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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.
issabre

Showing 1 response by sean

sean
6,231 posts
 
This is one of the many discs that Bob Harley lists as part of his reference recordings in his "complete guide" book. I bought it along with all of the others listed so that i might have a better feel for where he and other reviewers were coming from. Needless to say, there are some good discs and bad discs in that list, depending on ones' musical tastes and background. Like many of the other "great recordings", much of this music is lacking "body & soul" to me ( although this one in specific is not bad at all). As such, i've found discs that i think work MUCH better than what he lists to judge gear by, but then again, this is more along my tastes and background. Sean
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