Music Web International - July 2010

It's exciting news that John Mayer's albums are being reissued in so welcome a fashion; in this case two LPs on one CD. Etudes dates from 1969, and though it doesn't feature Joe Harriott, his stamp can yet be felt on it, even though there are powerful individualists in the ensemble; Ian Hammer, Chris Taylor and Tony Coe among them. Etudes is cast in five movements each of which sports classical titles, and the symphonic is fused with raga and tala in Mayer's accustomed fashion. The result is consistently stimulating.

There is plenty of counterpoint for Hammer and Taylor in the Introduction and Rondo where Coe's bustling, fluid tenor impresses. Mayer was a good chooser of rhythm sections and we find Coleridge Goode's propulsive bass, John Marshall's dynamic drumming and Pat Smythe's articulate piano playing enviably apropos. The sitar playing of Diwan Motihar and Viram Jasani (who also plays tanpura) and the tabla player Keshav Sathe offer an exciting fusion. They generate the hypnotic rhythm that underlies the blues-keen Capriccio, where Coe's solo and Hammer's Milesian dialogues are but two elevated examples of the groove. I assume it's Motihar who takes a sitar `solo' here - and finely calibrated it is too. Mayer was himself a violinist of distinction and his richly romantic playing can be savoured in Serenade, a solo that is gradually infiltrated by Indo fusion; hints maybe of Tartini and Albinoni in his playing, appropriately so given the baroque nature of the movement headings. The Saraband is equally effective; plenty of rhythmic and harmonic interest here.

The companion work is Radha Krishna, in two acts, for narrator and an ensemble of thirteen. Coe, Taylor and Goode are on board once again though the other players (not all of whose names could be traced) are different. Tristan Fry is the percussionist; the Lansdowne String Trio take part as well. It's a `musical dramatisation' - a chamber opera in effect - of the love story between Krishna and Radha and the central characters - sung by tenor and soprano, augmented by the narrator Nicolette Bernard - are supported by the ensemble. There are intriguing hints of Porgy and Bess in Radha's aria in Part I which preface the rolling piano of the unnamed (Smythe?) pianist. In the second part there are some rock-inflected moments and Coe preaches over the busy percussion writing admirably. In the main, though, the explicitly jazz quotient is low wattage. The reflective and sultry violin-led passage which sees Krishna imploring forgiveness is, in effect, a limpid aria. The text is hugely erotic and leads to an ecstatic duet to, as it were, climax the piece.

Both these albums offer contrasts well beyond the ordinary. They show the paths taken by the exploratory Mayer and his cohorts, and the diverse ways in which his musical mind encompassed this wider vision.

Reviewed by: Jonathan Woolf

Birmingham Post (UK) - Feb 2008

"Mayer's music is still remarkably fresh after 40 years"

I'll be spending quite a bit of time this week listening to an excellent reissue of music by the late composer and violinist John Mayer and his band Indo-Jazz Fusions. Etudes might have been recorded in 1969, 20 years before record shops had a world music section, but it sounds remarkably fresh. Its combination of Indian instruments and Western ones, its orchestrated parts and improvised sections, its mixing of all kinds of influences, not just jazz and Indian classical music, are all current in contemporary music. It's on the First Hand label and the liner notes are by John's son, Jonathan.

Reviewed by: Peter Bacon

The Telegraph (UK) - March 2008

Probably the first "world fusion" album, John Mayer's 1967 Indo-Jazz Fusions disconcerted both purists and populists, and the Indian violinist's contribution is only now being reassessed. While these albums from 1969 and 1971 contain moments of dated dippiness - dig the breathy narration on Radha Krishna - the meeting of Indian, jazz and western classical flavours yields passages of unexpected and touching beauty, with some powerfully rhapsodic blowing from top British saxman Tony Coe.

Reviewed by: Mark Hudson

Jazzwise magazine - April 2008 ****

John Mayer (violin), Chris Taylor (flute), Ian Hammer (trumpet, flugelhorn), Tony Coe (tenor sax, clarinet), Pat Smythe (piano), Coleridge Goode (bass), John Marshall (drums), Diwan Motihar (sitar), Viram Jasani (sitar, tanpura), Keshav Sathe (tabla) (Etudes); Clem Alford (sitar), Keshav Sathe (tabla), The Lansdowne String Trio, Chris Taylor (flute), Tristen Fry (percussion), Coleridge Goode (bass), Tony Coe (tenor sax, clarinet), Neil Coton (sarod), Susan Lees (vocal), Ausin Miskell (vocal), Nicolette Bernard (narrator), unidentified (oboe) (Radha Krishna), rec. date not given.

In 1952 the Calcutta-born violinist and composer John Mayer landed in what would become his adopted homeland. Dark-skinned, he knew all about colour bars and prejudice. He overcame to establish himself as a sought-after orchestral violinist and composer. While he is best known in jazz circles for the Joe Harriott and John Mayer Double Quintet and John Mayer’s Indo-Jazz Fusions, it is for his whole canon that he gained his place in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – Britain’s history told through biography. Mayer was that important. Of the two projects reissued here, the five-movement Études (1969) is closer to the style of composition associated with Harriott. The unashamedly erotic, two-act Radha Krishna (1971) is the more ambitious project. “Each day the breasts of Radha swelled,” intones narrator Nicolette Bernard before the strings come in. While Radha Krishna is the greater work, its jazz content is not as pronounced though it has its Indo-jazz, wailing sax and boogie-woogie moments. A long-lost treasure.

Reviewed by: Ken Hunt

Musicweb International - 2008

The Beatles are often credited with popularising Indian music in the West, as a result of their association with Ravi Shankar. But many of us had already been made aware of Indian music in the late fifties through such things as the films of Satyajit Ray, starting with Pather Panchali in 1955. John Mayer began attempting to fuse Indian music with jazz with his Indo-Jazz Fusions group, which recorded four LPs between 1966 and 1969. Etudes was originally released in 1969 on the Sonet label and is only now reissued on this CD, along with Radha Krishna from 1971.

Indo-Jazz Fusions began as a double quintet - five Indian musicians and five jazzmen, including alto-saxist Joe Harriott. Of Anglo-Indian parentage, John Mayer trained as a classical violinist but had for long been interested in blending Indian and western styles. As early as 1958, his Dance Suiite for sitar, flute, tabla, tanpura and symphony orchestra was premiered by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Indeed, the second part of this CD - a musical dramatisation of the story of Radha and her love for Lord Krishna - is more like a classical piece than jazz. The Indo-Jazz Fusions experiment created quite a stir, presenting new possibilities drawn from the Indian ingredients of ragas and talas, on which the jazz musicians improvised. It was an intriguing but seldom a completely integrated fusion. Later experiments, like John McLaughlin's Shakti (with Zakir Hussain and other Indian musicians), were more successful because they held together better. Yet John Mayer certainly acted as a pioneer in this field.

And there is much to enjoy in the first five tracks of this album - particularly the improvising by tenorist Tony Coe. For example, Serenade starts as if it is a slightly Indianised piece by Bach, with John Mayer's violin dominant, but the jazz element surfaces when Coe's swirling tenor sax enters, to be followed by some equally jazzy piano from Pat Smythe. Drummer John Marshall can be depended upon to raise the temperature whenever he gets a chance, and there are some good jazz solos from flautist Chris Taylor and trumpeter Ian Hammer.

Indo-Jazz Fusions lasted until Joe Harriott died in 1973, and the group was revived by John Mayer about nine years before his death in 2004.

Reviewed by: Tony Augarde