Looking some more off the beaten path stuff outside of Alice Coltrane. New and old. Something with Sitars or Tanpura maybe. Thanks.
For South Asian jazz fusion, definitely check out the above mentioned Joe Harriot- John Mayer stuff. Additions off the top of my head: For contemporary stuff, Rudresh Mahanthappa's stuff, maybe Kinsmen, with the ensemble he co-led with the great saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath, or Agrima by his Indo-Pak coalition, and Rez Abbassi's. Ravi Shankar's Improvisations albums has collaborations with jazz musicians like Bud Shank and Gary Peacock. Charlie Mariano did fusion with South Indian music, maybe more Carnatic than jazz. . Check out his albums with the Karnataka College of Percussion -- there's Jyothi, and a live one. I'm not sure it's jazz per se but John McLaughlin's Shakti. Zakir Hussain has played all kinds of music including lots of South Asian/jazz fusion. Maybe his Making Music.
For a short time I took guitar lessons from the player in this band - very rhythmically intensive, my whole musical life for a quarter was trying to incorporate Indian tal into my playing. Always just out of reach. Ancient Future may be a little more "new age" sounding than what you're looking for, but worth digging into with a cup of coffee on a quiet Sunday morning.
You should investigate the early 70's work of Don Cherry as well. Find his album Brown Rice on YouTube.
Of course Within You Without You is only a pastiche of Indian music, for some it may be their sum total exposure. Here Jimmy Herring performs an incendiary version in a jazz fusion setting. One of my favorite guitar-centric Beatles covers ever.
Oh man, I absolutely love this album. I'm so glad you mentioned it as you've reminded me to listen to it again.
Some bandcamp music: Shahbaz Hussain and Helen Anahita Wilson Wonderful tabla and piano jazz excursions from these two. Indo Jazz Fusions with Larry Adler, by John Mayer's Indo Jazz Fusions with Larry Adler Nuff said!
BTW, Mahanthappa's records are usually pretty great, but that Kinsmen project is particularly special. Just saw some video clips of a UMASS performance they did. Wish I had seen this band.
Rabih Abou-Khalil, a Lebanese oud player who has recorded many albums for the enja label. Also check out The Well by Brad Shepik. And trumpeter, Yazz Ahmed.
I like the Diga Rhythm Band. Granted, it's almost entirely percussion. But the ensemble playing on classical Indian tal meter exercises- "Magnificent Sevens", "Sweet Sixteens"- is terrific. A real fun big-group extrapolation on a form that one most often only hears by a solo tabla player, or by a duet of percussionists. There are melodies- on the track "Sweet Sixteens", it's carried by a vibraphone
You may just find that you like straight-up Indian classical music, like the sarod playing of Ali Akbar Khan. He's also done collaborations with American jazz musicians- for instance, with saxophonist John Handy
Yusef Lateef has some Eastern-influenced material. As does Charles Lloyd. And Gabor Szabo's Jazz Raga. (The Youtube clips I've auditioned sound like they were a needle drop from a turntable with a bad motor, though.) And, oh yeah, it isn't just Alice Coltrane who got into Eastern musical influences. So did her husband.
the Joe Harriott & John Mayer Double Quintet's Indo-Jazz Suite is a fantastic blending of Indian classical music and western jazz:
One of my local FM stations used to broadcast an hour of Indian raga music every weekend, in the early 1970s. I was around 15, 16 years old. I found that I loved straight-up Indian ragas on sitar, with drone accompaniment on the tanpura. An acquired taste, but one that I had little difficulty acquiring.
To follow up on PH's comments on more traditional Indian music - I'd suggest Ravi Shankar's album "Three Ragas." Something I've enjoyed quite a bit. Found it searching for more traditional fare after really enjoying the Mermen song "White Trash Raga" - which isn't traditionally Indian NOR Indian/Jazz mix, but it's a lot of fun too...
