On Rec.
Payuta & Friends : ...sitar...signs... (D,2003)**°'
I discovered the existence of Payuta through a Dieter Serfas release from 1997 (reviewed on next page), where he contributed with sitar on my personal favourite track of the album. Just recently I decided to check out what else he did next. After this period with serious Fusionrock musicians, he evolved to an area of a kind of trance-fusion style inspired by the spirit-idea of mood-improvisation which is more coincidentally associated with world music. After the cooperation and a tour with the Tuvan group Huun-Huur-Tuu and a worldbeat remixes-CD with several other musicians, he started from 2000 to release his own albums. I preferred to check out the two CD’s which were closest to the idea of ‘Fusion’, although “…sitar…signs…” it is actually more like music just played with sitar and with contributions of various other instruments.
The album “…sitar…signs…” is described on the CD as ‘trance-world-music’, which already shows how any approach to some kind of “fusion” here is entirely unpretentious. It’s better to say that this is a very calm, purely musical mood exploration. The contributing musician gives the calm melodic playing of Payuta a jazzy fusion touch, just for the mood of it, but at the same time they gives it an additional musical aspect, with a very pleasant result. The few more colourful keyboard rhythms, the 12-string guitar, vibes and other instruments fit well with the chosen tracks. Harry Payuta plays with feeling, and the other musicians know and feel how to interact perfectly. It seems that Mark Payuta played many instruments himself, especially on the four tracks without contributions.
This is perhaps the most enjoyable CD I’ve heard in a sitar-Trance-related style only intended as mood-making music. The back of the CD describes this mood as being “in a light Caribbean breeze under the spirit of India”.
The participating musicians were Frank Mattutat : bass, drums, shaker ; Michi Schmidt : vibes, percussion, Dietmar Kirstein, piano ; Bernd Schlott : clarinet ; Phil Krüger : 12-string guitar, voice ; Klaus Fey : tenor-,soprano sax.
Jaro Medien Harry Payuta & Friends : India Redhot Blue (D,2004)**'
'India Redhot Blue' seems in the first tracks a small step further towards a kind of rock sound, and towards a jazzfusion style, still based upon simple mood improvisations. This time the description says “Indian Spirits, Caribbean spices”. With a few other friends into the band, the tracks are also somewhat longer than on the previous album. This works often well, but with the inevitable simpleness of its mood improvisation, some tracks become also become tedious, especially on "Moonlight Sight", which for me is too long for what it expresses.
Like “Déja Vu” on “…sitar…sings…” already showed, I notices again that some idea of the music from Payuta must have had inspirations from George Harrison’s interest to sitar music, from the time when he attracted Ravi Shankar to play with The Beatles. Also on this album, the last track pays some tribute to George Harrison, using a slow improvisation on the known Beatles track, "Within You Without You" .
The musicians which contributed were: Daniela Birschel: Esraj, vocals, Uli Bösking: viola, violin, Klaus Fey: tenor-sax, clarinet, Michi Schmidt: percussion, steeldrum, berimbao and xylophone, Frank Matuttat: drums, bass.
-A lesser known instrument which Payuta also used is the 'surhabar', a deeper toned instrument which looks similar to the sitar.-
