Indian Jazz Fusion

[SecondBass]

A number of years ago a friend of mine did a collaboration with World Music specialist Chris Conway. Called the Rain Garden it was a fusion of traditional Indian music with my friend, Carl, playing the sitar and tabla, and jazz come funk. It was great stuff as far as I was concerned as I've been a fan of traditional Indian music since hearing Imrat Khan do a concert at the beginning of the Eighties. Annoyingly, none of it has ended up on CD yet - hope still.

Has anybody come across other Indian/Jazz/Funk fusions, as I would be interested to hear them?

[Frederik Magle]

That sounds like quite an interesting project. Personally I'm afraid I don't have much knowledge about Indian/Jazz-Fusion, but I too would be very interested in learning more about that subject.

[alonsi]

you can listen the keltz. They are three musicians, from scotland, ireland and india. Their music is a mixture of Jazz Indian and Celtic.Very amazing!!!

you can visit my musical blog

http://www.larbredeles1000musiques.blogspot.com

and know more about the group and their music.

You also can find Amalgama, spanish flamenco group that plays with a group of Indian percusionist!!!

I hope you like it!!!

[Vikas]

Compositions by George Brooks based on jazz accompanied with Indian percussion instrument like tabla played by maestro Zakir Hussain is a treat to the ear. The music is quite an amalgam with vocals, bass, piano, sarod, sarangi, sitar and drums. Sarod, Sarangi and Sitar are indian string instruments.

[Deeru Piotr]

One could mention a few from the seventies:

Shakti band with John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussein and other indian players
they have made a few recordings from 2000 on notably with flutist Hariprasad Chaurasia

Illuminations with Carlos Santana, Alice Coltrane, stravinskyesque string arrangments, I love this one!

Joe Harriot Jazz Indian quintet from the sixties

surely I'm forgetting some, as soon as I remember will write again, please keep alive this post it is very interesting

[doctortornface]

Can't fault Shakti,just quoted them on another thread.The album Natural Elements, is a firm favourite of mine.

[k-shan]

Also check out 'As night falls on the silk road' by Ghazal. Ghazal comprise of Kayhan Kalhor on the Kamancheh [Persian spike fiddle] and Shujaat Husain Khan [son of the legendary Ustad Vilayat Khan] with Swapan Chaudhuri on tablas.

Using simple minor key folky melodies as a base, the musicians construct improvisations at first haunting and introspective building gradually to estatic climaxes of exhilarating virtuosity.

The music is conceived as a fusion between Persian and Indian traditions but the scales [natural minor and harmonic minor] and time signatures [4/4 and 6/8] are common to western music and the music has a universal quality that transcends cultures.

Ghazal have produced other albums together but 'As night falls on the silk road' is to my mind their strongest. It is an extraordinary record, passionate and haunting, and has been a major source of inspiration for me.

k-shan


www.k-shan.com

[Spitfire87]

As others have mentioned, Shakti is definately worth checking out. If you're interested, Talvin Singh has some interesting tunes based more on an electronica/eastern fusion but still incorporates lots of sitar and tabla. Another track Ive heard is Mathar Indian Vibes by The Dave Pike Set, a band from the 60's. I havent heard anything else by them, though they might have that sound in other songs.

[FOWL]

Second Bass! I know of a band that is EXACTLY what you are looking for!
Shakti is an amazing group, (and I have to say Hadful of Beuty is much better than natural elements) but they have nothing funky about them.
Check out the Toronto Tabla Ensemble, I had a hard time finding any examples of their music online, but I got the cd Second Pala Years ago and highly recommend it! The song Insomnia is by far my favorite! Enjoy!
http://www.tablaensemble.com/store_cds.html

[MorningStar]

I listen to an internet radio at work sometimes and tabla.com plays some very interesting stuff.

[sunwaiter]

george harrisson did produced an abum that featured ravi shankar and lots of indian musicians, it 's called "i'm missing you". maybe you already know that record, and it's not really funky, except for little parts of it.

serge gainsbourg used sitar, like many "pop" composers did at the end of the sixties.

otherwise, i don't know a thing about real indian jazz/funk/fusion artists. and i'd like to.

[Jalshaghar]

Am a new member. Happy to see such interest in Fusion music - been into this for many years. Please check out http://www.asthadigital.com/downloads.php.

[Jalshaghar]

Please check out http://www.asthadigital.com/downloads.php
Jalshaghar

[John Watt]

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.