The compositions in this set reflect a perfect blending and balance between the East West Music Cultures. I use three aproaches. First, I set out to achieve imrpovisational beds through strict adherence to the rules of rag along with innovative use of western modal harmony. A western musician can improvise over the changes and go totally outside the realm of the rag yet the harmony and chordal movement holds it to the rag's tonal center. An Eastern musician can improvise totally within the rag and have the added beauty of chordal accompaniment which stays within the rag structure. This creates an atmosphere of true joining of music cultures. It would takeyears of study for both musicians to tunderstand at a deep level the inticaies of a rag and how to creat a series of decent chord changes. Bhim's Palasie, Yamin's Kalian and Falling Water are examples of this type structure. Second, I created a series of compositions based on parallel chordal movement and allowed the musician to shift the notes of the rag to different tonal centers. In other words, a 5 note rag scale could be imposed over a set of moving changes much like Giant Steps. North Star and Turn are examples of this style of improv. Third, I created an environment which was very tonal and allowing the use of basically one scale for improvisation over a series of tonal chords. Heading West is an example of this type of music. Here is what Pete Pardo of Sea of Tranquility said about the album: "The jazz-fusion ensemble Mosby Group hails from St. Louis, and is led by master guitar player Todd Mosby, a gifted musician who combines searing jazz rock ala John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, and Pat Metheny, with North Indian rag influences. Mosby utilizes electric guitar as well as the 20 stringed Indian instrument called the Imratgitar on the CD's seven lengthy pieces, and he is joined by a crew of other seasoned musicians to create an enjoyable listening experience of smoldering fusion music." -Sea of Tranquility ________________________________________________________ CD STORY This project originally started as a drum, tabla and imratgitar demo of Bhim's Palasie showcasing the imratgitar's sound for Pat Metheny and a few others. Mark and Ron liked the composition and wanted me to flesh it out for rhythm section ensemble and track it. We did this and liked the combination of sound, instruments and musicians. From there I began composing music which would blend the eastern melodic and compositional forms with the more traditional jazz modal and chordal forms as a thread and conceptual basis for the CD. Mark decided that we were to track this music as it went into the hard drive with no overdubs. We did two, maybe three takes and went with either the first or second take. Each composition goes through a range of emotive shifts so were only good for one or two takes per tune. The performances were tracked over a period of time due to different scheduling so we did one to two tunes per session. I would bring in the music we would rehearse, then track. Some tunes took two sessions until we got what we wanted. ___________________________________________________ Inside Liner Notes: Thank you for making this cd a part of your music collection. East West has its history in a love for two great improvisational forms; Classical North Indian and Traditional American Jazz. This was a fun way to bridge 10 years dedicated study in Classical North Indian music and a life long study of Traditional Jazz & Composition. Fortunate to be working with great people and exceptional talent, I began pulling works from my performance catalog which allowed a choice of playing; a) only the notes of a rag (Indian tradition), b) only the notes & scales of a chord (Jazz tradition) or, c) a modal mixture of both. The compositions explore; a) chordal harmonies within the structure and movement of a particular rag (tracks 02, 03, 05), b) the movement of rag notes parallel over parallel chord structures (track 07), and c) a little consideration of both (tracks 01, 04). Thanks & enjoy. __