Due to last year's Grammy nomination of jazz harpist Brandee Younger, many jazz fans have recently become aware again of the narrow, but all the more amazing oeuvre of her great role model Dorothy Ashby. She recorded probably her most eccentric, but at the same time incredibly accessible album for Cadet Records in 1970: "The Rubáiyát Of Dorothy Ashby". On it she set quatrains by the Persian poet Omar Chayyām (1048-1131) to music, delightfully fusing spiritual jazz, funk and blues with elements of Asian and African music. In addition to her harp, Ashby also plays the Japanese koto here and sang.