Samaya

Harpreet Bansal is a Norway-based violinist of the North Indian tradition who was taught and mentored by her father, Harbhajan Singh Bansal. This is her second release on Jazzland Recordings and the title of her label is apposite. Bansal's music, created with her core ensemble of harmonium, double bass, tabla and santoor (an Indo-Persian hammered dulcimer) is innately improvisatory, and the underpinning of double bass and tabla presents a refreshed version of a traditional jazz rhythm section. This feature is displayed most clearly on opener ‘Jog’, when Adrian Fiskum Myhr (bass) and Andreas Bratlie (tabla) develop an instinctive solo together. Javid Afsari Rad's santoor adds a distinctive element to the album with its delicate sound, eerily like the European dulcimer. On ‘Bageshri’, Rad embarks on an extended solo above bustling tabla. Binding everything together across six medium-length pieces is Bansal's shimmering, yearning fiddle, flickering in and out of focus. Bansal's compositions – in the majority here – are spacious and sprawling, but fascinating in their detail; they are the ideal vehicle for her playing, which doesn't dominate either her bandmates or the texture. Samaya (Time) is a classy piece of collective musicianship and well worth repeated listening.