For those unaware, Talking Hands is an album conceived by two members, Greg Hatza and Enayet Hossain, of the jazz-world fusion group Melodic Intersect.

It entails their years of experience in the genre and their chemistry with each other.

It can be best described as a musical amalgamation of styles and vibes which goes beyond cultural differences and music styles.

It represents a mosaic of cross-cultural musical expression which produces a unique borderless muscical experience.

1. Talking Hands
2. Crazy Calcutta Streets
3. Sweet Shop
4. Dark Matter
5. Midnight Mood
6. Deep Love
7. Sultan’s Dream
8. The Conversation
9. Dialogue

This wholesome, nurtured and amazingly melodic album opens on the titular, infectious rhythms within Talking Hands and the bass-led funky grooves of Crazy Calcutta Streets and then brings us the fine-tuned inflections within the rhythmic hipsway of Sweet Shop, the almost synth-imbibed Dark Matter and then comes the softly centered Midnight Mood.

Up next is one of my own personal favorites, the virtually effervescent tones within Deep Love and that is itself followed seamlessly by the Eastern-embed brilliance of musical arrangements within Sultan’s Dream, the album rounding out on the flourishing The Conversation, coming to an all too soon close on the near ten minute, aptly-named, back and forth opus, Dialogue.

Greg Hatza is an American jazz organist born in 1948 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Hatza started on piano at age five, and switched to organ at age fifteen. He played professionally from age sixteen, working for four years at Lenny Moore’s club.

He recorded two albums for Coral Records in the late 1960s with guitarist Eric Gale and drummer Grady Tate, then switched to electric keyboards in the 1970s as the organ’s popularity waned. From 1974 to 1984, he studied tabla under Ustad Hamid Hossain.

He later performed ragas on piano, in concert with Hamid, in the U.S., India, and Bangladesh. He returned to playing the organ in the 1990s after hearing Joey DeFrancesco, and recorded again as a leader with his ensemble, the Greg Hatza ORGANization.

In 1996, he began to study Chinese classical music on the erhu, a two-stringed Chinese fiddle, under Shanghai instructor, Liang Shan Tang.

Enayet Hossain was born into a musical family, his grandfather, the late great Ustad Kader Buksh was acknowledged as one of India’s foremost musicologist/musician. Enayet learned the tabla from his father, Ustad Hamid Hossain, a very well known Indian music teacher and musician based in the United States.

Enayet was born in Bangladesh and raised in the United States and represents a new breed of musicians who received their musical training outside of India.

Enayet is a versatile performer of tabla. He is at ease with accompaniment with North Indian classical music, instrumental music, light and semi classical music including thumri, ghazal, dadra, et al. as well as giving solo performances.

Official Spotify Purchase Link

Greg Hatza Official Website