Shaz Raja performed music from his album Tales fromthe Punjab at Pizza Express, Soho, on Friday June 16

JAZZ and Indian music have enjoyed a long and fruitful – if sometimes surprising – relationship. I vaguely remember the pioneering Indo-Jazz Fusion albums by John Mayer and, initially, Joe Harriot – British Progressive Jazz, which specialises in mining archives of the 1960s, has just released a quirky Indo-Jazz Fusion album featuring American Larry Adler on harmonica.

My first real taste of Indian classical flirting with jazz was John McLaughlin’s My Goal’s Beyond from 1971, one side of which was a dry run for his Mahavishnu Orchestra and featured Jerry Goodman of a band called The Flock on violin, as well as tabla from Badal Roy and the all-important tanpura drone instrument, played by Mclaughlin’s then-wife Eve.

McLaughlin was a big fan of the Beatles who had, of course, experimented with sitars and, like George Harrison, the guitarist took lessons from Ravi Shankar. One of his later groups was Shakti, featuring Indian tabla player Zakir Hussain, which brings its 50th anniversary (and farewell) tour to this country at the end of the month.

I was reminded of Mclaughlin when listening to bass player Shez Raja at the Pizza Express Soho, who was showcasing music from his album Tales from the Punjab.

Like McLaughlin, he has been on a spiritual journey, in Raja’s case in search of his South Asian roots (he was born in The Wirral and is now London-based). He ended up playing with local musicians in Lahore, combining their raga scales with his jazz chops.

The result is a delicate and involving record, and although some of its subtleties are lost in a live setting, it is compensated for by the energy and commitment his musicians bring to the stage.

Shez Raja

The live band included a violinist, New Zealander Pascal Roggen, whose fiery playing (and flowing hair) summoned up the memory of Jerry Goodman in his pomp. The ever-reliable Toni Kofi on sax provided a solid jazz element, showing off his prodigious circular breathing skills and keyboard player Chris Jerome provided a whole palette of colourings. There were no tanpurs or tablas – the percussive burden fell squarely on the shoulders of the talented Sophie Alloway, the so-called “Goddess of Groove”.

Featuring pieces from Tales from the Punjab and its predecessor, Journey to Shambala, as well as new material, it is an exhilarating show, probably best described as jazz-fusion-funk (with Indian elements). Raja himself if a charming and witty host – not always a given in jazz – who even involved the audience in picking a name for one of the recent tunes (I think in the end we went for The Lucid Path to Enlightenment or a similar Mclaughlin-esque title).

He is also an exceptional bassist, but certainly does not hog the limelight with lengthy solos, as some might.

One highlight of the night was Indian classical singer Japjit Kaur, whose spine-tingling vocals pushed the first half of the show deeper into the subcontinent – I actually would have liked more of her.

During the break I asked Raja about the link between jazz and Indian music. “The key is improvisation,” he said. “Indian music has these 10 scales, six of which it shares with western music. So, I could go in and find common ground with the musicians, even though we didn’t speak the same language, and we could improvise, just as we do in jazz.”

As McLaughlin found, this crossover is a rich seam to mine. Try and catch Raja if you can – having recorded a live album at the Pizza Express, it feels like home to him, so expect him back in Soho soon.

• John McLaughlin’s Shakti plays the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith on June 27 and 28 (see https://serious.org.uk/events/shakti-2).

• You can follow Shez Raja on https://shezraja.com/home and the Pizza Express at https://www.pizzaexpresslive.com/.

• The splendid Tales from the Punjab is out now on Ubuntu Music.