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SAXOPHONIST RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPA'S KINSMEN
RECEIVES UNIVERSAL CRITICAL ACCLAIM

ALBUM IS TOP JAZZ CD ACCORDING TO NPR, Rolling Stone, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Village Voice, Boston Globe, Seattle Times, Denver Post, Boston Phoenix, JazzTimes, Slate.com, PopMatters, All Music Guide + MANY MORE

Kinsmen is the highly acclaimed, groundbreaking project by alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa (rude-RESH mah-HAHN-tha-pa) that melds jazz with South Indian music into a single organic whole. Mahanthappa -- recently named a Top 10 alto saxophonist in the 2008 DownBeat Critic's Poll, the #2 jazz album of 2008 in The Village Voice's Third Annual Jazz Critic's Poll, Artist of the Year by the venerated All About Jazz-New York and one of Take Five's Best Jazz CDs of 2008 on NPR Music -- is clearly one of the most innovative young musicians in jazz today.

Last week, veteran journalist Howard Mandel profiled Mahanthappa on NPR's All Things Considered in an extensive story about Kinsmen and the burgeoning South Asian jazz scene in New York.Listen to the full story here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98818133&ft=1&f=1039).

Kinsmen has also recently been proclaimed a top album of 2008 by an astonishing list of critics at NPR, BBC 3, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, WashingtonPost.com, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, The Denver Post, The Boston Phoenix, The Philadelphia City Paper, JazzTimes Magazine, Slate.com, PopMatters.com, All Music Guide, About.com and many other blogs and websites. See full list below for links and rankings.

BACKGROUND

Kinsmen is Rudresh Mahanthappa's collaboration with Kadri Gopalnath, a living legend of Indian music known as "The Emperor of the Saxophone," a true innovator in bringing the saxophone to Indian classical music. The music on Kinsmen, featuring their co-led Dakshina Ensemble, is exemplar of successful multicultural, transnational collaboration. Utilizing his extensive knowledge of both jazz and the traditional melodic and rhythmic concepts of Indian music, Mahanthappa has masterfully provided a framework that has brought out the best in all the musicians, resulting in spectacular interaction and virtuosic displays from Gopalnath, A. Kanyakumari on violin and Rez Abassi on guitar. The band also features Poovalur Sriji on Mridangam (South Indian barrel drum), Carlo de Rosa on acoustic bass and royal hartigan (sic) on drums.

For Mahanthappa, who grew up in Boulder, Colorado to Indian immigrant parents, the pull of Indian classical music didn't come until his college years, when he toured India with the Berklee College of Music All-Stars and was lucky to attend an all-night concert outside of Bangalore where he heard both Carnatic (South Indian) and Hindustani (North Indian) music performed by greats such as Parween Sultana and Chitti Babu. As a young jazz musician, Rudresh saw the parallels between Indian music and jazz with both being improvised art forms with inherently strong rhythmic propulsion. Though he grappled for a way to embrace his Indian-American identity through his music, Rudresh could not find a clear entry point as he had no awareness of any saxophone tradition in classical Indian music. Then one evening, moments after the conclusion of one of his recitals at Berklee, Rudresh's older brother gave him a CD (as congratulatory gift and as a joke) called Saxophone Indian Style by Kadri Golpalnath. A complete eye-opener, the CD provided a doorway into the realm of musical possibilities for Rudresh through which he could finally engage the music of his ancestry.

A few years later, Mahanthappa managed to meet Kadri backstage at a Carnatic concert in Boston. Golpalnath was not only ecstatic to meet an Indian-American jazz saxophonist, but one of South Indian roots with a name that he deemed to have a powerful Hindu meaning - Rudresh, in Sanskrit, refers to a fierce incarnation of Shiva who saved the human race and Mahanthappa is derived from the same roots as "mahatma," or "great soul." Though not trained in jazz, Gopalnath too saw the similarities between the art forms and was enthusiastic about the possibility of joining forces at some point. This became a reality when, with the help of a Rockefeller Grant and a commission from New York City's Asia Society, Rudresh traveled to Chennai (Madras) in 2005 to work with Kadri at what would eventually become the music on Kinsmen.

Mahanthappa set out to create a body of music that draws on the strengths of both the American and Indian musicians - a music that embodies the rhythmic diversity and harmonic complexity of jazz and the melodic and metrical rigor of Indian classical music. Utilizing Indian ragas, songs, and rhythmic cycles as a starting point, he composed new melodies and harmonies that connect them with a jazz sensibility. About the collaboration, Rudresh says, "The piece is really about finding this middle ground where we're both comfortable playing in this setting that is half-Western and half-South Indian, and maybe pushing to a point where it actually becomes neither." Because there is no real tradition of composing new works in Indian classical music - the songs are typically ancient and derived from the Vedas - Mahanthappa initially encountered some hesitation from Golpalnath. Rudresh continues, "Eventually though, I would just ask Kadri to think of something contrapuntally to play with my parts, and he'd sit there and think for a minute and then come up with these beautiful melodies, these lines weaving in and out of each other. It was really amazing."

After several months of working together, they collectively assembled the Dakshina Ensemble and premiered the piece in New York City in May 2005. In Kinsmen, Mahanthappa has effectively created something that both stretches the musicians while at the same time, enables the musicians on both sides to bring their best to the table. The music burns with passionate interplay: Mahanthappa's biting attack intertwined with Golpalnath's staccato outbursts; Kanyakumari's slippery portamento and Abbasi's Mahavishnu-like single note runs. Rather than "Indo-Jazz fusion," the music harmoniously synthesizes the cultural and musical divide, creating a sound that truly transcends labels and genre.

Top 10 Jazz - BBC 3 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00g3x98

Top 10 Jazz - Wall Street Journal / Larry Blumenfeld http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123033027287636091.html

Top 10 Jazz/Pop - NY Times / Ben Ratliff (#4)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/arts/music/21ratl.html

Top 50 Jazz Recordings - Village Voice 3rd Annual Critic's Poll (#2)
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-12-31/music/2008-voice-jazz-poll-winners

Top 10 Jazz & World - Boston Globe / Siddhartha Mitter (#3) http://www.boston.com/ae/music/packages/cds2008/gallery/14mitter/

Top 10 Jazz & World - Seattle Times / Andrew Gilbert (#4) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/musicnightlife/2008557730_toptenjazz28.html

Top 10 Jazz - Denver Post / Bret Saunders (#5)
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_11310067

Top 10 Jazz - Boston Phoenix / Jon Garelick (#2)
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Music/74104-Year-in-Jazz-Playing-for-keeps/

Top 10 Jazz - Philadelphia City Paper / Shaun Brady (#3) http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2008/12/25/top-10-jazz

Top 50 Albums - JazzTimes (#15)
http://jazztimes.com/reviews/critics_picks/top50_data.cfm?pick_year=2008

Top 5 Jazz - NPR's 'Take Five' Weekly Sampler (#4)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98597232

Top 10 Albums & Singles - Rolling Stone's Will Hermes
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/12/30/critics-picks-will-hermes-top-albums-and-singles-of-2008/

Top 10 Jazz - Slate.com / Fred Kaplan (#4)
http://www.slate.com/id/2206882/

Top 5 Albums - WashingtonPost.com's Marc Fisher (#2)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2008/12/best_new_music_of_2008.html

Top 15 Jazz - PopMatters.com / Will Layman (#10) http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/66423-the-best-jazz-of-2008/

Top 25 Jazz - All Music Guide (alphabetical)
http://blog.allmusic.com/2008/12/08/allmusics-favorite-jazz-albums-of-2008-2/

Top 10 Jazz - About.com / Jacob Teichroew (#7)
http://jazz.about.com/od/albumreview1/tp/2008_Holiday_Picks.htm

Howard Mandel's JazzBeyondJazz Top 10 (#2) http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2008/11/ten_best_of_2008_and_more_reco.html

All About Jazz-New York Musician of the Year for 2008 in January 2009 issue (one of five) - http://www.allaboutjazz.com/newyork/

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Wednesday, July 02, 2008

New Tunes, New CDs, More Shows
Current mood:

aggravated
Category: Music

Hi!
2008 has been busy so far and is only getting busier.
I've posted a bunch of upcoming shows with all of my groups as well as shows with Vijay Iyer's quartet, Amir El Saffar's Two Rivers Ensemble, Miles From India, Rez Abbasi's new group R.O.C., and even a show with DJ Spooky.
There are a lot more dates to come and I'll post them as I get more details.

I've also posted preview tracks from a few upcoming albums. I hope that you enjoy them:

Intone from "The Beautiful on Enabler" by Mauger (a new collective trio with bassist Mark Dresser and drummer Gerry Hemingway). CD coming out on Clean Feed in July.

Ganesha from "Kinsmen" by The Dakshina Ensemble, the long awaited release of this groundbreaking collaboration with Carnatic saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath. CD coming out on Pi Recordings in August.

Adana from "Apti" by the Indo-Pak Coalition featuring guitarist Rez Abbasi and Dan Weiss on tabla. CD coming out on Innova in October.

Blackjack! from "Tasty!" by MSG featuring bassist Ronan Guilfoyle and drummer Chander Sardjoe on tabla. CD coming out in early 2009.

I'm also gearing up for the world premiere of Samdhi in October, a new work derived from my Guggenheim fellowship research and study. This project will include guitarist David Gilmore, bassist Rich Brown, drummer Damion Reid, and mridangist Anand Ananthakrishnan.

Thanks for reading!

Best Wishes,
Rudresh

Currently reading:
Postsingular
By Rudy Rucker
Release date: 2007-10-02

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Tuesday, July 03, 2007

FREE DOWNLOAD

FREE DOWNLOAD of "Enhanced Performance" from Codebook available at allaboutjazz.com.

12:41 PM

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Guggenheim!!

I happy to tell you all that I received the Guggenheim Fellowship in music composition this year. It was announced on April 5, 2007. Got to gf.org to see who else got it.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Codebook is out!!

My newest quartet CD Codebook on Pi Recordings is out today!
Listen to the first track The Decider here.

Check out rudreshm.com to hear more tracks and learn more about the album.

Best,
Rudresh

3:34 PM

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Saturday, September 02, 2006

Codebook on wired.com

There's a great piece about my upcoming album Codebook at wired.com with excerpts and the story behind the music.

Enjoy