The Indo-Pak Coalition, and band leader Rudresh Mahanthappa, will be making their North Carolina debut this Saturday at Duke Performances’s WAIL! jazz saxophone festival. Synthesizing jazz with South-Asian sounds, the Coalition’s music defies the preconceptions many people have concerning Indo-jazz fusion.
Director of Duke Performances Aaron Greenwald said he was looking to bring something different to the world of jazz at Duke.
“A lot of the innovative work I heard when I was programming the season was coming from saxophonists,” Greenwald said. “It seemed innovative to put those performances consecutively and call it a festival.”
Two of the works Greenwald alluded to are Apti, a 2008 release by the Indo-Pak Coalition—comprised of Guggenheim fellow Mahanthappa, guitarist Rez Abbasi and tabla drummer Dan Weiss—and Kinsmen, a collaboration between Mahanthappa and saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath.
“What I was impressed by in both records was the sort of clarity and focus and intensity of Rudresh’s playing,” Greenwald said. “It made the work intense and accessible, which I found exciting.”
The Coalition’s current lineup of Mahanthappa, Abbasi and Weiss has been around for a few years now, but it wasn’t the first iteration.
“I started this project in Chicago briefly in 1996, and at that time it didn’t really feel right,” Mahanthappa said. “One of the main things to avoid is exoticism—to engage with both [jazz and Indian music] equally.... Ten years later, I was better equipped to give it another go, so I started up the group again in 2005.”
Mahanthappa said he feels an obligation to deal with Indian music on a deep level, derived from both his ancestry and the reality of being an artist in a hybrid culture.
“I feel like I’m kind of a sponge, I try to absorb as much as what I can from around me,” Mahanthappa said. “Obviously I’m influenced by the great tradition of jazz and, of course, lots of Indian music.” Mahanthappa, however, said he didn’t always have such a deep appreciation for jazz.
“I started playing sax in elementary school cause I thought it would be cool. As a saxophonist, you don’t have many options, most of the time you’ll be a jazz player…. I was inspired by artists who were coming out of the soul/R&B background, but instrumental as opposed to vocal,” Mahanthappa said. “It wasn’t really until I got into college that [classical jazz] started to make sense to me.”
These days, Rudresh is keeping very busy with his music. He leads or co-leads nine separate projects, working in different areas like Indian synthesis and electric jazz. He said he is excited for the WAIL! festival, which gives him his first chance to bring his unique form of music to the Southeast.
Greenwald is also optimistic about the upcoming festival.
“I hope that people are exposed to great music,” Greenwald said. “I can say all the things I normally say about exposure to art—that it somehow makes you more human. That if artists could express what they want to say in words then they would say it in words. This isn’t just a jam, there’s some complexity. It’s more than just passion, but purpose.”
Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition will perform Feb. 12 at 8 p.m. in the Nelson Music Room on East Campus. Tickets are $22 for the general public or $5 for students.
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