The Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu always gives his shows a governing idea which puts his mix of hard-swinging jazz drumming, dizzying tabla rhythms, electronic effects and jabbering Indo-scat in a context beyond virtuosic. Last time, the theme was Indian temple-dance forms, this time it is African-Asian crossover. On Sunday night, Gurtu's band featured three Indians and two Africans, with the London-based stars Najma Aktar and Nitin Sawhney in guest slots.
Though the references were different, the single-set gig was a triumph for the same reasons Gurtu's shows usually are - the immense variety of textures and polyrhythms he can generate on his own, but more fundamentally for the group sound he inspires, which can make just about any instrumentation sound like a big percussion section. But there was a crucial extra ingredient - the powerful singing and hypnotic presence of Sabine Kabongo, the Zairean singer.
Kabongo's gliding high-register lines, reverberating low notes and Gurtu-echoing chatters and exclamatory sounds combined with the Cameroon bass-player Hilaire Penda's dancing counter-melodies kept the African element of the programme not just strong, but seamlessly blended with the more melodically oblique and rhythmically ambiguous Asian core. The guest appearances were glitzy and diverting, but inevitably rather perfunctory set against the focused power of the African Fantasy programme.
The delicacy and clarity of Najma's remarkable voice was arresting in the quiet opener to a ballad composed jointly by Gurtu and his classical singer mother, Shoba, but the song ran out of steam. Sawhney came on to play a luxurious and unexpected Spanish feature for acoustic guitar, then developed an expressive exchange of vocalised percussion sounds in duet with Gurtu.
But it was the group pieces, ranging from richly coloured tapestries of temple music (using Gurtu's unique palette of bells, gongs, distantly mysterious booms, running-water effects and tiptoeing footfalls), to Weather Report-like orchestral funk and staccato Asian-fusion themes reminiscent of the leader's projects with John McLaughlin, that brought the crowd to its feet for encores.
Gurtu's easy cohabitation with the music of his roots as well as American jazz gives his accompaniments an exhilaratingly bumpy energy, the meticulous precision of Indian percussion patterns at high speeds constantly nudged and disrupted by explosive cymbal sounds and whiplash offbeats. There was hardly a duff melody in nearly two hours of music, with Kabongo's voice investing already capriciously inventive material with sinewy twists and dives.
World music without a cliche in earshot.
