John Mayer's Indo-Jazz Fusions 'Asian Airs'

Calcutta-born composer and violinist John Mayer formed Indo-Jazz Fusions in 1966 with leading Jamaican alto saxophonist Joe Harriott. The band toured extensively in Europe until Harriott's death in 1973 and was the first to successfully bring together jazz, classical and Indian musicians. Of course, musicians and composers are borrowing ideas from each other all the time, but this band was the first in which some of the structures and sonic patterns of Indian music were used as a framework for jazz musicians to improvise on. In effect this means treating the raga concept as a modal framework, taking into account ascending and descending scales, charateristic phrases and so on.