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A rotating line-up of musicians in various settings.
Prasanna's carnatic performances have featured such masters as Umayalpuram Sivaraman, Dr. T.K. Murthy, Haridwaramangalam A.K. Palanivel, Trichy Sankaran, V. Nagarajan, Palghat Sundaram, T.H. Vinayakram, Mannargudi Easwaran, Tiruvarur Bhaktavatsalam etc and young virtuosos like Selvaganesh, Sivamani, V. Suresh, Karthick, Purushotham, Ravindran, K.V. Prasad etc
Prasanna's Jazz/Fusion bands have featured such luminaries as Victor Wooten, Omar Hakim, Airto Moreira, Alphono Johnson, Anthony Jackson, Steve Smith, Rodney Holmes, Mike Pope, Jeff Coffin, Kai Eckhardt and some outstanding young players like Lyndon Rochelle, Gustavo Assis Brasil, Tony Grey, Mauricio Zottarelli, Esperanza Spalding and others.
Prasanna is a member of the exciting trio 'Tirtha' with Vijay Iyer on piano/compositions, Prasanna - guitar/vocals/compositions and Nitin Mitta - tablas. Check out 'Tirtha's performances below -
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'Tirtha' performs Prasanna's composition "Tribal Wisdom" live at the Jazz Standard in New York City- Vijay Iyer - Piano, Prasanna - guitar/vocals, Nitin Mitta - Tabla
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'Tirtha' performs Vijay Iyer's composition "Tirtha" live at the Jazz Standard in New York City- Vijay Iyer - Piano, Prasanna - guitar/vocals, Nitin Mitta - Tabla
Prasanna is also a key member of Vijay Iyer's Quintet along with Vijay on Piano and compositions, Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet, Stephan Crump on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums.
Etkilendikleri
Human beings, Art, Nature, Mathematics, Science, Chess, Literature, Hindu Philosophy and everything else that one can learn from. Prasanna's musical influences numbered an inaccurate 65,343 at last count.
Neye Benziyor?
"Prasanna plays guitar, quite simply like nobody on the planet"
- PHIL DI PIETRO, ALLABOUTJAZZ.COM
"Inhumanly Precise fretwork"
- Chicago Reader
"The music on this CD can only be the work of a great musician"
- VICTOR WOOTEN, bass guitar legend in liner notes of 'Electric Ganesha Land'
"His fluid, quicksilver improvisation snaked through Iyer's jagged, rhythmically dense compositions like a double-speed sitar"
-Peter Margasak, Downbeat Magazine
"...While he’ll likely not turn the world on its edge the way Hendrix did, there’s certainly nobody else who sounds quite like him" - John Kelman, Allaboutjazz.com (Review of 'Electric Ganesha Land')
"Penetrating Sitar-like effects"
- Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune
"...If you ever imagined the kind of music Jimi Hendrix might have played were he to be born in India in some other lifetime, you can bet your last dollar (Prasanna's) “Sri Jimi” would have his name on the credits "- Vallikanth, Allaboutjazz.com (Extended Analysis/Review of 'Electric Ganesha Land')
"...Prasanna slams the proverbial pedal to the metal during many of these pieces that often conjure up visualizations of early ‘70s psych rock. But the overriding twist pertains to the guitarist’s zinging crunch chords and sinewy East Indian lines intertwined with raga motifs..."- Glenn Astarita, ejazznews.com (Review of 'Electric Ganesha Land')
"I've never heard an electric guitar sound like that"
- MATT WRIGHT, UTAH STATESMAN, USA
"As instantly recognizable as that of Carlos Santana or Jimi Hendrix"
- TEED ROCKWELL, INDIA CURRENTS, USA
">A highly accomplished plectorist and true world-music visionary"
- BILL MILKOWSKI, JAZZIZ MAGAZINE
"Refreshingly clever, psychologically uplifting ideas"
- FRED BOUCHARD, DOWNBEAT MAGAZINE
"Beautifully phat and thickly distorted power chords fill your speakers. And then Prasanna starts wailing way for five minutes. Its like an alap (an unaccompanied solo/into to a raga) on steroids and cranked to 10. When the piece was over, I took out my lighter, lit it, raised it above my head, and started whistling and yelling mooore!!!
-ROD SIBLEY, ABSTRACTLOGIX.COM
"The musical boundary-crossing Prasanna was an apt choice"
- JILL SYKES, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, AUSTRALIA
"Displays formidable guitar chops and compositional ambitions"
- DAVID ADLER, JAZZ TIMES
"He just cannot strike a false note ever"
- R. SRINIVASAN, INDIAN EXPRESS
"I was left with the distinct feeling that I had seen a master at work"
- TEJAS EWING, THE HINDU, INDIA
"Prasanna is a wondrous wake-up call for tired aural neurons"
- JOHN PATTERSON, EERMUSIC.COM
"Indian guitarist Prasanna stirs a pot of intoxicating, heady world fusion."
- CHRIS JISI, BASS PLAYER MAGAZINE
"When Prasanna plays the blues, you can hear the world"
-NARESH FERNANDES, TIME OUT MAGAZINE, MUMBAI, INDIA
".Coltrane's A Love Supreme , Miles Davis' Bitches Brew , Weather Report's Black Market , Mahavishnu Orchestra's Inner Mounting Flame , Shakti's Natural Elements and, I suspect, Prasanna's Be The Change."
- VALLIKANTH, ALLABOUTJAZZ.COM
"Prasanna takes the listener through an exotic journey through a mystical middle-land, which captures the practised precision of Carnatic music and yokes it together with the capricious imagination of the music of the '60s"
- RAKESH MEHAR, THE HINDU, BANGALORE, INDIA
"CONCEPT albums especially fusion concept albums are a publicity persons nightmare. After all these decades of sitars backed by drum sets, guitars playing alongside ghatams, just how do you convey a sense of the music anymore without resorting to East-meeting-West clichés? Thats why it helps when something like Electric Ganesha Land comes along, for the copy practically writes itself:"
- BARADWAJ RANGAN, the Indian Express, Chennai, India
Trailer of 'Smile Pinki', 2009 Academy Award winner for 'Best Documentary - Short Subject' - directed by Megan Mylan with music composed by Prasanna. Trailer courtesy of smiletrain.org
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"Raga Thodi" - Prasanna performing the traditional carnatic raga thodi on guitar - Excerpt from Prasanna's guitar instructional DVD 'Ragamorphism'.
"The Grapevine" - Prasanna - guitar, Jeff Coffin - tenor saxophone/flute, Kai Eckhardt - bass and Derico Watson - drums
Live performance at the Open Air Theatre, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, India
Prasanna plays an unusual double raga Kalpanaswara improvisation in Abheri and Mohanam - Prasanna - guitar, Haridwaramangalam A.K. Palanivel - thavil and S. Karthick on ghatam.
Excerpt from Live Carnatic concert at Parthasarathy Swamy Sabha, Chennai, India
"Dharma becomes Alibama" - Prasanna - guitar, Jeff Coffin - tenor saxophone, Kai Eckhardt - bass and Derico Watson - drums
Live performance at the Open Air Theatre, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, India
Prasanna playing a more classical version of his Jimi Hendrix tribute 'Sri Jimi' from Electric Ganesha Land. - Prasanna - guitar, Prapancham Ravindran - mridangam and B.S. Purushotham - kanjira
Excerpt from Live Carnatic concert at Rama Bhakta Jana Sabha, Chennai, India
Excerpt of Prasanna's composition "31" from live concert- Prasanna - guitars/vocals, Anthony Jackson- bass and Omar Hakim - drums
From Live concert at Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, NY
'How can you play Indian Classical Carnatic music on a guitar'? is a question that was on everyone's mind when Prasanna daringly took to one of the world's most ancient musical forms on one of the world's most modern instruments - the electric guitar! 20 years on, the question is still asked by everyone but now in disbelief at how Prasanna brings out the subtlest of microtones on a standard electric guitar and goes even further by extending his signature style to Jazz, Blues, Rock, Classical music and everything that he feeds in as a contemporary musician of today.
In a world studded with brilliant guitarists, 'Prasanna plays like nobody on the planet' according to one Jazz critic. As a guitarist and composer, Prasanna's prolific body or work is as diverse as it is integrated. This includes over eleven Carnatic albums, the just released Carnatic/Rock Jimi Hendrix tribute album ‘Electric Ganesha Land’, a highly acclaimed Jazz Fusion album 'Be the Change' featuring several Grammy Award winning artists from the Jazz world, an eclectic solo guitar album 'Peaceful', a special triple guitar project 'Guitars' with the Belgian band Aka Moon, and numerous guitar tracks on multi-platinum Indian film soundtracks for such top composers as A.R. Rahman, Illayaraja and many more.
Prasanna has composed original music for documentary films such as the 2009 Oscar nominated 'Smile Pinki' and feature films such as 'Framed'. His original scores for contemporary dance theater include Shakespeare's 'Tempest' in Sydney, Australia, 'Sanaatana' in London, UK, 'A Story and a Song' in Boston, MA, 'Soliloquy' in Chennai, India and several more, His orchestration and arranging credits include the title score for the Oscar nominated Bollywood film 'Lagaan' with music composed by A.R. Rahman. Prasanna's acclaimed guitar instructional DVD 'Ragamorphism', gives an in-depth look at how he stretches the boundaries of improvisation.
The North Sea Jazz Festival, Middelheim Jazz Festival, Festival Guitares Du Monde, La Fete de la Musique, Les Orientales De St. Florent Le Vieil, Festival Jazz En Artois, PanaFest, Lotus world music festival are some of the top international festivalsPrasanna has performed at. He has performed/recorded with legendary names in the Jazz/ Fusion world including Joe Lovano, Larry Coryell, Anthony Jackson, Omar Hakim, Victor Wooten, Airto Moreira, Alphonso Johnson, Aka Moon, Trilok Gurtu, Steve Smith etc and from the Indian music world such as A.R.Rahman, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Illayaraja, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Umayalpuram Sivaraman, Trichy Sankaran and several others.
Prasanna is a member of the highly acclaimed trio 'Tirtha' with pianist Vijay Iyer and tabla player Nitin Mitta. Prasanna is also a member of Vijay Iyer's Quintet.
With an engineering degree in Naval Architecture from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, he went on to pursue his passion for music and graduated Magna-Cum-Laude with an honors degree from the famed Berklee College of Music in Boston. His multi-faceted musical personality has been recognized with such diverse awards as the 'Lifetime Achievement Award for Carnatic music for 2003' from H.H. Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, India's most revered spiritual leader and 'Acharya' of the Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, 'The Berklee College of Music Guitar Achievement Award' (for outstanding work as a Student Jazz guitarist'), 'The Berklee College of Music-Composition Achievement Award' (for outstanding work as a Student Classical composer) and many others.
Prasanna is also a respected teacher in a multitude of musical disciplines including Carnatic music, Applications of Carnatic music in contemporary jazz, Jazz improvisation, Composition and many more. Some of Prasanna's students at various times include such talented musicians as guitarists David Fuiczynski, Gustavo Assis Brasil, Rubens De La Corte, Dejan Eskarica, Greg Passler, Russell Kelly, Marin Bucevic etc, trombonist Garo Saraydarian, drummer Mauricio Zottarelli, Violinists K. Ishibashi, Brit Lundgren etc, Pianist/Composer Marc Rossi, vocalists Ivana Gomez, Shyam kumar etc.
As a true artist, Prasanna is both a traditionalist and modernist and everything in between.
Prasanna's official web site is http://www.guitarprasanna.com
Big thanks 4 your friendship wishing u infinate inspiration and creativity in all u do ...may the universal rhythms of the cosmos guide u ...peeeace, bass and vibes...Ranvir....Universal Taal Project....:)
hi this is vijayan almeida lead guitar/songwriter of KIXMET thanks 4 bein friends
Have a rocking week thanks for your support! hope you like our latest video "because I Love You" if you like our sound demand us thru the DEMAND IT tool on our page so we can include your city in our tour plans email me at vijayanalmeida@yahoo.com for a free copy of the mp3 single
it would be great if you could post our video on your page!
Thanks for friendship! Don't forget that you can get my music for free and I still will get paid! Gimmesound.com pays artists for every download out of their ad revenue. By grabbing my tracks for free - you support me! We both gain!
prasanna is undoubtedly d best guitarist on d planet .. n m sure he will alwaz remain a pure soul coz he still loves his roots.. chers !! your music is as soulful as going 2 church,visiting a temple or heading 2 a mosque ..
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