Saturday, February 16, 2013

AccuRadio Song Of The Day-Rudresh Mahanthappa

Artist:Rudresh Mahanthappa
Song:Ganesha
Album:Kinsmen





Rudresh Mahanthappa is a New York based sax player who normally plays with pianist Vijay Iyer. On the 2008 CD Kinsmen he has successfully mixed jazz with the Carnatic music of India featuring Kadri Gopalnath. The CD did very well on the World music chart. Mahanthappa was born May 4, 1971 in Trieste, Italy and grew up in Boulder, CO. He graduated from Berklee School of Music in Boston in 1992 and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Jazz Composition from DePaul University in Chicago in 1998. It was at Berklee that he first became familiar with the music of Kadri Gopalnath. What is odd about Gopalnath is he plays a traditional style of Indian music with a tenor sax. Mahanthappa went to India to work with Gopalnath and then later brought him to New York. Mahanthappa has worked frequently with pianist Vijay Iyer since 1998 and continues to work with him today. But Iyer is not on Kinsmen. This was Mahanthappa's first attempt to record with Gopalnath and the mix of the two musical worlds was very successful. Musicians include Rez Abbasi on guitar, Carlo DeRosa on bass, Royal Hartigan on drums, veteran Indian musician A. Kanyakumari on violin and Poovalur Sriji on mridangam. Mahanthappa continued the Indian influence with the formation of The Indo-Pak Coalition. He has recorded with that group and several others he works with in New York. He has also worked as a sideman with guys like Danilo Perez and Jack DeJohnette. His latest CD Gamak was released Jan. 29, 2013. Here's Rudresh Mahanthappa with the HR Big Band performing Ganesha in Germany Oct. 2011.

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