JOHN MAYER — Dhammapada (review)

JOHN MAYER — Dhammapada album cover Album · 2006 · World Fusion Buy this album from MMA partners
4/5 ·
Sean Trane
Of all the John Mayer works that he played and recorded, it’s amazing that the present Dhammapada album never got a proper release until a few years after his death, thanks to his son’s efforts. Indeed, the Indian-born composer and violinist had emigrated to join the London jazz scene and also frequented the classical auditoriums by the early 60’s. In the mid to late 60’s, he had formed with Jamaican-born jazz saxman Joe Harriott the aptly-named Harriott-Mayer Double Quintet, which released three albums of the then nascent Indo-Jazz Fusion style. Further on, he worked in classical circles, which is plainly discernable on the present album, recorded in 76 with some of the usual-suspects of the London Jazz Scene, like wind player Chris Taylor, Henry Lowther, Tony Coe or ex-Arthur Brown associate and High Tide member percussionist (tabla drums, mainly) Drachen Theaker. For the more exotic soundscapes, tambura-sitar players Nil Coton and Clem Alford or player of koto & cheng (Far Eastern Asia instruments) John Leach provide a unique touch.

The album is filled with an outstanding fusion of Indian or Far-Eastern-Asian musics and jazz and even some classical passages. Interspaced by three different tambura-dominated Sannyasin piece, the main themes veer from enthralling jazzy passages where the sitar provides happily a bed of string sounds (this is particularly successful under Tony Coe’s sax solo, then Chris Taylor’s flute intervention in Mana-Samana), to some downright classically-inspired interludes (see the following paragraph).

Elsewhere Japanese instruments provide a different exotic feel over the same tambura in Yamabushi, before the tabla drums and Coe’s clarinet take the composition south of the Himalaya. Bikkhu opens on flutes and a very classical first part, somewhat reminiscent of what Bartok and Mussorgsky could pull if they’d worked together, but the Indian side of Mayer’s hasn’t given up and returns sporadically. Tri-Dandin opens like a long spiritual improvisation on sitar and tambura, before the wind instruments speed up the pace halfway through and segues almost immediately in the superb but short finale of Chakka.

Once again, the excellent British label of Vocalion (its jazz section anyway) has released an essential posthumous John Mayer release, thanks to his son’s dedication and patience. The present album should’ve definitely been a refrrnc in the genre, andd one can only wonder how the Indo-Jazz Fusion movment might have evolved had the album found a way to the store racks and musicians’ ears.

Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Jazz Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Lucky All Along Post-Fusion Contemporary
LISA HILTON
Buy this album from MMA partners
GNX Jazz Related Electronica/Hip-Hop
KENDRICK LAMAR
Buy this album from MMA partners
Christopher Dell - Søren Kjærgaard : Ruptures Jazz Related Improv/Composition
CHRISTOPHER DELL
Buy this album from MMA partners
Live at 55 Jazz Related Rock
CHICAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Moon Shifts Oceans RnB
EMILY SAUNDERS
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Chicago - Hard to Say I'm Sorry / Get Away [Live At 55]
CHICAGO
snobb· 16 hours ago
John Coltrane's iconic Parker Blues: "Freight Trane" w/ Tobias Meinhart, Rick Rosato & Jesse Simpson
TOBIAS MEINHART
js· 17 hours ago
Yo Viné Para Echar Candela
SPANISH HARLEM ORCHESTRA
snobb· 21 hours ago
Joe Armon-Jones - Sorrow (feat. Liam Bailey) (Official Audio)
JOE ARMON-JONES
snobb· 1 day ago
Ambrose Akinmusire - muffled screams
AMBROSE AKINMUSIRE
snobb· 1 day ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed