Coming into this show on the Lower East Side a song or two late, I felt a rush to finally be inside the dark interior of this theater, ready to hear sitar, sax, and drums played in a mystical way. It was a cool October evening, leaves outside in the wind somewhere, the stage where Dawoud the sitar mystic was playing designed for theatrical performances, with seats rising up, a dark, bare sliver of an amphitheater (hey, it is NYC after all). Once inside, the music of Dawoud on sitar, Ravish Momin on drums, and Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi on sax rose up and hit me as I made my way around and down to a seat in the front, confronting my ears with an East-meets-West improvisational mix.

I’d seen this lineup before at the University of the Streets months ago, but tonight the vibe (and when discussing mystical-sufi-sitar music there must be no qualms about discussing the ineffable intangibility of “the vibe”, I believe) was more touch-and-go.

Dawoud on a traditional cushioned dais of sorts, supporting his electrified sitar, made the picture of the mystic, with Ravish Momin to the right behind the set with some electronics nearby, and Saadat in between, hair pulled up into a signature grey top-knot, an Iranian “Green Movement” shirt on.

First off, all three of these musicians are operating on an enlightened level, playing with years of experience and their own take on their respective instruments: Saadat (of The Tehran-Dakar Brothers) from Iran balancing on the edges of the modern avant-jazz idiom with drops into skronk and arabic/sephardic tones, Momin (leader of Trio Tarana) from India able to reproduce the classic tabla rhythmic accompaniments that traditionally back sitar and able to experiment with electronics and sampling, and Dawoud from the midwest, USA, yet a Muslim-Sufi somehow steeped in the mysticism of the Far East, carrying the Ravi Shankar/George Harrison banner into the next generation.

All this adds up on-stage to incredible moments at times, especially on the more traditional numbers. I found myself transported in the way anyone familiar with classic sitar would know: layers of knowing expressed through music pulsing out, a building tension moving in non-Western scales, with improvisational segments in the right places, and the musicians with the skill to smoothly transition from part to part.

(from “Off into the Mystic: Sitar Sounds on the East Side” by Jim Hoey)