The
Brown Indian Band led by bassplayer Colin D'Cruz,
features accomplished Indian classical musicians in concert with
jazz virtuosos.
The band is managed by Mumbai based Mardigras Entertainment and
performs on a resident contract at the JW Marriott hotel in Mumbai.
From the time the band began playing there in April 2006, guests
have made regular enquiries about where they could buy a CD of
this soothing new sound of indo-jazz fusion. This led to the band's
debut album E-Fusion being launched and merchandised by the JW
Marriott hotel. Indian classical music like jazz, is all about
improvised music. Indian classical music is linear and improvisation
is based on just one scale (raga).
Jazz on the other hand has a broader pallette where multiple scales
are often used to improvise through harmonic changes. Indian classical
music is known to be very meloncholic, whereas jazz can be extremely
exuberant. Indian classical music however, has subtle quarter
tones and complex rhythm structures that add a whole new dimension
to jazz. The Brown Indian Band's E-Fusion is
a happy mix of the two systems of musical improvisation.The hour
long album features four tracks based on different ragas and grooves.
Yaman Yatra is a long lazy trip through raag Yaman set to a chilled
lounge beat. Bagya Boogie based on raag Bageshree, is more upbeat
and features brilliant synthesizer and fretless bass solos. Gin
Jyoti spontaneously created from raag Jhinjoti, is driven by a
funky drum 'n' bass groove and punctuated right through with some
heady percussion. Finally a path breaking Deshi Salsa presents
the bansuri in raag Desh, performed for the first time to an infectious
salsa groove. The album title has nothing to do with the current
age that we live in, it's called E-Fusion simply
because all four tunes in the album are performed in the key of
E. |
