The Makk Quartet is a jazz ensemble featuring saxophonist Matt Renzi, guitarist Amit Heri, bassist Karl Peters and drummer Kurt Peters. This coming week shall see Renzi and Heri perform across different cities in the country, jamming with Mainak “Bumpy” Nag Chowdhury on bass and Jivraj on drums. The gig series kicks off tonight at Some Place Else, Kolkata. The schedule of the show is as given below. If you happen on to be in any of the listed cities on the respective date, DO NOT miss it. Renzi and Heri are among the best in business!

September 9   – Kolkata      – Some Place Else

September 14 – Mumbai     – Blue Frog

September 15 – Pune            – Shish Cafe

September 16 – Bangalore – B Flat

September 17  – Bangalore – UB Towers (Bangalore International Arts Festival)

JT Performing Arts Center is organizing a World Music concert in Kochi tomorrow. The show, called Beyond Kipling – A Melharmonic Exploration (smart nod to the famous line from the author), will have Chitraveena Ravikiran, Brazilian veteran Jovino Santos Neto on the Grand piano, Fazal Qureshi on percussion, Charumathi Raghuraman on violin and Anantha Raman Krishnan on mridangam. The concert begins at 7 pm on Sunday, 28th of August, at the Choice Campus, Thrippunithura. The ensemble has already performed in Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore, and Kochi is supposedly the last stop of the tour. Given that such concerts are not a frequent phenomenon in Kochi, if you are a Kochi resident and a music lover I would advise you to immediately book the tickets. I have already booked mine! The tickets are priced at 250, 500, 750 and 1000. You can book them here. And if you want a general idea about the musicians, just click on the names above.

Over a year back when I first read about the initiative called Global Indian Music Awards by Wizcraft International Entertainment, I was really glad. For a change, here was a music award that would recognize the contributions of all levels of technicians in music, and some unique categories like the Best Anti-piracy initative and so on. And when the jury consisted of such veterans such as Dr. L. Subramaniam, Shubha Mudgal, Vishal Bhardwaj, Hariharan etc, it indeed looked as if the deserving would be recognized for a change. In fact in 2010 they did too, barring minor glitches like Tulsi Kumar winning the Best Debut in Non-Film Category.

But today I happened to go through the nominations for this year. Seriously, what is it that I missed in Dabangg‘s music?  It was OK when other commercial awards lauded it and even gave Munni Song of the Year (!), but the last thing I expected out of GIMA nominations was to see Dabangg in EVERY film-based category! I won’t comment much on the non-film section as a lot of albums there I have not heard, but it was gladdening to see Ranjit Barot (Bada Boom), Band Called Nine (Rewind), Akriti Kakar (Akriti) et al on the list. But the film category is a shocker. Not a mention of Aisha, Ishqiya or Lamhaa. Vasuda Sharma‘s debut in Shahrukh Bola.., Sohail and Simaab Sen’s work in Khele Hum.. all have been ignored. Instead, we have Sheila and Munni vying for Best Film Song, and Tees Maar Khan on the list of Best Album nominations. Udaan and Raavan have been given a consolation nod in the form of BGM nominations. I am pretty sure when the awards are announced a major chunk will go to Dabangg. Disappointed, very disappointed. In any case, you can see the nominee list here: film, non-film

Woke up this morning to a link from a dear friend Nitin Jacob. And it was to this commendable initiative from Times Of India and SaReGaMa, an attempt to acquaint Indians with the full five-stanza version of our National Anthem which Rabindranath Tagore originally wrote. Composed by the Bengali pianist-vocalist duo of Soumyojit Das and Sourendro Mullick (together called You &I) the adaptation, titled  features 39 artists from across the country and across genres. Concurring with the Independence Day spirit and all that, I wont get into finding faults with this song. the arrangement is quite decent, and Harshwardhan Neotia‘s English narrative translating the lyrics just before the respective stanzas begin is also nice. More important is the spectacular lineup of singers that the song brings – there are classical veterans like Dr. Balamuralikrishna, Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, folk singers like Lakshmandas Baul, even the staple film lineup features some under-rated artistes like K S Chithra, Rekha Bharadwaj etc.

So here is once again wishing everyone a Happy 65th Independence Day! Enjoy the song.

It is being touted as percussionist Hossam Ramzy’s realization of a 10-year old dream. And the man seems determined to make it worth the long duration, collaborating with some of the biggest names for Rock The Tabla – Billy Cobham, a man he considers his idol; A R Rahman, with whom he had worked in Meenaxi, Manu Katche and Omar Faruk Takbilek to name a few. Looking at the track list and the preview, the album seems to be set on a Middle Eastern theme. Quite fitting too, considering that the artist has spent a lifetime fusing Arabic music with various other genres. The album is set to release on the 30th of this month, it can be viewed on iTunes here. Hoping that the songs are made available in Indian outlets as well. Below is a preview of the album.

For those counting down to the launch of Coke Studio @ MTV, the channel has more in store for you on the 17th of June. At 8.30 pm tomorrow MTV shall kick off another show called MTV Roots, a 30 minute programme promoting Indie music from the subcontinent. Just to give you a general picture, the artistes being featured include Avial, Ankur Tewari, MIA, Mekal Hasan Band, Bombay Rockers and many others. And like Coke Studio this too shall be a weekly thing, with repeat shows on Saturday and Sunday at 12.30 pm. With Coke Studio and now Roots as well being launched tomorrow, one might as well christen June 17th as MTV Resurrection Day!

The 58th National Awards were announced some time back, and here is a quickie on the musical category.

Best Music Director, not very surprisingly, went to Vishal Bhardwaj for that classy score of Ishqiya taking his tally of Best Composer national awards to two. His wife Rekha Bhardwaj won her debut Best Female Playback Singer for Badi Dheere Jali from the same movie. Best Male Playback Singer was awarded to veteran playback singer Suresh Wadkar for the Marathi movie Mee Sindhutai Sapkal. Master lyricist Vairamuthu was presented the top honours in his category for his work in the Tamil movie Thenmerku Paruvakkaatru. The Best Background Score award for the third time too went to a Malayalam movie (1994 – Johnson – Sukritham, 2010 – Ilayaraja – Pazhassi Raja) as Issac Thomas Kottukapally bagged the award for his work in Adaminte Makan Abu, which also won the Best Picture and Best Actor honours. Issac, for the uninitiated, has been working in Malayalam film industry since 2002, giving background scores for some splendid movies including last year’s best movie Kutty Srank. You can see Issac’s Malayalam discography here.

Another music-related award came in the category of Best Art & Culture Film went to the bilingual film made on the cult band Indian Ocean, Leaving Home.

A very late find this, thanks to @nocturnalrand. Mumbai-based Ankur and the Ghalat Family a few days back released the video of their new song Bekhabar. For the uninitiated Ankur and the Ghalat Family is a four piece band headed by Ankur Tewari (who did music for movies like Raat Gayi Baat Gayi and lyrics for quite a few movies including the mega funny ones of Quick Gun Murugun, and has also made many cameos in movies, last of which was the musician whose song gets plagiarised by John Abraham in Saath Khoon Maaf) and comprised of Tough on Tobacco vocalist Sidd Coutto, Johan Pais and Gaurav Gupta. Coming back to the song, interesting Latino riffs and wonderful job on the vocals. A definite must watch. You can watch it below. (Source: NH7)

Bhekabar from viraj2singh on Vimeo.

Fusion artists Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale (or MPKK as they are called as an ensemble) have released the first track of their upcoming musical with Shekhar Kapur called Circus Of Life. The song, titled Today, is devoid of any electronic influence that the artists are primarily known for, instead consisting of a dulcet flute-piano-strings dominated arrangement that builds up to a brief orchestral surge in the middle. The song also has a short Hindi narrative at the start and finish (guessing it is Shekhar Kapur from the voice). A preview of what promises to be a wonderful musical. I only wish that many people listen to this. The last work that Kapur did for Swarovski called Passage, had some brilliant music by A R Rahman but I doubt many apart from the hardcore ARR fans heard that. Really hoping this one doesn’t face the same fate. You can listen to the MPKK track here. All you have to do is like the MPKK official page.