Deva dip India jazz fusion.
Yeah! What can you say about the culture of India when they have the world's oldest book? They're always on and coming on as an influence. But I'm not commenting on musicians who meld modern instruments with the traditional. I'm asking, is this an Indian jazz fusion?
I'm standing onstage, looking over the audience, my six-string guitar with tremolo, effects and amplifier all warmed up. I wouldn't be there, if I wasn't warmed up. The sound system quiets, and I can see people getting their heads up, looking to listen, looking around, and a doorman goes down the hall to the band room, where I had been singing "Whole Lotta Love" and thumping a beat with a roomful of pounding partiers, still banging on everything. The other band members are just looking at me, smiling, having a sip. It's going to be a good one. I'm not thinking Ravi, Shakti or Maharishi. I'm wearing a bright yellow shirt from the India shop downtown, and employees are sitting up front. Hey! Let's do a sitar.
I start turning the volume up a little, twiddling two fingers behind the middle of the neck. The small strings, G, B and E start ringing out, humming a little. I want some jangle, so I lower the guitar and work in tapping behind the bridge, scraping a lower E or A and pointing the neck down to my feet, where I'm trying some stylized Bollywood footwork. That's enough of that. I'm standing back up, turning up the guitar, and as I reach a droning level of softly chorussed and phased chords, I start hammering and pulling Bb to open G on the G string. I hear a tambourine being shivered, it gets louder, and there are pings and tinks happening. A low G begins to crest. How bazaar.
I'm still hammering the G string, adding volume until it's lost in the swell of rising volume and effects, so I have to move my finger up the string for volume dominance. I hammer an A. Leaving some bass with the floating drones, I can start working the G string, the higher I go up the fretboard the more dominant it sounds, and I'm working it, four fingers in a row up and down the string, pulling, bending, hand always on the tremolo to pitch compensate for such a high fret to open droning strings. I'm thinking Ravi should have used a pick, I'm thinking I'm getting too into it, and look around. This leaves me floating, trailing down the string, and I'm seeing the audience, so I reach up and inject some raunchy blues, the opening melody to Whole Lotta Love, "you need learnin', you need learnin' babe, I'm gonna send you back to schoolin", whipping quick riffs down the neck. Yeah, people are shouting right on! The India shop crowd is looking very happy. I'm sailing now, streaming some Hendrix "Third Stone from The Sun" octave melody, and when my sitar technique starts to wear thin on me, I start pushing the tremolo unit down, down, down, adding a deeply detuned percussive descent that could be a tiger growl. This sounds good, so I get into it with the drummer, who is really doing tabla timings, rubbing his elbow into the big tom and getting those do-whoop do-whoops. I'm backing off, using a tone control, maybe both, to mute myself. Everyone is starting to slow down, get a little quiet, and I'm thinking there's that riff, so I tamp down the big effects, and start the intro of "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts, a nice song to start a set with.
An American guitar, an English amp, wah-wah from Italy, effects from Japan, a musician of Scottish descent born in Canada. Is this India jazz fusion?
And "songs to start a set with", sounds like a new thread.