A couple of weeks ago I was in London with a great Persian singer and multi-instrumentalist called Hamed Nikpay to play a show and do a live in-studio recording for the BBC Persia channel. The show was at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, and the recording session was at one of London’s famous rehearsal and recording studios, Premises Studios and was for the BBC’s Persian channel.

I had never played with Hamed before (or with any Persian musicians – except for a few rehearsals and a little warm-up gig we did in L.A. before we left), but he always has a flamenco guitarist with him (usually my good friend Alfredo Cáceres, who couldn’t make these dates), as he likes the vibe that gives. I don’t know much about Persian music, but apparently this is fusion and that’s the sound he likes, and it certainly sounds right. The musical director was sax player