French-Vietnamese guitarist Nguyen Le has played plenty of full-on, Hendrix-inspired jazz-funk over the years, but has been tending toward a world-jazz of traditional Vietnamese elements and ambient sounds in more recent times. This set is an explicit Hendrix tribute (all the songs are his) with powerful partners on board including drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, bassist Meshell Ndegeocello and a passing visit from the virtuoso Belgrade pianist Bojan Zulfikarpasic. Nguyen Le can rock out as ferociously as anybody, and the howling guitar sound and tom-tom rolls of some of this music could have come straight off the Mahavishnu-dominated jazz-rock scene of the 1970s. But Le has retained some of the tonalities of his eastern-music ventures, grafted into African percussion sounds, spooky samples, echo-laden vocals and a general modern electronic melange. It doesn't quite hang together and, though singer Aida Khann makes the skin tingle, much of the other singing and speech is unremarkable or cheesily portentous. Great guitar playing, but Le is a good enough musician to have achieved a lot more with a lot less.