Music in Our Dreams

There's no question that Jeff Coffin is a fine woodwind player. After all, he spent years playing in the Flecktones alongside that banjo genius Béla Fleck, and years more with the Dave Matthews Band, the veteran rock-jazz-funk-bluegrass improvisation specialists who have sold albums by the truckload in the US. So what happened when Coffin hosted a jam session in his Nashville home studio, and invited around a couple of classy Indian players, Subrata Bhattacharya (on tabla) and Indrajit Banerjee (sitar) along with others including Japanese harmonium player Ryoko Suzuki and members of the Matthews band? The result is a little predictable.

This is an album of improvisations with an Indian flavour, all very professionally performed, of course, but with no one sounding as if they are particularly stretched. There are sections where Cofn's work is matched against tabla backing that then eases into jazz-edged keyboard or sitar solos, and others where the noodling veers towards easy listening. It's all very pleasant, if you are in the mood for that kind of thing, though at times it does become a little soporific (is that why dreams feature in both the band name and album title?). My favourite track, ‘Take it to the Bridge’, is the most robust, with the Indian players joining in a funk work-out.