Amit Chaudhuri (vocals, compositions), Prasenjit Ghosal (guitar), Indrajit Dey (keyboards), Sanket Bhattacharya (bass), Ashok Mukherjee (tabla). With occasional contributions from Jonathan Impett, Oliver Jarvis, Brian Melvin, Amyt Datta and others. In England, with Adam Moore (guitar), Bart Dietrich (piano), Paul Williams (bass), Hanif Khan and Nafees Irfan (tabla).
ABOUT THE MUSIC and AMIT CHAUDHURI (Buy CDs from amazon.com or http://cdbaby.com/cd/amitchaudhuri or Apple iTunes or www.cduniverse.com)
This Is Not Fusion is a project in experimental music conceptualised by Amit Chaudhuri, bringing together the raga with jazz, rock, and the blues. Chaudhuri is one of the foremost Indian writers in English ('one of his generation's best writers', the Guardian; 'one of the most talented and versatile writers of his generation', the Village Voice), as well as an acclaimed and highly innovative musician/ singer.
Besides open, experimental structures, This Is Not Fusion also has an increasing number of songs composed by Chaudhuri in its repertoire. After its huge and acclaimed opening at the Gyan Manch, Calcutta on 15 January 2005, when both the audience and critics applauded its conceptual and musical originality, it travelled to Delhi for the 'Building Bridges: 60 Years of the UN' concerts. Then, to great acclaim, it went to Berlin, the theatreschauspiele at Frankfurt, the Lille 3000 Festival in France, the School of Music, Norwich, the British Museum, London, and to the Palais de Bozar in Brussels. Ivan Hewett, one of Britain's foremost music critics, said in the Daily Telegraph, London, 'Chaudhuri's 'non-fusion' music creates a striking metaphor for the urban sensibility, which today is increasingly the condition of everybody, even those who stay at home.' The CD, This Is Not Fusion, was recently released in India by Times Music. In the first ever Indian workshop on experimental music organised by the singer Shubha Mudgal at Ahmedabad, this project was described as a landmark involving the creation of a new genre by other esteemed musicians, composers, and musicologists from all over India and other parts of the world.
In 2007, Amit chaudhuri and his band had a sellout concert at the Vortex, in London. In June 2008, they had another full house gig at the Vortex, and a full house 'jazz night' at the Master's Lodge, St John's College, Cambridge. Earlier that year, they had a very successful appearance at the Jazzfest, Calcutta. I 2008, they went on to perform successfully at the Big Sky Jazz Festival at Margate, the Newcastle Festival of Literature and Music at the Sage Gateshead, and at the London Jazz Festival at the Vortex. 2009 saw sold-out at readings and recitals at the South Bank and at Asia House, London, and another sell-out concert at the Hay on Wye Festival.
AMIT CHAUDHURI is one of India's leading writers and novelists. He has won major awards in Britain, the US, and India for his fiction, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask award, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and the Sahitya Akademi Award. His work is translated into several languages. He's been Creative Arts Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford, Leverhulme Fellow at Cambridge, Visiting Professor at Columbia University, Samuel Fischer Guest Professor at Freie University, Berlin, and now spends part of the year at the University of East Anglia as Professor of Contemporary Literature. He is also an acclaimed vocalist in the Hindustani classical tradition who has performed all over the world, with two HMV recordings to his credit, one of which has just been released on CD by HMV.
COMMENTS FROM CRITICS AND MUSICIANS -
"Chaudhuri's 'non-fusion' music creates a striking metaphor for the urban sensibility." Ivan Hewett, Daily Telegraph, London
"Sublime music...' Wall Street Journal, Asia
'This truly is not "fusion". Chaudhuri is going back to an ur-music, a music from which all musics emerge.' Charles Shaar Murray , author of Crosstown Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-War Pop, on Nightwaves, BBC Radio
'...explores the junctions between Indian classical and western popular traditions to frequently startling effect...' the Guardian
"Chaudhuri is a wonderful singer-- without any qualification such as 'considering his distinction as a writer.' There is a sense of calm, a simplicity, an inwardness to his singing which deeply appeals to me." Vikram Seth, author
"I've been working with everyone in jazz for the last twenty years, from Nigel Kennedy to Jamie Cullum. Amit Chaudhuri's music is one of the most important projects I've heard.' David Mossman, founder of the legendary London jazz club, the Vortex
'One of India's most talented musicians.' N Radhakrishnan, editor, Rolling Stone India
"Chaudhuri's compositions, faithfully reflecting as they do his interest in and deep knowledge of both Indian classical and Western popular music, are simply expressions of his unique musical sensibility rather than self-conscious forced mixtures of two apparently 'alien' traditions... the result is a wholly original, absorbing performance that, while it is undeniably unusual and novel, wholly avoids the many pitfalls (chief among them glib superficiality and contrivance) frequently associated with 'fusion'." Chris Parker, review on www.vortexjazz.co.uk
“I think Chaudhuri’s CD (and I have listened to it several times by now) is a
landmark project in the inter-musical landscape between Western and
Indian music. It stems from a very personal between-the-worlds and is
attractive because the necessary negotiations within the musical
sphere reach out to so many other levels of understanding music:
social, biographical, technological. But most of all it is a kind of
music that has clearly defined roots: not in one tradition or the
other but in a very personal terrain of the globalized soul. Very
often, music critics demand "authenticity" and "honesty" from music -
a demand bound to produce a phoney parochial "authenticity": for no
musician today lives unaware of all the other musical possibilities
around them. Chaudhuri’s music is "authentic" in another, more important
sense: it does not construct an ideal place, but shows us where it
came from and what is lost - but also what can be gained in admitting
strangeness into your own tradition.” Sandeep Bhagwati, well-known Indo-German composer of Western art music, formerly composer for the Ensemble Modern, Berlin, and professor at the Dept of Music, Concordia University, Canada
'Creative tension is vital to the novelist and dedicated musician Amit Chaudhuri. So too are the awakenings of various selves within the self, which is a condition of modern life. He lives in India and the UK. Epiphanies mark his journey of self discovery. As a young man he was into rock and jazz, which he felt obliged to excise from his inner repertoire as he took up classical North Indian music in the Eighties, an act of reclamation perhaps. Within a few years he experienced as series of "mishearings" where listening to one tradition, another would speak up in his unconscious, or pick up echoes: "When I was practising the raga Todi, for example, I heard the riff to Clapton's 'Layla'." That led him to wider questions, unexamined beliefs about identity and the conviction that "fusion" is a scandalous or liberating departure from canonical traditions... This is Not Fusion is a provocation and rebuff to players of the past like Mahavishnu who projected east and west as inert, static categories... Chaudhuri uses struggle and makes torpid elements pull together to flash and burn bright.' Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, the Independent
"Universally appealing... both the melodies and the lyrics are slyly parodic." Naresh Fernandes, Time Out Bombay
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The band is virtually flawless. Amit Chaudhuri’s voice is velvet smooth with a touch of silk, and at times playful. If you’re half-listening to “Motz” you likely find yourself lightheartedly smiling and tapping your feet. If you listen to the lyrics you will think, and it won’t be about the weekend. “Motz” is an extraordinary song in composition and presentation.
For years one of my favorite songs has been “Summertime” and I was pleased to see it on Chaudhuri’s song list. I’ve heard the song interpreted dozens of ways. Chaudhuri’s version is a distinctive surprise. It’s like getting a present you aren’t expecting, a very cool present, and one you definitely won’t “gift” to someone else or hide in a closet.
“Berlin” is textured and lithe. One can easily get caught up in the beat, in the song’s energy. Don’t. Listen to the lyrics too.
I love Eric Clapton. I think he’d appreciate “The Laya Riff to Todi” and marvel at the innovative interpretation.
Chaudhuri’s is a master at improvising; his music is exotic, authentic, and certainly not run of the mill. He takes the familiar and makes it different, giving it an unanticipated layer. His originality stamp is evident and the external fingerprints of his music have first touched his soul.
Music Review by D.B. Pacini American Writer and Youth Mentor/Advocate November 21, 2008 California, USA Email: Pacini.Novelist@gmail.com Website: www. astarrynightproductions. com
Thanks for the add, Im happy to be part of your network of friends! Im currently based in London, Let me know when you are coming back to the UK. All the best!
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