That Indian Jazz Guy

There are few musicians who balance innovative and entertaining hooks at one time, and this quartet playing a piece from New York-based Indian origin musician Mahanthappa’s last album Gamak in a YouTube video, seems to be the answer. Gamak literally means a precise technique of ornamentation in Indian classical music. For Mahanthappa, who often collaborates with Grammy-nominated jazz musician Vijay Iyer and jazz legend Bunky Green, “it’s also the beauty of melody as it occurs all over the world”.

“My music is a hybrid of Indian classical music and jazz, but to me, it’s an expression of my experience as a child of Indian immigrants, brought up in America,” says Mahanthappa. Growing up in an Indian home in Colorado, not really speaking Kannada — his mother tongue — waking up to devotional music played by his mother and listening to ’70s and ’80s rock mixed with a bit of Segovia and Chuck Mangione and jazz, it was a mixed musical experience for Mahanthappa. “People often assumed I was an expert on Indian music because of my name and the colour of my skin, even though I was listening to the same Western music as everyone. I became intimidated by Indian music and kind of avoided it,” says Mahanthappa. It wasn’t until 1993 when he came to India, that his personal quandaries somewhat diminished.

Like all saxophone players, Mahanthappa began on alto sax, something that he plays with an improv-packed punch, and stuck to it. It’s a choice he has made consciously over baritone and tenor sax. “Alto always felt right for my body, my vocal range, and sonic imagination,” says Mahanthappa.

The synthesis of so many forms is beautiful in Mahanthappa’s music but he actively avoids the term fusion. “There are many situations or collaborations where Indian and Western musicians are sitting next to each other playing on the same stage, but not with each other. It’s usually due to lack of knowledge about how a bridge can be created between the two musical cultures even though there are so many seamless paths between them with regard to rhythm, melody and improvisation. I’m not picking some of one and some of the other and mashing them together. The synthesis comes from years of internalising the sonic ideas and potentials of both forms,” he says.

For now, Mahanthappa is touring the world and is looking at performing in India soon. He is also working on his next album, which will be out this year. “My goal is to make music that is always simultaneously smart and passionate, soulful and intellectual, and relevant to contemporary culture, while bearing a message or an energy to which anyone can relate regardless of background, race or culture,” he says.

suanshu.khurana@expressindia.com