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Gosh! What a show!
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The confluence of Indian classical and Jazz music at a concert held at the Taj Fisherman's Cove was an adventurous exercise
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ENERGY AND EXPERIMENTATION Sunando Mukherjee and Bikram Ghosh performing at the concert
When Bikram Ghosh played with the French band Mezcal Jazz Unit at the Taj Fisherman's Cove recently, purists were a little disturbed and the open-minded applauded the effort to build bridges between Indian Classical and European jazz music. The concert was an initiative of the Alliance Francaise of Madras and the Embassy of France in India, in association with Prakriti Foundation.
It was a rather uneven balance between the genres as the Indian artistes completely dominated the concert for long phases during the evening, with the French band seemingly content playing background score. The overpowering energy of Ghosh's percussion and Parthasarathy Desikan's vocals took over the original compositions of the French musicians Emmanuel de Gouvello and Jean-Marie Frederic, which by themselves, were a fine independent work of jazz music.
The two-week artistes-in-residence programme of the French Embassy resulted in this collaborative effort, which came in for criticism from one section of the audience that drubbed the attempt as "con-fusion" rather than a confluence while the more sporting lovers of music lauded the individual spells of brilliance. Saxophonist Chirstophe Azema, particularly, entertained the audience with his delightful counter to Indian percussion, matching it in rhythm and energy, in one of the truly cohesive moments of the show, halfway into the first piece of the day `Amayee', a composition by Emmanuel. But the fact that the twain did not meet too often did not matter much, given the sheer exhibition of energy by the Indian artistes and the excited exposition of jazz by the French, one after the other, rather than one beside the other as many expected.
Drummer Vivian Peres and Bikram Ghosh faced-off during a mini-percussion contest and Sarod player Sunando Mukherjee turned out to be a sound complement to guitarists Emmanuel (bass) and Jean-Marie matching them string-to-string, chord-to-chord.
The result was explosive, as the concert promised. Like Jean Pascal of the Alliance Francaise observed before the show, Jazz music does lend itself to festive improvisation, openness, humour, non-conformity and adventure. From that perspective, the brave attempt at fusion did work, even if in patches.
Maybe it wasn't seamless, but it sure seemed to be an adventurous exercise in building bridges, that fascinated the open-minded.
SUDHISH KAMATH
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