The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : An evening of sheer energy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 20, 2007
ePaper


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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

An evening of sheer energy

Staff Reporter

ROCKING: The American band Ozomatli performing in Bangalore on Monday. — Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Bangalore: The audience got more than a slice of America when Ozomatli performed in the city on Monday. Latin, salsa, hip-hop, jazz, Afro-Cuban, rock `n' roll, flamenco, rap and a little Hindustani, one lost count of the genres the band went through in one performance.

Brought down by the American Center, the band, named after an Aztec astrological symbol, hails from Los Angeles and fittingly started off with a tribute to their home city, "City Of Angels". The crowd at the Ambedkar Bhavan had a large expatriate contingent and they, familiar with the music, were on their feet dancing as soon as the band began.

Soon Bangaloreans joined in and there was hardly anyone sitting, because if you sat you could not see anything.

Tempo

The tempo of Ozomatli's music was fierce with energy that was more than just palpable. The nine-member band was multi-ethnic with a majority of Latin Americans. Thus the dominant flavour was from that part of the world.

The powerful trumpets and the saxophone, strained eardrums as the band went through their repertoire of Spanish numbers.

The flamenco really got the crowd going with a few enthusiasts even making it on to the stage to groove.

The bass and the lead guitarists really set the pace and a couple of band members joined the crowd on the stage to shake a leg.

Rapper Jabu slowed the tempo with some gangsta rap but that didn't stop a few from the crowd from coming on to the stage and try to bust a move.

The other rapper in the group Justin brought some political overtones in his lyrics. The band is at the forefront of the anti-war movement in the U.S. and they were brought down here courtesy the U.S. State Department.

"Let The Good Times Flow" was an understatement as the band showed another facet when they played some club music, judiciously using electronic samples. Earlier in the day, they had jammed with some musicians from the Percussive Arts Centre, Jayanagar, and slide guitarist Prakash Sontakke came on stage to jam.

The oriental tunes that followed were simply eclectic and the raagas just started flowing irrespective of the vast cultural gulf between the performers.

Ozomatli rounded off the evening with some more of their signature numbers and left behind an audience that definitely had tired feet.

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