The band led by fretless bassplayer Colin D’Cruz features accomplished visiting international artistes along with local virtuosos.
Hear Jazz Juncton MP3s at www.jazzyatra.com

That’s right! I am offering my sounds, skills and expertise on vintage guitar styles to you.

• What?

Whether you need some rockabilly picking, moody or wild surf guitar, exotic electric sitar or yoy-yoy sounds, exploitation funk wah-wah licks, British shadows-style tape-echo twang or evil biker flick fuzz, also doo-wop tic-tac bass and Twin Peaks type sixstring bass leads are possible.

Here are some examples of my guitar playing, just click the links and listen I use vintage gear as well as new stuff. I also use simulation software – depending on the sounds required. I can process my recorded tracks: add a proper room impression, vintage console coloration, tape saturation and stuff like that – if you want me to.

• How?

You contact me, telling me about your project and how you plan to use the recording. The better I know your vision before I start, the faster and cheaper I can come up with something cool – I will make you a good price – you pay. Then you send me some audio that you want me to play on – I will record a couple of takes and send them to you in any audio-file-format you need. The maximum audio fidelity at this point is 24bit wordlength and 48khz sampling rate. If I have to redo things a lot, I will ask for more money. If possible, you give me a credit where the music is used.

Indian classical music like jazz, is all about improvised music. Indian classical music is linear and improvisation is based on just one scale (raga). Jazz on the other hand has a broader palette where multiple scales are often used to improvise through harmonic changes. Indian classical music is known to be very meloncholic, whereas jazz can be extremely exuberant. Indian classical music however, has subtle quarter tones and complex rhythm structures that add a whole new dimension to jazz. The Brown Indian Band’s E-Fusion is a seamless blend of the two forms of musical improvisation. The hour long album features four tracks based on different ragas and grooves.

Yaman Yatra is a long lazy trip through raag Yaman set to a chilled lounge beat. Bagya Boogie, based on raag Bageshree, is more upbeat and features some brilliant synthesizer and fretless bass solos. Gin Jyoti, spontaneously created from raag Jhinjoti, is driven by a funky drum ‘n’ bass groove and spiked with some heady percussion. And finally a path breaking Deshi Salsa presents the bansuri (bamboo flute) in raag Desh, performed for the first time to an infectious salsa groove. E-Fusion is produced by Colin D’Cruz. The album title has nothing to do with the current age we live in, it’s called E-Fusion simply because all four tunes in the album are performed in the key of E!

Download Deshi Salsa at http://www.brownindianband.com

March 30th, 2007 by binyas

Fusion at “JAZZ GARDEN” Pune…..

They met only about 10 times before they shocked the audience with their talents!!!!! Believe it or not. But that’s the fact. They guys from local outfit ’strange brew’ & vercitiled flautist “Bapu Padmanabha” from Karnataka on flute. And not to forget Uday Deshpande on Tabla had an amazing night at Jazz Garden. An ideal line up to play fusion music…they played a gig in Karnataka where they had a great response from the crowd. This led them to go for another one this time in Pune.

The show started at about 9:30, when Bapu & Uday started their run on their instruments with birthday boy Michael on keyboards – a rather quiter role than he normally is used to. hehe. After that Chris, Jakie & Sanjeev joined in after the intro. They started with either a flute was playing solo or a guitar, which was good, well not just good but awesome. Then comes an interesting part, where Jakie got a kick n provoked Uday to respond him n to start a bass-tabla jugalbandi. That really got the audience on their feet.. The response was pretty good, only the difference was that this time there were not many typical ‘I want metallica’ crowd but genuine music lovers with no age barrier.. overall a good beginning to a new musical venture. Hope they come up with something more brilliant which they will I’m sure.

Ramya …

Padmanabha Bapu, affectionately known as “Bapu” was studying tool engineering in Hospet (Karnataka). His knowledge of music was limited to the notes of harmonium taught by his grand father. He became so much obsessed with the flute that he started treating his idol Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, as his Guru in absentia. He purchased all audio cassettes of Hariji and started imitating his style, he used to practice for hours together and side by side he was continuously searching for a formal flute teacher within Karnataka.The search however brought no results because he was actually fated to become a disciple of his idol Hariji.

In August 1999, while pursuing 7th semester of his tool engineering programme, his urge brought him to Bombay. Initially he had to face disappointment of not being able to seek a meeting with Hariji and he returned to his college. Bapu was, however in no mood to give up and he was finally able to meet Panditji who admitted him to his class after the demonstration recital.

Since this trip to Bombay was without the knowledge and consent of his parents, Bapu had no money with him. He used to attend Hariji’s classes in the morning and work as a waiter (with pride) in a small restaurant, earning just enough to sustain him in Bombay. This exposure for 45 days brought a new confidence and Bapu was fully energized and charged up for a ‘break’.

Returning to his college, he received a monthly scholarship called “Panna Devi Music Scholarship” for complete one year. This was a display of a definite confidence that his guru had imposed in him. He completed the tool engineering course securing a first class in the year 2000.

For a fresh mechanical engineer, there were definite options to get employment in Karnataka, but his mind was set towards Bombay because he had a feeling that his profession, finally would be a flute player rather than a mechanical engineer. Fortunately he was offered a job in TACO(tata automotive components)in Pune. He took it as a two fold blessing, firstly Pune being the best cultural centre of India and secondly it being so close to Bombay.

While working at TACO, Bapu continued his interest in the flute and majority of his spare time was spent in perfecting his style. He performed at few social as well as cultural venues. His first major performance was at OSHO Samadhi in September 2001. This proved to be a turning point of his music career and he inclined himself to devotional and relaxing Indian classical music, he became a composer for FTII Pune, performed at major music festivals in India, and played as a part of music compositions in film industry.

By this time, his interests had fully shifted to music and he took a bold decision of leaving his job with TACO and devoting fully to music. Financially, his position also started looking up and he well realized that he had no regrets of this decision. He had local support of some friends and well wishers who encouraged him to go ahead. The results were rewarding and his first CD “VIVIDHA” was launched in Dec 2004. Since then he has launched a few more albums which have become very popular specially with the serious kind of music lovers.

Worldmusician Omkar releases third album, Maxi CD ‘Echoes of Love’

Omkar, multi-instrumentalist and composer with basic roots in Worldmusic released third album, a 20 minute continuing Maxi CD.

The CD contains three songs and are aligned to Indian themes and coloration.

The first song is called ‘Echoes of Love (World Edition 2007)’ and goes back to the former released similar named single track. The World Edition 2007 comes with modified harmonies and enhanced percussive elements. The World Edition refers at the most to traditional Indian instruments like sitar and Indian flute playing the soli parts and percussions like tablas. Completed with modern instruments like drums, jazz bass and a bunch of synths and pads.

A song for the heart …

The second song is called ‘Echoes of Love (Smooth Edition 2007)’ and is re-arranged into a Smooth Jazz song. So with the instrumentation: Surrounded by piano, brushed drums, jazz bass, strings and accompanied by alto saxophone the soprano sax plays straight forward the main theme.

A song for a glass of wine and relaxation …

The third song is called ‘Kumbha Mela’ and is build upon rudimental phrases of the free available song ‘Joomla’.

Because ‘Joomla’ could have the meaning ‘come together’ it is transfered and associated to a big festivity in India, a mela, where people come together from all over India, called Kumbha Mela.

A lightweighted up tempo song to describe joy and festivity.

The traditional background of Kumbha Mela:

A Mela is simply a festival, but the tradition and meaning of Mela is ancient. Indian civilisation can be dated back to 10,000BC, using dates for astronomical events (Pleiades at winter solstice) described in the earliest Vedas or sacred scriptures. These also mark the origin of the pilgrimmage festival, or Mela. The oldest Mela, the Khumba Mela, is held once every 12 years at the junction of the three sacred rivers (Ganges, Yamuna, and Saraswati) and attended by more than 40 million people.

Kumbha Mela derives its name from the immortal “Pot of Nectar” described in the Puranas. Kumbha in Sanskrit means “pot or pitcher” so ‘Kumbha Mela’ literally means ‘festival of the pot’ in this case a pot of nectar of immortality.

A modern artistic interpretation of Kumbha Mela:

Mela – for creative work in the fields of music, the visual arts, and other media; to explore the applications of advanced technologies to artistic expression; and to present major contemporary works and extended duration art installations that eliminate the boundaries between artistic disciplines.

Pre-listen in full length available on Omkar’s artist homepage.

http://www.omkarmusik.info