Paris to Calcutta: Men and Music on the Desert Road

This handsome set matches a four-disc, unexpurgated record of Bengali ethnomusicologist Deben Bhattacharya's 1955 epic field recording road trip, illustrated by a substantial 160-page book. Bhattacharya took off in his trusty converted milk van, funded by Argo and EMI, armed with Gaumont reel-to-reel tape gear, and a map that guided him from London to Calcutta. While his route didn't take him through Spain to trace the flamenco element, he stopped off virtually everywhere else, including Belgrade, Istanbul, Damascus, Amman, Tehran, Baghdad, Kabul and eventually Calcutta, documenting Arabic, Persian and Hindu traditions along the way.

At the time, Bhattacharya was in his early 30s, and this was just the beginning of a prodigious lust to document music, remaining strong until his death in 2001. Considering the journey's makeshift nature, these recordings are of reasonably high quality, the background talking, coughing and road noise adding to the sense of immediacy. This is an extensive collection, governed by a practical itinerary, and while the music is magical, an added dimension is provided by the book's many evocative photographs (Bhattacharya's own) and Bhattacharya's text.

There's a wide range of instrumentation on display – including a pair of percussive coffee grinders. There are two long Iranian pieces by Eskandare Ebrahimi; one at 16 minutes features an orchestra moving through multiple accordion, setar (lute) and vocal stages, like the perfect suite demonstration. Most of the players are named, but there are some ‘unknown performers,’ such as the coughing Afghan shepherd nose-flute soloist. The collection finishes well, with a pair of devotionals from Jai Chand Bhagat and Babu, Bombay street singers who also play tiny cymbals and the one-stringed ektara, segueing into a last snatch of Varanasi temple bells and drums.