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JAZZ & SANGITA

by Tom Ross

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1.
BLUE BOSSA ALAPANA 09:33
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2.
BOSSA END 11:21
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3.
BLUES ALAPANA AND BASS SOLO 07:55
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4.
BLUES GUITAR AND MRDANGAM 10:19
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5.
BLUES END 12:21
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about

In 1980 Jody Cormack, me, Jeff Fuller, T. Viswanathan, and T. Ranganathan (billed as the Kinetic Karnatics of Connecticut) gave a concert, a Jazz and Karnatic Rendezvous, at the World Music Hall at Wesleyan.

Ranga and Viswa (in the photo with other students from that time) had always been pliable in the inevitable culture-clashes attending a long-term residency in the West. Here we proposed (capping a concert with other crosscultural music) to play two well-known jazz tunes: Blue Bossa by Kenny Dorham and Blues in F by Frank Bennett (incidentally married to Geetha Bennett, my first teacher S. Ramanathan's daughter). And not just get by, but play well.

Analogy helped us. The 12-bar blues cycle became Chatusra Ata tala, with a special eduppu or arrival 24 ticks into it, called for by Frank's melody. The pentatonic blues mode was close to the raga Shuddha Dhanyasi, but it had a special wavering third degree and several catch phrases marking it as blues. And Blue Bossa's change of key in its second half was like a rare practice of switching ragas at certain parts of the tala.

Of course both these master musicians ran with the ball, with us in chase. I'm working on uploading this now, and have had to swallow much crow and humility. Starting the second piece Viswa plays some free-rhythm 'blues alapana' -- and here note that was never a hipper crowd to what most improbably unfolds. We'd spent months preparing, with me the student temporarily laying it on the guru. Phrases that were mother's milk in Colorado passed to the court of Tanjore!

His very first 1 3 4 #4 5 3 -- 1 b7; sa ga ma #ma pa ga -- sa bni (a lick worthy of Charlie Parker) and the crowd ERUPTS in laughter and applause, at some length. Viswa later said this unnerved him somewhat, not knowing for sure that it showed everyone's intense surprise and pleasure.

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released November 21, 2017

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Tom Ross Colorado Springs, Colorado

Music, art, poetry spoken here!

As E Dickinson says:

Nature is what we know
but have no art to say
so impotent our wisdom is
to her simplicity

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