FunkFreak75 This was the first record that I found of Zakir's outside of the Shakti albums--and boy did I eat this up!

1. "Making Music" (12:29) one of my favorite memories from my first solo living in the 1980s was the discovery of this album and, in particular, this gorgeous song. I was, at the same time, just starting my studies of Yoga and meditation and it seems that my suddenly-urgent spiritual thirst was attracting all-things Indian into my life. This was one of them. This song conveys and evokes such peace and natural beauty; it could very well have been a soundtrack song for many of the Eastern spirituality books that were falling into my lap--including Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. My favorite song on the album. (24/25)

2. "Zakir" (6:21) a beautiful gift to their beloved percussionist: a song from the heart from his collaborators--sans tablas for the first three minutes: just gorgeous acoustic guitar chords and notes with Hariprasad's beautiful flute play. Obviously, John's idea for his tender acoustic guitar play has rarely been topped until the Bill Evans tribute album. Hariprasad Chaurasia's flute feels nearly as loving. What a beautiful melody the four have discovered! Zakir and Jan join in around the three minute mark as John strums away content to be both placeholder and rhythmatist. (And you know how much I love John McLaughlin's rhythm guitar work!) Jan's tenor sax play is a little gritty--not quite as pretty or reverent as the play of the other two (plus, it's mixed a little too loudly), but luckily Hariprasad's whistle flute is there to temper him. My other top three song on the album. (9.5/10)

3. "Water Girl" (3:54) Zakir using his tabla and percussives to try to create the sounds of dripping water. Flute gentle inputs in the background from Jan Garbarek and, later, John McLaughlin add gentle "flow" to the mix. but it's really the flutes that provide the Balinese-like mood and melody. (9.25/10)

4. "Toni" (3:50) more reverent music from Jan, Hariprasad, and John. How generous of Zakir to hold sacred space for these amazingly emotive and in-tune artists to express themselves so fully. (9/10)

5. "Anisa" (9:13) It is sad that an album full of such beautiful, pure, and reverent music as this could start to "get old" but, after 27 minutes straight of this gorgeous music, the Western brain does start to move it to the background--to seek amusement and attention in other things and thoughts from the world of Maya. However, were one to start their listening experience with this song--or isolate it as its own entity--one would find the same ecstatic spirit. Then Zakir enters at the end of the fourth minute. He gets his meditative solo time (for the rest of the song!) as the others stop playing and just listen and bathe in the master's melodic tabla play. It's mesmerizing! Especially when he starts vocalizing a dialogue with his own tabla playing in the seventh minute. (South India's Carnatic vocal tradition is called "Konokol.") The song ends perfectly with a very brief and bare-bones recapitulation of the gently-strummed guitar and sax playing that was the opening section of the song. This is my second favorite song on the album--if only for the chance to get to hear Zakir in isolation. What a treat! The only thing that could have made it better would have been if Zakir's vocals had been mixed a little higher: equally to his tablas. (19/20)

6. "Sunjog" (7:38) Jan's sonorous low-end of his tenor sax opens this one, tout seul, with lots of reverberation going on in the space he's blowing in. At 1:30, John enters, also tout seul, with the low end of his acoustic guitar--trying very much to emulate some of the note-bending styles Indian strings players employ routinely. At 2:40 Hariprasad joins with John strumming gently like a tambura as Hariprasad's Indian flute climbs to breathy heights, fluttering around in the atmosphere--until 3:27 when a little jazz chord is strummed kind of definitively from John's guitar, whereupon he and Jan begin the introduction of a whole-group melody while Zakir warms to the music with some shakers. At 4:33 Zakir finally joins on his tablas playing just about the simplest rhythm pattern you're likely to ever hear from him. By the time we get to the sixth minute John and Hariprasad have broached some Western Jazz chords and flourishes, enticing Zakir to up his game on the tablas. Jan's contributions feel a bit too loud, overstating any enthusiasm or force that this song has yet called for, but the one-second barbs being thrown around in a kind of call-and-response conversation over the final minute and a half are fun, only, it sounds as if they were really just warming up and the poof! it's over! A nice exercise in space and control but nothing to shout out about. (13.125/15)

7. "You And Me" (2:09) this one starts out as a duet between John and Zakir with both playing plenty of amazing little subtleties and nuances which fully display their virtuosity and connection as simpaticos. (4.5/5)

8. "Sabah" (3:40) gentle, sustained breathy flute notes are laid out in a series of vulnerable and patiently-exposed notes around which Zakir, John, and, later, Jan add their own sensitive responses and support. When Jan enters in the third minute, Hariprasad bows out, leaving Jan to follow his own pattern of issuing long notes. Jan is not quite as vulnerable or invested in his offerings as Hariprasad was, but the song has a cool overall effect: but, once again, the song is faded out just as it seems they are getting going. (8.875/10)

Total Time 47:54

A/five stars; a masterpiece of East-West World Music. This album does not quite possess the superlative highs of Shakti's Natural Elements but it is definitely a collection of wonderfully sensitive and beautiful music.