Orjazzm!
Delhi Jazz Utsav. I went with Nikhil, met Anshuman, primordiallogus, RD, Mal, Archan, Avjit, Sheena, and (briefly) Suneera, and just got home.
It was brilliant. Today the Steve Siqueira quintet played, followed by Mynta and the Jonas Hellborg group.
Siqueira was decent, actually very good. Very 'conventional' (is jazz ever conventional?), but very enjoyable.
Mynta blew me away. They're Swedish(well three of them are - the others are American, Cuban and Indian). Brilliant. My first music-gasm since L. Subramaniam a few years ago.
The Jonas Hellborg one was great too...a loud, Jazz-rock-metal-indian-thingy. A fiendish jazzrockmetalindian thingy! I don't think some of the older members of the audience were expecting this at a jazz concert, but it was magnificent, and I've rarely seen an audience get that caught up in what a band is doing. Plus Mattias Ekhlund is extremely amusing. I wonder how much of that is planned...when Hellborg would do something amazing, Ekhlund would break the tension by saying/doing something silly.
We went outside after the concert and we just stood looking at each other for a second. Silence. Then Sayak goes "well they did make mistakes."
There's two ways music can thrill me. One is the 'fulfilling' way (which is rare), where music just vibrates through me. And no matter how edgy the music itself is, it's fulfilling in a warm soup/cold day kind of way.
The other is the teasing way...it's beautiful and elusive and just out of reach. You want to rise to meet it (and I find myself doing so physically, the back is arched, the thigh muscles are strained, the stomach clenches and unclenches) and it draws you up but never quite gets you there. Tantalising. Gorgeous.
(Sayak, I bought Teabreak - Anshuman's borrowed it for today, so you'll have a copy in Pune.)
And another music-related observation. Ella Fitzgerald played loudly on the car radio with the windows open...this may be a good thing, but not when you drive through a wedding party with a brass band murdering old hindi movie songs.
It was brilliant. Today the Steve Siqueira quintet played, followed by Mynta and the Jonas Hellborg group.
Siqueira was decent, actually very good. Very 'conventional' (is jazz ever conventional?), but very enjoyable.
Mynta blew me away. They're Swedish(well three of them are - the others are American, Cuban and Indian). Brilliant. My first music-gasm since L. Subramaniam a few years ago.
The Jonas Hellborg one was great too...a loud, Jazz-rock-metal-indian-thingy. A fiendish jazzrockmetalindian thingy! I don't think some of the older members of the audience were expecting this at a jazz concert, but it was magnificent, and I've rarely seen an audience get that caught up in what a band is doing. Plus Mattias Ekhlund is extremely amusing. I wonder how much of that is planned...when Hellborg would do something amazing, Ekhlund would break the tension by saying/doing something silly.
We went outside after the concert and we just stood looking at each other for a second. Silence. Then Sayak goes "well they did make mistakes."
There's two ways music can thrill me. One is the 'fulfilling' way (which is rare), where music just vibrates through me. And no matter how edgy the music itself is, it's fulfilling in a warm soup/cold day kind of way.
The other is the teasing way...it's beautiful and elusive and just out of reach. You want to rise to meet it (and I find myself doing so physically, the back is arched, the thigh muscles are strained, the stomach clenches and unclenches) and it draws you up but never quite gets you there. Tantalising. Gorgeous.
(Sayak, I bought Teabreak - Anshuman's borrowed it for today, so you'll have a copy in Pune.)
And another music-related observation. Ella Fitzgerald played loudly on the car radio with the windows open...this may be a good thing, but not when you drive through a wedding party with a brass band murdering old hindi movie songs.