Various Bombay, Jazz Palace

Jazz Palace is great fun from start to finish. This is a collection of contemporary mixes, sampling from a rich back catalogue of indojazz funk fusion classics. A huge hat doff to the early innovators of indojazz fusion. The sampled stars are not necessarily household names, unless you remember the likes of Paul Horn, Volker Kriegal and Georges Garvarenz, but the result is familiar indeed. The openers on the Bombay Jazz Palace are reminiscent of Herbie Mann's Memphis Underground, crossed with Big Jim Sullivan Sitar Beat. The flute is also there for a stride into darker territory, before an outrageous Burt Bacharach-chorus-sung shuffling cha-cha, but with a wonderful fusion twist, they sing percussion (bols, solkattu or konnakol depending on where you're from). A wonderful musical moment. Other rhythm flavours creep in throughout, from Arabia to the Orient, all dished out with lashings of cosmic vibe.