The Master (Six Degrees Records, 2014)
Recently, composer and musician Warren Cuccurullo pulled a rabbit out of a hat. Okay, not a real rabbit. Better than a rabbit. No, Mr. Cuccurullo pulled out a set of tapes from a recording session that took place over two days in his London home studio in 1998. Those recording have been magically transformed into the riveting Six Degrees release The Master, pairing guitarist Mr. Cuccurullo with the sarangi master Ustad Sultan Khan. Nervy, spine tingling, mind blowing and striking are just a place to start describing this long stored extraordinary collaboration.
While on the surface this pairing of guitarist Warren Cuccurullo of Duran Duran, Frank Zappa and Missing Persons fame with Hindustani classical singer and sarangi player Ustad Sultan Khan, but each in their own right has stretched their artistic limbs to step over the lines of drawn genres. Beyond his time with Duran Duran, Missing Persons and work with Frank Zappa, Mr. Cuccurullo has such solo recordings as Thanks 2 Frank, Playing in Tongues, Machine Language, Blue, Roadrage and Trance Formed to his credit. No less impressive the late, great sarangi player and vocalist Ustad Sultan Khan was a member of Tabla Beat Science and recorded such albums as Ustad Sultan Khan, Together Again, Ustad Sultan Khan & Zakir Hussain, Sarangi: The Music of India, Ragas Kaushi Kanda & Bhairavi and Jugalbandi: Serod & Sarangi Duet with Ustad Aashish Khan, as well as earning the title of Padma Bhushan in 2010 the year before his death.
The Master has got the goods, flying between the mystical spell Mr. Khan exudes by way of vocals and sarangi and the opulent atmosphere Mr. Cuccurullo lays down with electronic ambient guitar. Opening with “The Holy Man’s Plea,” a lush soundscape emerges with Mr. Khan’s plaintive vocals and sarangi that soothes as it overwhelms with electronic ambient guitar and the addition of a synth bass by Simone Sello.
“4D Suite” opens with a lazy sarangi line with gentle guitar plucks before evolving into sweeping ride emphasizing the interplay between sarangi and guitar with Joe Travers adding additional percussion and some stunning vocals by Mr. Khan. The Master turns soulful and poignant with “Mirror Margana” with additional effects with some that come across as throat singing that is simply thrilling.
Equally rich are the slyly quaint “Sikar” and the track “The Lost Master” with its heavily Indian meditative feel, with added synth bass by Eric Hart. The Master turns dreamy with “Octavia” before giving way to closing track “You Can’t Tell” where Mr. Cuccurullo picks up an acoustic guitar and turns the interplay with Mr. Khan’s sarangi into something that’s either bent folk or folksy classical Indian.
Over the span of two days in essentially what was Mr. Cuccurullo’s living room/studio these two masters, each brandishing their own brilliance, crafted musical landscape that is utterly unexpected and wholly captivating.
It’s taken some 16 years to make this recording public, and maybe we weren’t ready for it, but what we really want to know is what other goodies Mr. Cuccurullo has stashed in his closets.
Buy The Master in North America
Buy Master in Europe
Author: TJ Nelson
TJ Nelson is a regular CD reviewer and editor at World Music Central. She is also a fiction writer. Check out her latest book, Chasing Athena’s Shadow.
Set in Pineboro, North Carolina, Chasing Athena’s Shadow follows the adventures of Grace, an adult literacy teacher, as she seeks to solve a long forgotten family mystery. Her charmingly dysfunctional family is of little help in her quest. Along with her best friends, an attractive Mexican teacher and an amiable gay chef, Grace must find the one fading memory that holds the key to why Grace’s great-grandmother, Athena, shot her husband on the courthouse steps in 1931.
Traversing the line between the Old South and New South, Grace will have to dig into the past to uncover Athena’s true crime.
