Zilka Rec. Kalyan Pathak & Jayho Jazzmata : The Shape of ragazz to come... (IND,2000)****°
What I immediately noticed when listening to this is that I couldn’t categorize it into what people generally consider to be ‘Indojazz’. Many tracks I thought of having a real ‘Indian jazz’ feeling, with true Indian spirit and fusing abilities, completely based upon both principles, which is very different to a typical Indojazz-mix. But 'Indian Jazz' still is only one spirit behind this work but not the norm. There’s at least one moment, like with track 4, when the improvisation becomes completely American bepop as well.
When reading about the ideas behind this group I noticed Kalyan Pathak called the group’s starting point ‘Ragazz’ :
“Ragazz (rah-gaz’) is Kalyan Pathak’s demonstration of creating transformative Indian Classical Raga and American Jazz that continues the improvisation tradition of both musical idioms”,“as a meeting place where the elements of both forms of music reflect off each other and stretch into each other’s territory.” and also :
“Ragazz is not raga music, nor is it jazz, and with utmost respect for both traditions, Ragazz is about developing musical conversations using the languages of raga and jazz; let the accents fly. It is important that Ragazz musical arrangements result from the organic process of performers interacting with each other within the band. Such an effort reinforces the belief that new music can only be created when musicians themselves study many different musical traditions to their best ability and be well versed in them. Therefore, to play Ragazz is to invest in the human ability to learn to play another culture’s music.” This is also done “in reaction”, or depolarization “of fashionable digital samples and computerized loops which are unjustly portraying, exploiting or stereotyping ethnic musical styles from all over the world, including jazz.”
And Kalyan truly succeed in bringing this principle to something else other than a blend : like an interposed communication. Highly recommended to any Indojazz fan !
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional info : Musicians are Kalyan Pathak (tabla, drums), Matt Kanelos (piano), Matt Thompson (double bass), Arati Shah-Yukich (vocals, tapura), Hitesh Master (vocals, harmonium), Elizabeth Basta (vocals), Ryan Shultz (bass trumpet), Ron Dewar, (tenor sax on two tracks), Scott Burns (tenor on two tracks, soprano sax on one), Jonathan Paul (electric bass), Puranlal Vyas and Shivanad Bagar (Indian percussion instruments : dholak, tabla, madal, manjeera, naal, dhol, dholak).
