Asha Puthli & Bill Laswell

Vocalist Asha Puthli was well-known in her native India before she moved to New York and made a splash in the jazz world. For her Western recording debut, Puthli lent her vocals to "What Reason Could I Give" and "All My Life," a pair of ballads on Ornette Coleman's 1971 Science Fiction LP. She recorded two LPs for Columbia, 1974's Asha Puthli and 1978's The Devil Is Loose, but success in America eluded her, even as she matured into a European chart mainstay. ~ John Bush