Articles by Karan Khosla
Dream Manifest
by Karan Khosla
Dream Manifest: Theo Croker's Studio Invocation Theo Croker is a trumpeter whose career zigzags across genres and continents earning Grammy nominations, platinum credits, and a reputation for erasing boundaries. With Dream Manifest, he pushes farther than before: a studio album built on layers, detail, and a spirit of relentless curiosity and collaboration. For this album, Croker brought his touring band off the road and straight into the studio, in addition; he lined up guests from Gary Bartz and ...
Continue ReadingThe Evolving Sound of Learning: Western Music Education in India
by Karan Khosla
In this final article of the series on India's evolving jazz landscape, we examine the growing role of contemporary Western music education in shaping new generations of musicians. For generations, Indian music was handed down through the immersive guru-shishya tradition: students living with, or close to, their teachers, learning by ear, imitation and hours spent in the intensity of live, informal apprenticeship. Broadly, in post-independence India, this personalized relationship gave way to imported pedagogical frameworks dominated by the ...
Continue ReadingAlex Sino / Terry Heimat / Richard Bravo: Alma Libre
by Karan Khosla
Some albums carry the signature of a single artist. Alma Libre, which translates to “Free Soul," takes a different path, shaped by a team of Grammy-winning producers, arrangers and musicians who thrive on collaboration. Producers Alex Sino and Richard Bravo, along with conductor and arranger Terry Heimat (Taras Kutsenko), steer the album's direction; the performers include Cuban trumpet legend Arturo Sandoval, saxophonist Ed Calle, pianist Milton Salcedo, guitarist Francis Goya Francis Goya, trumpeters Terry Heimat and Julio Ariel Díaz, pianists ...
Continue ReadingIndia After Dark: The New Geography of Jazz
by Karan Khosla
When the large festival stages are packed away, the music finds a more permanent home. All across India, jazz now thrives in a growing network of clubs and bars, the nightly engine rooms that sustain the scene. The new geography of Indian jazz is shaped by these essential venues--relaxed neighborhood joints that serve as the scene's social heartbeat while still commanding the listener's attention. Delhi: The Standard-Bearer Any tour of this landscape must begin in Delhi, at the ...
Continue ReadingWill Brahm: Distance to Empty
by Karan Khosla
Distance to Empty is a phrase that carries a familiar feeling--something you might glimpse glowing on the dashboard as you pull away from a final pit stop before a long journey. Will Brahm, metaphorically and musically, poses these questions: How far can you go with what you have? What is left in the tank? What is possible, and what awaits at the edge of it all? Brahm is a Los Angeles-based guitarist and composer whose music moves fluidly ...
Continue ReadingThe Big Stage: How Festivals Are Reviving Jazz All Around India
by Karan Khosla
The live music scene in India is flourishing, and jazz is riding the tide. A recent Ernst & Young study estimates that the live music sector in India reached a value of around USD 1.4 billion in 2024 and is predicted to increase 20% yearly. With Gen Z and millennials making approximately 90% of all live event attendance in 2023, India's younger population is clearly driving this increase--unsurprisingly. India has long been known as a land of festivals; ...
Continue ReadingSwinging Scores—How Jazz Shaped Bollywood’s Golden Age
by Karan Khosla
This piece--the first in a five-part series on the Indian jazz revival--focuses on the heavy imprint of jazz on Indian cinema, specifically Bollywood during its golden age between the 1940s and 1970s. It's a story about how a music born in New Orleans made its way to Bombay, and how, for a few wild and brilliant decades, it seeped into the sonic fabric of Hindi-language cinema, leaving behind echoes we can still hear today. This article draws heavily ...
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