Then Bhatt plays a raga and Ry plays that bottleneck like a Vina...complete with drone chord. There is even interesting cross dialogue between Joaquim Cooder, backing his father on dumbek and Bhatt's tabla player. The result culiminates in the incredible track "Ganges Delta Blues." This is really a fanstastic piece and magical playing. My hat off to Sayas and I would like to know if any of you have similar suggestions...not necessarily Indian-American dialogue, but some other cross cultural exchange that is magical. By all means, try this record, unless you can't stand Sitar/Vina...otherwise, I highly doubt that you'll be disappointed...au contraire.