In October 2011, at the seasoned age of 91, Ravi Shankar invited his long-time tabla accompanist, Tanmoy Bose, to his home in Encinitas, California for an informal recording session. Over four days, they worked in Shankar's living room, recording seven different ragas. The resulting music is pure Shankar - a pairing of deep musical experience and brilliant technique performed with the energy and passion he brings to his live concerts. The first of two releases, The Living Room Sessions, Part 1, holds four tracks that span a wide range of Indian classical styles.

Fans of Kristjan Jarvi’s Absolute Ensemble and their previous recordings Absolute Zawinul and Absolution will get the chance to wallow in the splendid sounds of Arabian Nights Live at Town Hall NYC come August 10th. Set for release on the Enja Records label, Arabian Nights is a sumptuous, exotic fusion where classical, jazz, world and Middle Eastern music meet in a kaleidoscopic melange of pure goodness. The Absolute Arabian Nights Project flowered out of a post-September 11th memorial concert performed as part Musikfest Bremen in Bremen, Germany. UNESCO Artist for Peace and musician Marcel Khalife, musician Bassam Saba, composer and musician Dhafer Youssef and composer and musician Daniel Schnyder teamed up with Krisjan Jarvi and the Absolute Ensemble to create “an honest, apolitical statement of peace and unity in the music world” with the Absolute Arabian Nights Project. The project grew to fruition in 2007 with a performance at New York City’s Town Hall as part of the Not Just Jazz Series.

Thompson has a new album out there called Electric. The title is actually a bit of a misnomer as you’ll find acoustic folksy ballads on the record along with the more bracing rockin’ numbers. Still, Electric is a fine testament to a revered musician, one that simply puts a seal on a long and storied career. It isn’t particularly revelatory, nor does it boast a classic number along the lines of a “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” or even a “Beeswing”, but the material is generally fairly strong, and it showcases Thompson’s out-of-sight guitar chops, the kind of thing that makes him a perennial favorite of Rolling Stone magazine.