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Ranjit Barot
As technology and mass-media continue to shrink the globe, allowing once-disparate traditions to intermingle instantaneously, musicians are given unprecedented access to a range of influences unthinkable mere decades ago. Forging an artistic identity in the midst of this post-modern global exchange and its onslaught of possibilities is no mean feat, yet it is a challenge that Ranjit Barot welcomes. Raised at the intersection of two cultures, Barot comes from a family with deep ties to Indian classical traditions of music and dance, and yet he spent considerable time absorbing western culture in England. That palpable dichotomy inhabits his music. It is a tribute to his brilliantly inventive musicianship that these elements remain tangible, but only serve to compliment one another, elevating and enriching his compositions. “I want my playing to be the duality that I am,” he reflects. “I am an Indian, but I dream in English.”
Despite his vast experience in every element of music-making, from production to composition to performance, Bada Boom—to be released on November 16th, 2010 by Abstract Logix—is the first album to bring together every facet of Ranjit Barot’s gifts and display them simultaneously. The sum effect is staggering. As a writer, Barot honed his skills by crafting songs and scores for the thriving, prolific Indian film scene in which music is a highly-regarded, essential component. Although capable on a range of instruments, his weapon of choice as a performer remains the western drum kit, on which he has cultivated a unique voice that internalizes and refracts his musical and cultural influences. As a drummer, he has performed alongside such formidable improvising composer/instrumentalists as John McLaughlin, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Charlie Mariano and Don Cherry. Citing the pathbreaking music of Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti, Ranjit counts McLaughlin and Zakir Hussain as two of his biggest influences—a respect that is reciprocated as McLaughlin contributes a blistering solo to Bada Boom’s opening track, “Singularity,” and Zakir Hussain provides the driving force for “Supernova.”
With Bada Boom (“bada” being Hindi for “big,” rendering the album a bilingual pun on the “big bang”, with the song titles carrying the theme), Barot has given his ambitions free reign. “It was certainly an inspiring and liberating experience, not to be tied to any script or musical directive,” Barot explains, “except one of experiencing true ‘flight’ with the other musicians who were a part of the project. It could not really have been anything else: this album was intended as a representation of my compositional and production abilities, as well as my approach to the drum set.”
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John McLaughlin: Liberation Time
by Geno Thackara
Perhaps the biggest success of Liberation Time is that its title feels sincere and not ironic. Such a sentiment could have easily come out as a cute bit of wishful thinking under the restrictions of pandemic life. Being who he is, though, John McLaughlin inevitably finds the value and positivity even in this strange state of affairs. The wonderful thing about music is that you put the headphones on and you are all in the same room," he says in ...
read moreRanjit Barot: Beautiful Collision
by Ian Patterson
Ranjit Barot is a well-known figure in India's music industry, where for many years he has written film scores, produced Indie pop, and, more recently, composed and directed the music for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Delhi. Barot, who spent the first 12 years of his life in England, came to a wider audience as the drummer on guitar icon John McLaughlin's outstanding Floating Point (Abstract Logix, 2008). McLaughlin--who knows a ...
read moreRanjit Barot: Bada Boom
by Ian Patterson
It's a Big Bang alright--bada in Hindi means big--a project of some ambition which unites the finest Indian musicians with some of the best from the jazz and fusion worlds. Together, they conspire to articulate Indian drummer Ranjit Barot's primal scream as a composer, and it's a spectacular and beautiful explosion. Barot spent his first twelve years in England, and this duality makes for a powerful musical cocktail, whereby diverse rhythmic, melodic and harmonic elements coexist as naturally as the ...
read moreRanjit Barot: Bada Boom
by John Kelman
He was the rhythmic center of John McLaughlin's Floating Point (Abstract Logix, 2008)--an album that found the fusion guitar great exploring his decades-long interest in an east/west nexus from the electrified and harmony-centric angle of the jazz tradition, rather than the opposing angle of his longstanding and largely acoustic Shakti and Remember Shakti groups, which weighed more heavily on Indian music's linearity and polyrhythmic complexity. Now, reflecting Ranjit Barot's assimilation of the fusion and progressive rock music that he heard ...
read moreDrummer Ranjit Barot Interviewed at All About Jazz...and More!
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All About Jazz
Ranjit Barot is a well-known figure in India's music industry, where for many years he has written film scores, produced Indie pop, and, more recently, composed and directed the music for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Delhi. Barot, who spent the first 12 years of his life in England, came to a wider audience as the drummer on guitar icon John McLaughlin's outstanding Floating Point (Abstract Logix, 2008). McLaughlinwho knows a ...
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Ranjit Barot to Release Debut Record on Abstract Logix
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Big Hassle
Visionary composer, drummer, producer, and improviser explores his own personal hybrid of East and West
New York, NY: After decades spent honing his craft in a staggering array of roles, from composing award-winning music for films (including 2009's Yeh Mera India and 2004's Main Hoon Na) to producing other artists, to working as a sideman in a variety of contexts, Ranjit Barot is at last making his debut as a performing bandleader with Bada Boom, to be released by Abstract ...
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Music
Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson
Singularity
From: Bada BoomBy Ranjit Barot