The strings are secured to the neck with red-twisted cotton cords , which finish with a gold colored metallic tassel. The sides of the instrument depict scenes from the Ramayana in gold against a black subject. Often used to accompany songs, instruments like this one had their orgins in historic India and characterize one of the oldest surviving harp traditions. Endowed with cosmological and metaphysical significance and empowered to speak the deepest feelings, this zither , beloved of sages and of Confucius, is essentially the most prestigious instrument in China. Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) writers state that the qin helped to cultivate character, understand morality, supplicate gods and demons, improve life, and enrich studying. Jacob Schmid (1642–1720) was the founder of a trumpet-making workshop in Nuremberg, which flourished under his son Johann Jacob and grandson Paulus for about a century.

Eleven years younger than Lovano, Douglas is a jazz …