D’Silva, Amancio – “Konkan Dance” – [Qbico]

ArtCrimes   12/16/2007   12-inch, Jazz

Amancio D’Silva “Konkan Dance”

Amancio D’Silva was born in India, learning guitar by listening to American jazz greats on Voice of America. He moved to London in 1967. The recordings here, recorded in 1972 but not released at that time, were from his last sessions with producer Denis Preston, who assembled some of Britain’s best regarded jazz players (such as Stan Tracey) to work with D’Silva. Although there is some use of Indian instruments here, the overall sound is what we would come to call (with some apprehension) fusion, with rock, jazz, and Indian flavors stirred together. There’s a lot of sax and flute, solid and sometimes funky keyboards, and plenty of D’Silva’s guitar work on electric and acoustic, sounding a bit like Jamaican Ernest Ranglin. There are 4 lengthy tracks here, each one quite distinct from the others, with the last adding some rockish distortion.