Jazz Articles about Rudresh Mahanthappa

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition: Apti

by Karl Ackermann
May 1, 2010

Jazz has been a well-established genre in India since the 1940s. American talent played top venues in large cities like Bombay in the '50s, and the cultures interrelated within India's natural jazz evolution from its early stages. Traditional Indian music uses single notes rather than the intricate chords typical in western jazz, so when saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa combines those inspirations the result is absorbing. Despite overtly displaying an Indian influence throughout Apti, Mahanthappa doesn't approach his music like some new ...

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition: Apti

by Dan McClenaghan
May 31, 2009

Alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa slipped onto the jazz scene right around the turn of the millennium via sideman work with pianist Vijay Iyer, on Architexture (Asian Improv Records, 1998) and the breakout Panoptic Modes (Red Giant Records, 2002). He continues to team with Iyer in an increasingly excellent evolution of sound on Reimagining (Savoy Jazz, 2005), Raw Materials (Savoy Jazz, 2006), and Tragicomic (Savoy Jazz, 2008). As a leader, Mahanthappa has recorded--with Iyer in the sideman role--Mother Tongue ...

Rudresh Mahanthappa's Indo-Pak Coalition: Apti

by Troy Collins
May 29, 2009

The story has been told before. While still in college, Indian-American saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa was given a CD of Kadri Gopalnath's Saxophone Indian Style as a joke by his older brother. But Mahanthappa was impressed by Gopalnath's ability to translate the microtonal intricacies of South Indian Carnatic music to the saxophone, which eventually resulted in their highly praised collaboration, Kinsmen (Pi Recordings, 2008).

Despite early critical acclaim obtained alongside pianist Vijay Iyer, as an Indian-American Mahanthappa felt pressured ...

Moonlight on the Ganges

by Nick Catalano
May 29, 2009

A critical hue and cry has recently arisen over the release of CDs featuring Indian-jazz fusions. Expressions such as “astonishing," “spellbinding" and “swings like mad" have been used to describe alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa's interesting album Kinsmen on the Pi label. Grammy nominations and five-star reviews have poured in for Miles From India, Bob Belden's retrospective on Times Square Records of such Davis recordings as Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew.

The east-west fusion has been going on for more ...

Rudresh Mahanthappa / Kadri Gopalnath: Kinsmen

by Budd Kopman
October 2, 2008

Kinsmen is the physical actualization of a long path that started with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa's desire to create a music that is a hybrid (not a fusion) of American jazz and classical Indian Carnatic music. Improvisation is central to both aesthetics with differing emphases, embodied primarily in the playing of Mahanthappa and alto saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath, the “Emperor of the Saxophone" in India. Both players have worked to extend their playing from its base, either the ...

Rudresh Mahanthappa: Kinsmen

by J Hunter
September 16, 2008

It's hard to know what key will open a locked door. For Rudresh Mahanthappa, the door was his desire to meld the compositional and improvisatory esthetics of jazz and Indian classical music. Mahanthappa's key arrived when his brother gave him a post-recital gag gift: A CD by legendary Indian musician Kadri Gopalnath called Saxophone Indian Style (Oriental, 1997). Far from laughing it off, Mahanthappa took it as proof that his dream could work. He sought out Gopalnath a few years ...

The Dakshina Ensemble at the Asia Society

by Budd Kopman
December 1, 2007

The Dakshina Ensemble at the Asia SocietyThe Asia SocietyNew York City, New YorkNovember 8, 2007 The Dakshina Ensemble was created as a meeting of the minds, worlds and talents of alto saxophonists Rudresh Mahanthappa and Kadri Gopalnath. The outcome of this cross- fertilization is a set of pieces composed by the pair which they named Kinsmen/Svajanam, “svajanam" being the Sanskrit for “kinsmen." This night was the first of two concerts, after which the band ...