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Badal Roy was born in India and he arrived in New York in 1968 with a pair of tablas and eight dollars in his pocket. Soon he received his big break: an invitation to record with John McLaughlin and Miles Davis successively. Badal went on to record on Miles Davis's albums On the Corner, Big Fun, Agartha, Pangaea and others. He was one of the first Indian musicians to effectively meld Indian music and instruments with jazz and funk. Today Badal Roy is the foremost exponent of tabla in jazz music. He has played with not only Davis and McLaughlin, but also artists as diverse as P-Funk, Herbie Mann, Dave Liebman, Don Cherry, Pharaoh Sanders, Dizzy Gillespie, Lonnie Liston Smith, Andreas Vollenweider, and Yoko Ono. He has been an integral part of Ornette Coleman's Prime Time since 1988 and is presently collaborating with Brazil s Duofel, an instrumental guitar duo. Badal is also a key member of Michael Wolff's Impure Thoughts as well as a part of the Miles Davis alumni band Children On The Corner. Badal is currently in production on a project with drummer Mike Clark, producer/dj Kentyah and others. For more, see Badal's Myspace page.
Freddie Bryant Freddie Bryant is "a brilliant young guitarist and composer,” wrote the great guitarist Kenny Burrell. He is a versatile musician skilled both in jazz and classical music, having received his Master’s degree in classical guitar from the Yale School of Music. He currently teaches at Williams College in Massachusetts in the Africana and Music departments and the Prins Claus Conservatory in Groningen, Holland. Currently in demand in the New York jazz scene, he works with Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet, the Mingus Orchestra, and his own groups, Trio del Sol and Kaleidoscope. He has recorded and performed with Tom Harrell, D.D. Jackson, Steve Wilson, Kevin Hays and many others. He is also on the first call list of many singers and Brazilian musicians because of his sensitive accompanying and his knowledge of Brazilian guitar, and has toured with the pianist/singer Eliane Elias. His most recent CD is with the group Trio del Sol (Twinz Records). He has four others as a leader: Brazilian Rosewood, Boogaloo Brasileiro, Live at Smoke (Fresh Sound Records) and Take Your Dance into Battle (Jazz City Spirit). Over the years he has toured in 42 countries and has had the opportunity of collaborating with musicians from a wide variety of backgrounds including Salif Keita (known as the King of Afro-Pop), the Indian sitarist Shubhendra Rao, the Kenyan singers Achien’g Abura and Suzanna Owiyo, the Taarab master oud player Zein L’abdin, traditional groups in Saudi Arabia and the renowned Israeli klezmer clarinetist, Giora Feidman. In 2006 he performed in Cuba as a solo artist and spent a week of musical exchange with Cuban musicians.
www.freddiebryant.com
Lewis Porter Lewis Porter, PhD, is a jazz pianist and Professor of Music at Rutgers University in Newark, where he directs the Master's program in jazz history. He is known worldwide for his teaching and for his many books and articles, especially John Coltrane: His Life and Music (published in English in 1998; published in French and Italian editions in 2007). He edited the John Coltrane Reference which appeared in January 2008. He has also published books on jazz history and on Lester Young, and many articles. As a pianist and keyboardist, he is known for a free and open attitude, and an ability to contribute to any type of musical situation. For example, he has performed recently with such artists as Bela Fleck, Wycliffe Gordon, Ravi Coltrane, Don Byron, Joe Morris, Badal Roy, and Jane Ira Bloom; he performed in Europe in November 2007 with Dave Liebman and others and has toured Europe many other times, including 2009 performances in Israel, Italy, Germany and Spain. His CD Italian Encounter, recorded live at Siena Jazz, received only rave reviews. Jazz Times says that Porter is "a helluva piano player," and other critics have written that Dr. Porter "is a deep thinker" whose music is "founded upon depth and cunning use of space." His new CD, Transformation, presents duets with fellow pianist and Berklee professor Marc Rossi. His performance schedule and extended audio and video clips are at Lewisporter.com
Karttikeya is a musician of many instruments and a composer in many styles. In kirtan, Karttikeya plays the South Indian Naal drum, djembe and a plethora of percussion. He also plays the acoustic and electronic drum set in a variety of settings, including rock, jazz and funk, as well as country and blues. After graduating magna cum laude from the Berklee College of Music with a B.A. in Music Production and Engineering, Karttikeya immersed himself in Hindu sadhana, living and studying for many years at the feet of Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Currently, Karttikeya furthers his musical education through regular drum study at The Collective in Manhattan. The past few years have found him playing alongside esteemed artists such as Badal Roy, Perry Robinson, Dave Stringer, Wynne Paris, Suzin Green and many more. Karttikeya strives to blend the best of East and West into each of his projects.
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