Jazz Articles about Rudresh Mahanthappa

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Rudresh Mahanthappa: Mother Tongue

by Ollie Bivens
May 1, 2005

The latest album by India-born saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa explores the connection between language and music, ancestry and contemporary American life. Continually asked by Americans, “Do you speak Indian?" or “Do you speak Hindu?", Mahanthappa has answered by basing the recording on the sounds of speech. With a population of one billion people and numerous ethnic groups, India has 22 official languages. The saxophonist had Indian-American friends leave answers to the questions on his voice mail in their language. He then ...

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Rudresh Mahanthappa: Mother Tongue

by Jerry D'Souza
November 10, 2004

Rudresh Mahanthappa has, slowly but surely, been carving a niche for himself. It started in 1996 with the release of his album Yatra. From there he went on to record with Pierre Lognay, Vijay Iyer and Mike Ladd. In 2002 came the first defining moment as leader with the release of Black Water on Red Giant Records. He now stamps that with another album and shows that he has a significant role to play in jazz, not only as a ...

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Rudresh Mahanthappa: Mother Tongue

by Terrell Kent Holmes
November 8, 2004

When Indian-American altoist Rudresh Mahanthappa was growing up outside of his family homeland, he was frequently asked “Do you speak Indian?" or “Do you speak Hindu?" The questioners were apparently unaware that India isn't a mono or bilinguistic country and that its landscape includes seven languages. His eventual response to this was Mother Tongue , a CD featuring songs which are based on musical transcriptions of Indian-Americans answering that question, most of which are entitled for the language in which ...

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Rudresh Mahanthappa: Black Water

by David Adler
November 1, 2002

Officially, Black Water is the second album by alto saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa.

( The Preserver, a blazing follow-up to 1997's Yatra, remains in the can.) Commissioned by the American Composers Forum, this powerful suite deals in part with the difficulty of immigration, not only for those who make the journey but also their progeny - people like Mahanthappa and pianist Vijay Iyer, both first-generation Indian-Americans. The two have cemented their musical partnership by way of Iyer's own quartet ...