....Bangalore.... JazzFest: Smooth Grooves, Sizzling Fusion!
by Madanmohan Rao
World Music Editor and RJ
March 2009
Cool weather. Clear skies. A relaxed weekend. Flocks of giant bats flying overhead at sunset. The splendour of the crescent moon alongside Venus. And lots of concert goers. A perfect setting for the Black Dog Indigo and Blues Jazz Festival! Held at the KSLTA tennis grounds in the midst of ....Cubbon.. ..Park...., the 2009 edition of the jazzfest began with Britain-based Matt Littlewood quartet.
The energy level then picked up several notches with a sizzling guitar set by Dhruv Ghanekar along with American saxophonist Carl Clements. At BangJazzFest, Dhruv played many tracks from his 2009 album, ‘Distance.’ It features two fine fusion tracks, Conscious and Sundays.
Fans of jazz vocals were treated to a phenomenal display of singing and scatting by Marilena Paradisi, acknowledged as one of the finest jazz vocalists in ....Italy..... She delivered scorching duets of scatting and jamming with keyboards, sax, bass and percussion – sometimes even singing like a trombone.
Day One of the jazzfest could not have ended on a better note with the next band: a ....New Orleans.... group headed by the charismatic singer Margie Perez. Cuban-born Washington-raised Margie Perez is a dynamic and vivacious performer specialising in a versatile blend of blues, pop, ....New Orleans.... funk, and Latin music. She has released a great new CD, “Singing For My Supper,” from which she played many tracks at BangJazzFest.
The second day of the BangJazzFest began with an acoustic trio, featuring Honduras-born Wanayran Angerer who has been living in ....India.... since 2006, The next band to perform was one of the more unusual performances at BangJazzFest: a French Indo-fusion band called Masala Dosa! The story of the band begins in 1997, when French guitarist Pierre-Jean Duffour moved to ....Varanasi.... to study sitar and Indian music with master Tarak Nath Mishra. In 2002, back in France, he founded the fusion band Masala Dosa, which now features his brother Brice Duffour on bass and Franck Lemoine on drums. They were also accompanied by Ravi Chandra Kulur on flute at their ....Bangalore.... performance.
Indian jazz great Louiz Banks and his band The Louiz Banks Brotherhood featured superb solos by Gino Banks on drums and Sheldon D’Silva on six-string bass. The last band to perform featured a French piano-flute combo. We look forward to the next edition of the Indigo JazzFest already!! (http://music.techsparks.com/)