Simply stated, Melodic Intersect is a world fusion band. If you wish, think of their unique sound the way you would if Ravi Shankar, Zakir Hussian, Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan all got together for a post-midnight jam session in some smoky Calcutta hookah lounge. Traditional Southeast Asian instruments and contemporary Western instruments blending together to create seductively succulent sounds that fill and feed the listener’s hungry ear. And that is exactly what these amazing musicians achieve, from beginning to end on their latest album, Looking Back (Aimrec Records).
Looking Back is the fifth in a series of CDs that Melodic Intersect, an ongoing global fusion music project bringing together a diversity of musical styles, cultures, and disciplines has released since 2013. Beginning with Eastern Visions this band of virtuoso musicians set forth on a mission to meld Southeast Asian classical and folk music with improvisational Western Jazz. Mission accomplished!
The next step of their journey built on the experience they shared creating the earlier recording and the result was Inner Vision. For this endeavor they were joined by the legendary santoor maestro, Pandit Tarun Bhattacharya. The santoor is a type of hammered dulcimer which he was taught to play Ravi Shankar. Not only Shankar, but Bhattacharya too, crossed stylistic boundaries to play with such Western musical icons as the late George Harrison of The Beatles.
They followed up that record with the highly produced and more freely improvised Global Vision. Here the effort was to employ different instruments and sounds that would take them in a different direction from the path they previously traveled. To achieve this they recruited sarangi master Zohaib Hassan and moved guitarist Hans Utter more to the forefront of the mix.
On One Vision tabla player and Melodic Intersect leader Enayet Hossian took the helm as lead percussionist. Throughout that compilation the artists combined efforts displayed their ability to go from laid back spirituality to presto-paced and semi-techno sounding pieces. The aforementioned Utter composed and arranged most of the tracks on this clever collection.
Where this visionary road traveled through the last releases has led them to the newly arrived Looking Back. Along with Enayet Hossian on the tabla it features performances by Qamer Abbas (cajón), Indradeep Ghosh (violin), Zohaib Hassan (sarangi), Greg Hatza (keyboards), Hidayat Khan (sitar), and Fred Koch (saxophone). Together they take a look back at the artistic lessons they’ve learned throughout the years as well as to Melodic Intersect’s previous work.
A very wise person once said that life is but only a series of experiences. To understand them one must look within and without, one must look forward and backward, and that one must sometime walk the road less traveled. It is abundantly clear that this is something that Melodic Intersect fully comprehends. With Looking Back they share with us an enriching life experience: their marvelously multifaceted music.
