Vision (Shankar album) explained

Vision
Type:studio
Artist:Shankar
Cover:Shankar_Vision.jpg
Recorded:April 1983
Studio:Talent Studio
Oslo, Norway
Genre:Jazz
Label:ECM 1260
Producer:Manfred Eicher
Prev Title:Who's to Know
Prev Year:1981
Next Title:Song for Everyone
Next Year:1985

Vision is an album by Indian violinist L. Shankar recorded in April 1983 and released by ECM in 1984. The trio features Shankar playing a 10-string stereophonic double violin accompanied by saxophonist Jan Garbarek and trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.[1]

Reception

In a review for AllMusic, Richard S. Ginell called the album "an ethereal tour-de-force," and wrote: "Exotic pan-cultural ingredients and all, Vision is reassuringly easy to listen to, undoubtedly aided by ECM's sweetly reverberant sound."

The Washington Posts J.D. Considine noted that Shankar's solo recordings "avoid entirely the excesses of fusion jazz," and instead "pursue a plangent serenity that, when it reaches the heights achieved throughout Vision..., suggests a transcendence unheard in jazz since John Coltrane's A Love Supreme."[2]

A writer for The New York Times commented: "This is pleasant music for late-night dreaming, but unlike the quasi-meditative musical wallpaper one hears on so many ECM and Windham Hill albums, it is also music with substance and heart."[3]

Track listing

  1. "All for You"  - 6:36
  2. "Vision"  - 13:44
  3. "Astral Projection"  - 5:47
  4. "Psychic Elephant"  - 11:54
  5. "The Message"  - 7:22

Personnel

Notes and References

  1. Web site: L. Shankar: Vision . Jazz Music Archives . September 12, 2022.
  2. News: Jazz With an Accent . J.D. . Considine . July 26, 1984 . The Washington Post . September 12, 2022.
  3. Web site: New Shankar Album Adds To Jazz-Indian Fusion . June 6, 1984 . The New York Times . September 12, 2022.