Ali Akbar Khan
Journey

THE REVIEW

Initially taken on just as a job to expand my musical knowledge, I realized upon listening to it with due attention that the album offers much more than one might imagine by reading the title and genre, namely the usual ethnic spiel, interesting but predictable.
Let me say straight away that the CD is not a must-have. After doing a little research of my own, I discovered that Ali Akbar Khan is a true Indian Maestro and that within the album are some of his most beautiful works, which he wanted to revisit by giving them a fresher sound by westernizing them. In fact, it was recorded in Los Angeles, yet absolutely not distorting it, indeed preserving its ethnic value almost as if it had been played in Calcutta.

The music he expresses (in my opinion a point in his favor) is not, as the stereotype would have it, soft, meditative, or relaxing, but rather suffers from a certain nervousness attributable to the virtuosity of the skilled musicians. The compositions are fast and solid, even those with a broad scope like the meditative "Morning Meditation", where there is not a discourse (as the title and 14'53'' duration of the track might suggest) of mere musical abandonment for its own sake but of a strong compositional structure, or the splendid "Anticipation" which even recalls works in the Sakamoto style "The Sheltering Sky" to give you an idea. But the track that immediately captures the listener is the one that opens the entire work "Come Back My Love"; don't be fooled by the titles in English, here there are not only ideas, but a whole swirl of musical notes dictated precisely by the peculiarity of the instruments, starting right from Khan's sarod, to all the tablas and tambura that find a rightful and logical placement in this CD. But it is the eponymous track, "Journey" that is the pearl of the album, which in its way of being perfectly in line with the rest of the work, still offers an additional stimulus with its catchy and particularly melodious tune.