Sunday Times 2
Jazz evening for The Sunshine Charity
View(s):A ‘Jazz Evening’ for The Sunshine Charity featuring Alto Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa and his Jazz Quartet Gamak will take place at the Dutch Burgher Union on Friday, December 4 at 8.30 p.m.
Rudresh Mahanthappa, artist and composer, is one of the most acclaimed jazz musicians in New York and the world, called “a leading figure in innovative jazz circles” by the Chicago Tribune. He is winner of Guggenheim, NYFA, Rockefeller Foundation and Doris Duke fellowships among numerous other prestigious awards. Mahanthappa’s compositions are heavily informed by his identity as a second-generation Indian-American, and the sounds he and his bands Samdhi and Gamak (among others) produce are a hybrid of progressive jazz and Carnatic (Classical South Indian) music.
“Bird Calls,” his latest album under the ACT+Vision label was released to critical acclaim. Mahanthappa’s playing of the jazz sax is characterised by a “roving intellect and bladelike articulation,” (New York Times) and his composition has been called “improvisation of a global kind, as universal in its appeal as it was international in its inspiration” (Chicago Tribune). Not much of Mahanthappa’s work is available for streaming online, but what little is available is taste enough of how rich, energetic and delightfully accessible his work is.
The saxophone player/composer collaborates regularly with jazz giant pianist Vijay Iyer, guitarist RezAbbasi and drummer Dan Weiss who Colombo already encountered at the Musicmatters Festival in 2014. Both Abbasi and Weiss will also be featured at the Jazz Evening with Rudresh Mahanthappa, alongside bassist Rich Brown who is also a part of Samdhi.
Abbasi studied both jazz and classical music before he launched into a stellar career as performer in Europe, Canada, the US, Mexico and India. He has nine studio albums and numerous awards and accolades under his belt. Abbasi and Mahanthappa play together often as the Indo-Pak Coalition, with Weiss on drum kit.
We are now becoming accustomed to hearing Sum Suraweera from the Musicmatters school play traditional Sri Lankan drums on the drumkit. What Weiss does is similar, except his patterns are taken from traditional table sound and technique. Weiss has over a decade of training in India, and a longer period of experience playing extensively in Europe and the US alongside such names as Anoushka Shankar, daughter of the famed Ravi Shankar.
Canadian bassist Rich Brown also plays with some of the world’s best known names in contemporary and progressive jazz. Among these is bassist Thomas Clayton who was featured at the Musicmatters festival in Colombo last August.