On Tuesday the pop group Pussycat Dolls performed Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny), their latest remix version of A R Rahman’s Oscar-winning song, on NBC TV’s week-old show Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. The band shall next perform on WABC TV’s late night show Live with Regis and Kelly on March 12.According to unconfirmed reports, the official video of the album is going to be premiered on March 21 on VH1 Top 20 Countdown. The music video was shot in Vienna and directed by Thomas Kloss. Here is the video of the Pussycat Dolls’ performance on Jimmy Fallon.

After his westernised rendition of Kabhi Kabhi Aditi became a runaway hit in 2008, London-based Rashid Ali was the talk of the town for the subsequent few months. Though the song is still on everyone’s lips, the man himself hasn’t been sighted much since, barring a song in Ada. Not for long though, as Rashid will soon be coming out with his debut album which will have him on guitars and vocals. To add to the glory, A R Rahman himself is producing the album under his music label K M Musiq. Though K M Musiq has produced other Rahman albums in the past starting with Sillunu Oru Kaadhal in Tamil, Rashid Ali is the first artiste to be signed on for an independent album by K M Musiq.
Son of Farida Ali, a ghazal singer, Rashid met Rahman at a concert in London and soon after was invited to work on Bombay Dreams with him. He then became a regular guitarist for Rahman in his movies and world tours. Unknown to many people, in 2001 Rashid had recorded a song with Rahman in the Tamil movie Paarthaale Paravasam (video below). The song titled Naadhir Dhinna was a rather unconventional pot pourri containing all sorts of music from folk to jazz to latin. And probably due to its unconventionality it didn’t appeal much to the general audience. Seven years post that came Jaane Tu.. and the rest, forgive the cliché, is history.
Rashid’s album will hopefully be out in 2009. Considering the kind of music he has been exposed to, this album should turn out to be quite a listen. In the meantime, Rashid in the meantime has recorded another song for Rahman in a movie he said is by director Anthony D’Souza, which could only refer to the Akshay Kumar-starrer Blue which is making headlines due to the involvement of Kylie Minogue.

Video of Naadhir Dhinna from Paarthaale Paravasam which was sung by Rashid Ali

Director: Piyush Jha
Producer: Sudhir Mishra
Music Directors: Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani, Loy Mendonsa
Justin Yesudas, Uday Kumar Ninjoor
Sandesh Shandilya
Lyricists: Prasoon Joshi, Neelesh Mishra, Kumaar
Label: Big Music

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After the roaring success of Slumdog Millionaire at Oscars, Golden Globe, BAFTA et al, Danny Boyle is being flooded with offers from various producers, and the latest news is that he has been approached by Barbara Broccoli for directing the 23rd Bond movie. And if Boyle does accept the offer, then chances are that Rahman will be doing the music for the movie. Already there is another unconfirmed news of Boyle and Rahman getting together for another movie set in India. So lets wait and see whether the next James Bond is indeed going to groove to Rahman’s tunes!!

It shall indeed be a mystical experience at least for some Delhiites tonight, as they will be treated to some exotic music from the Orient and East Europe, at the performance by oriental fusion band Mystique. The concert shall feature Iranian, Jewish, Spanish and Egyptian music to name a few. And guess what, the show is open to all!!

Formed in 2001 and based out of Delhi, Mystique is made up of four core members, namely Swiss Lionel Dentan on the Arabic rebab and Indian saaz and sitar; Russians Gennady Lavrentyev on guitar and violin and Andrey Demindenko on santoor and Persian tombek, ney and def; and the Indian Suchet Malhotra who handles def, darbouka, djembe, tabla, cajon, udu, pandero et al. Outside of the core there are also many guest artists who play with them at concerts, comprising of flautist Rajesh Prasanna, mandolin player Siraj Ali, sarangi player Kashif Ahmed, Frenchman Sandro Mariotti on sax, Belgian Pieter Lenaerts on contrabass and Slovenian Matija Solce on accordion. Count the number of countries involved in the above two lines and you will understand the kind of fusion that is being talked about here!! The various musical traditions from which the different musicians come from makes Mystique a true Oriental-Indian-Jazz ensemble. Mystique released their first album, which was titled Melodies of the Orient, in the year 2004. Their second CD is expected later this year. The core members of Mystique also form the part of another band named Da Saz, who incidentally brought out Mystique’s debut album.

Last week the band had performed at Delhi to a packed audience. The concert had featured the core members, Rajesh Prasanna and also special guest singer Anna Hoffman. The band has previously performed at venues such as Jaipur Virasat festival, Udaipur Lake Palace etc apart from a lot of venues outside India. So in case you missed out on the previous concert and want to attend a Mystique show, today is the chance!! In case you need some help making up your mind on the band in spite of all that is written above, you can check out their myspace page. The show is at 8.30 pm, so if I were you, I would make a beeline for Chilli Seasonss right away!! AND if you miss today’s show as well, there are a couple of Latin jazz performances that Suchet Malhotra will be giving in Delhi as part of the Wanny Angerer Quartet, later this month.

PS: Appreciate it if people attending the concert could mail us feedback on the concert, how it went, the songs performed et al, either by commenting to this or thro’ the form available in the Contact Us tab.

Akon’s latest and his third studio album Freedom is unique in many ways. For one thing, it is the first Akon album not to come with the “Parental Advisory” warning (although that doesn’t mean the lyrics are all innocuous)!! Critics are also touting this as Akon’s best album by far. The latest thing about the album that is making news, however, is the guest appearance of Oscar winning Indian music director A R Rahman in the music video of Beautiful from the album.

“Guest appearance” is indeed the phrase to describe Rahman’s role in this video, as he appears for just about three seconds in the song. Though Rahman does not have any part in the composition of this song, grapevine was ripe with rumours regarding a collaboration between the two artists since last year and as per an interview that Rahman gave some time back, the project should be out some time this year.  This cameo by Rahman in Beautiful can therefore be assumed to be an acclimatization move!! Apart from Akon and Rahman (and a lot of minimally clad girls) the video also features the other two singers of the song, Colby O’Donis and Kardinal Offishall.

Akon’s Beautiful featuring Rahman. Rahman can be seen at 2:14.

It took 26 long years for the two legends to come back together, thanks to debutant director Ajay Varma. Ajay Varma’s SRK, which is expected to release later this year, will have its music scored by Ilayaraja and lyrics penned by Gulzar. The duo last worked together for Balachandar’s Sadma which had some evergreen songs like Surmai Akhiyon Mein and Aye Zindagi. “His aptitude and skills for creating the perfect harmony have not altered at all. Ilayaraja is one of his kind. I wish he was heard more often in Hindi cinema,” said Gulzar on Ilayaraja. Ilayaraja’s last Hindi work was Cheeni Kum, which had met with reasonable success at the box office, though that didn’t help his cause in getting another Hindi movie over the past year or so.

Ajay Varma is from the family of legendary painter Raja Ravi Varma (who incidentally is the topic of Ketan Mehta’s upcoming movie Rang Rasiya). Contrary to the title, SRK is not about “SRK”, and instead stands for Shivaji R. Khote, the protagonist played by Vinay Pathak. It remains to be seen how much of his great forefather”s genes have passed on to Ajay, but he already is showing promise going by his esoteric choice regarding the music for his movie.

The Guitar chords for the rock on song Phir Dekhiye..

The whole song is played on the scale of C, with piano and bass guitar accompanying..

The following is the bare essentials of the song.. However, Csus4 and Dsus4 chords can be added, when the C and D chords are played..

There are many ways people commemorate their local heroes, but Liverpudlians have gone a step ahead in case of the Fab Four, with the Liverpool Hope University announcing the introduction of a Master of Arts in The Beatles, Popular Music and Society. The University claims that the course is first of its kind in the world. The course, which consists of four 12-week taught modules and a dissertation, can be undertaken part-time or full-time.

According to Mike Procten, Senior Lecture of Popular Music at Hope University, this course aims to address the lack of a serious study of the band, in spite of over 8000 books having been written on them. Apparently there is a lot of interest in the course, with a lot of enquiries coming in from abroad, especially the United States. The course would involve ‘a research into The Beatles, the city from which they emerged, the contexts of the 1960s, technology, sound and songwriting and the industries that have set up in their wake to capitalise on tourism in the city of Liverpool.’

How this course will help people in getting jobs given the current economic scenario is anybody’s guess, but I doubt a hardcore Beatle fan would care eitherways. Hope University for one definitely knows how to keep its academics interesting!!

Elephant Walk was a contemporary jazz album that was recorded by Amit Heri in New York in the year 1998 and released in 1999. But the album did not take off as well as it should have, and the album was re-released in India last week. The album has Matthew Garrison on bass, Peter Rende on keys, Marko Djordjevic on drums, Matt Renzi on saxophones and Praveen Rao on tabla, pakhawaj and kanjira, along with Amit on guitars. Amit Heri, for those who do not know, is a Bangalore-based musician and has worked with various world music veterans like Trilok Gurtu, Louiz Banks, Shankar Mahadevan, Sivamani etc. His most famous work so far in India has been his musical score for the Hindi movie Morning Raga, alongside Manisharma.

Elephant Walk

The title song which kickstarts the album is quintessential jazz fusion. While the first half belongs to Matt Renzi with some brilliant use of sax, Amit Heri follows up with his guitar in the second. Amit also puts in Praveen Rao’s Konnakol (vocal percussion) towards the end, which blends in well with the song. On the whole an ideal song to start off a contemporary jazz album.

Alaap

While Amit stamps his mastery over jazz in the first song, Alaap, as its name indicates, belongs mostly to the Indian classical genre. I say mostly, as Amit does manage to “jazz up” this song as well in between. The initial elaborate alaap by Amit Heri reminds one of Mandolin Srinivas and Guitar Prasanna. While Praveen Rao plays the tabla, Matt Renzi accentuates the lounge effect with his sax. With its instrumentation and classical mood, you could as well have been listening to a Mynta or a Remember Shakti track!! John McLaughlin would be proud.

Aathma

Welcome back to jazz!! This song sees a long and engaging duel between Matt Renzi and Peter Rende, before they make way for a superb solo by Amit. And Praveen ends the song in style with another of his Konnakol sequences. Wonder who is accompanying him though. Going by the diction I would imagine that it is another Indian, in which case the only other possible candidate is Amit Heri himself.

Dance of Daya

The drums and the classical on sax which I think is in Raag Todi (Subhapanthuvarali in Carnatic), strongly reminded me of Shankar Jaikishen’s Raga Jazz Style, which had a track in Todi. I am not talking of plagiarism here mind you, just that the style is reminiscent of that track. And the sudden shift of Matt to jazz mode makes one almost think that he is going off scale!!

Where Ah Yah Going

Though the initial electric guitaring by Amit has a slight classical tinge to it, this song can be termed as an almost pure rhythm and blues song. The song is totally about Matt, Amit and Pete as they take you through five minutes of total relaxation.

What’s That Smell

This one IS pure jazz. Matt Renzi makes best use of this solo of his, excellently backed by Pete on keys, Matt Garrison on the bass and Marko on the drums.

Blue

True to its name, this blues number sees all artists except Praveen come into action. Marko’s role is minimal however, as the song features very light percussion. A soft song to mark the end of the album.

It is quite strange, not to mention unfortunate, that this album never became recognized when it first released in 1999. I am guessing it might have been due to the lack of popularity of jazz fusion in India at that time. Considering the increased interest of people in World music today, Elephant Walk must surely get due recognition this time around. Which is probably why the music label IndiaBeat and EMI Virgin are re-releasing the album now. You can listen to the album on Amit’s website.