Virtuoso From Afghanistan
When the whole world seems to be losing its collective mind, music remains an important--sometimes only--means of communication between battling  factions who actually know very little about one another. Ustad (an honorific  granted to Muslim musical icons) Omar is a revered master of the rabab, a  short-necked plucked lute with a plangent, gutty tone. He performs here with  a youthful Indian tabla (a hand drum capable of wide variations of pitch)  player named Zakhir Hussain, who has since achieved international stardom.  Stylistically, the music seems to have much in common with Indian classical  traditions, although it is less languid, more direct, and not constructed  over an underlying drone. These five tracks were recorded during a 1974 performance at the University of Washington in Seattle. Both men are captured  at their fiery best, goading one another into explosive bursts of complex  time signatures and breathtaking melodic invention.--Christina Roden