Review | Songlines

A Sound Heart

Rating: ★★★★★

View album and artist details

Album and Artist Details

Artist/band:

Jaubi

Label:

Riaz Records

November/2024

Whatever/Whoever is the translation of Jaubi (pronounced jaw-bee) and ‘whatever sounds good’ is the band’s guiding principle. The Pakistani jazz trio of Ali Riaz Baqar (guitar and composition), Zohaib Hassan Khan (sarangi) and Kashif Ali Dhani (tabla and percussion) are from Lahore and recorded this album at Real World Studios in Wiltshire with the addition of some of the finest on the London jazz scene. Like a reverse Shakti, with the core group hailing from the Punjab and the wider collaborators from the West, the resultant sound is a more jazz-orientated one – particularly on tracks such as ‘Soothing Mercy’ – although there are numbers where the sarangi takes the lead, giving the album a syncretic feel. The overtones of the sarangi’s sympathetic strings do not jar with the more tempered instruments like the piano but, instead, add an almost tasteable flavour which brings the otherwise disparate ingredients together into a seamless blend. This is less obvious on the opening ‘Lahori Blues’ but plain to hear on the following ‘Raga Chanrakauns’ with its modal melodies reminiscent of the best Ethiojazz. Aptly named, the ballad-esque title-track aches with feeling as the musicians reach across continents to find their shared soul.

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