Home » Jazz Articles » Rudresh Mahanthappa
Jazz Articles about Rudresh Mahanthappa
About Rudresh Mahanthappa
Instrument: Saxophone, alto
Bird at 100: Rudresh Mahanthappa, Joe Lovano, Vincent Herring and More
by Russell Perry
Charlie Parker was born 100 years ago (August 29, 1920). Although he died at the age of 34 in 1955, his legacy is so powerful that jazz would have been very different without his contributions. In the intervening 65 years, Bird's music has continued to influence and inspire several generations of players and fans. In the past decade, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Joe Lovano and the alto trio of Vincent Herring, Gary Bartz and Bobby Watson have dedicated projects to his music. ...
Continue ReadingRudresh Mahanthappa: Hero Trio
by Jerome Wilson
Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa previously espoused his love of Charlie Parker on his album Bird Calls (ACT, 2015). Here he expands on that to pay tribute to, not only Parker, but other influences such as Ornette Coleman, Johnny Cash, and Keith Jarrett. Mahanthappa leads a freewheeling trio, with Francois Moutin on bass and Rudy Royston on drums, which romps through a variety of tunes. On Stevie Wonder's “Overjoyed" his alto sings brightly while the rhythm section skips and ...
Continue ReadingRudresh Mahanthappa: Hero Trio
by Emmanuel Di Tommaso
La sedicesima produzione discografica del sassofonista statunitense di origini indiane Rudresh Mahanthappa rappresenta un nuovo capitolo del progetto di fusione fra la musica carnatica dell'India meridionale e la musica occidentale contemporanea che ne ha caratterizzato l'intera carriera artistica fin dagli inizi negli anni Novanta, anticipando un percorso di sperimentazioni e commistioni intrapreso in anni recenti, tra gli altri, anche dal settetto dei Crosscurrents e dal collettivo dei Brooklyn Raga Massive. Hero Trio contiene nove brani che vanno ben ...
Continue ReadingRudresh Mahanthappa: Hero Trio
by Mark Corroto
All great jazz musicians are omnivores, admired for their ability to ingest and synthesize large schools of music. Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa is one such omnivore, maybe best described as an alpha predator. His music, whether it is advancing modern jazz or fusing the Carnatic music of southern India with his American experience, occupies the highest level of the musical food chain. Like other predacious jazzmen, he can make a meal of everything from pop songs to jazz standards. Mahanthappa's Hero ...
Continue ReadingRudresh Mahanthappa: "Just because you're improvising doesn't mean you're playing jazz."
by Leo Sidran
Saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa on his early development, the journey through music schools, cruise ships and merengue bands that ultimately led him to New York, exploring one's personal identity through music, teaching jazz in a non conservatory environment, Sesame Street, and a casual analysis of saxophone on popular recordings in the '80s. He also discusses his new trio record Hero Trio (Whirlwind Recordings) with Francois Moutin and Rudy Royston, and the influence of David Sanborn, Michael Brecker, Charlie Parker, and Grover ...
Continue ReadingVijay Iyer & Mike Ladd: InWhatStrumentals
by Karl Ackermann
In 2003 Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd released In What Language?, a hybrid jazz/hip hop response to post-9/11 American paranoia. Inspired by many related injustices, the inflection point was the extended detention, handcuffing and humiliation of a prominent Iranian filmmaker passing through JFK International Airport. Seventeen years later America was mired in multiple unprecedented crises, giving cause to repurpose that album. Iyer and Ladd had the instrumental masters from 2003, and release them here as InWhatStrumentals: Music from In What ...
Continue ReadingRudresh Mahanthappa: Hero Trio
by Troy Dostert
After topping so many best-of-year lists with his extraordinary quintet on 2015's Bird Calls (ACT), alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa has gone into trio mode. His gritty, self-released Indo-jazz-rock album Agrima (with guitarist Rez Abbasi and drummer Dan Weiss) was one of the highlights of 2017, and now he's at it again, this time with bassist François Moutin and drummer Rudy Royston, both of whom were featured on Bird Calls. An overt nod to some of his formative musical influences, some ...
Continue Reading
