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Description: This concert features the group Natraj, which blends Indian classical music, West African traditional music, and jazz into their own style; and special guest Chitravina Ravikiran.
Concert Series 2. Natraj wi...
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PROFESSOR: The artists tonight-- this afternoon-- are of course, we'll start off with Phil Scarff, Natraj, who plays all these saxes in front of us. Phil is a stalwart of this area who plays in jazz ensembles and also tours India with his gifts as an Indian musician, and has just come back from India, as a matter of fact. And his CD-- his Indian CD-- is up on the table there. Mike Rivard, you probably know Mike from several different ensembles, especially Club d'Elf. He's playing bass. Jerry Leake, white pants over there, plays tabla and he also plays the various hand percussion. He is a member of the Cubist Ensemble as well as Natraj. Bertrand Lehman plays the trap sets and other percussion over in the corner.
They're going to open the program today, but Ravikiranji-- Sangeet [? Samrat ?] Chitravina N Ravikiran, to be more exact-- is going to join them on the second item. And I hope you'll give him round of applause when he appears.
The program today will be in two parts, roughly an hour long each, with a very short intermission between, which will give you a chance to go and look at the many CDs that the artists have brought from all phases of their careers. So without further ado, Natraj.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "AVA DE SE"]
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Thank you very much. And we opened our program this afternoon with a traditional West African piece called "Ava De Se" from the southern Ghanaian tradition of the Ewe people. Once again, Jerry Leake. On that piece he was playing [INAUDIBLE]. Let's hear it for Jerry Leake.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And on drums and percussion, Bertram Lehman.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And on string bass Mike Rivard.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And I'm Phil Scarff on saxophones. Thank you.
Now we'd like to welcome to the stage our special guest for this evening's program, Sangeet [? Samrat ?] Chitravina N Ravikiran.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: So we're going to continue with an original composition by Ravikiran. This is a piece called "River," and it's based on the Carnatic rag [? Saraswati. ?]
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "RIVER"]
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Thank you very much. Once again, that was the composition "River" by Ravikiran, arranged by both Ravikiran and me for this program. And next we'd like to move to a different tradition, and we're going to move to the jazz tradition-- contemporary jazz tradition-- and play a piece by the great saxophonist and composer Ornette Coleman. And this is his classic piece "Lonely Woman," which was first released on-- I believe-- Shape of Jazz to Come back in 1959, I think. And so we thought we'd give this a little different treatment today. This is Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman."
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "LONELY WOMAN"]
[APPLAUSE]
RAVIKIRAN: Good afternoon. And I'd like to introduce the next composition. It's titled "Red Swan." It's actually based on a traditional composition of Carnatic music, and based on a very popular mode of raga called Hamsandani, which is well known in both North Indian and South Indian classical music, but the composition has been set for arrangement with this group, Natraj, [INAUDIBLE] It's a great pleasure for me to play with each and every one of my friends here, and to play at MIT for MITHAS. So this is going to be "Red Swan."
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "RED SWAN"]
JERRY LEAKE: [SINGING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "RED SWAN" CONTINUES]
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Kiran, thank you very much. Thank you. That was "Red Swan," recomposed, decomposed, by Chitravina Ravikiran, arranged by Ravikiran and me for this performance. Thank you very much. So you've been listening to Bertam Lehmann on drums and percussion. Let's hear it for Bertram.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Jerry Leake, tabla and multi-percussion. Jerry Leake.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Mike Rivard on string bass. Mike Rivard.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And of course our special guest for this performance, on chitravina we have Sangeet [? Samrat ?] Chitravina N Ravikiran.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And I'm Phil Scarff on saxophones. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And of course we are Natraj. Thank you for coming out. We are going to take a short intermission.
And we're going to begin our second set with a piece from West Africa. This is from the Dagomba people of northern Ghana, as distinct from the Ewe people of southern Ghana. The opening piece was a West African piece, "Awa De Se." That is from the Ewe people of southern Ghana and also Togo. And this is from the Dagomba tradition of northern Ghana, and it's based on the-- I would call it the-- rhythm called Damba [? So ?] [? Chandi, ?] and there are two compositions. One is called "Wolenboli" and the other one is "Bandanya."
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "WOLENBOLI/BANDANYA"]
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That was Damba So Chandi, "Wolenboli" and "Bandanya." Turn it over to Ravikiran.
RAVIKIRAN: I've been requested to play a short solo piece. This is going to be a composition which I'll be playing on the tabla, just me and the tabla. So it's going to be a composition in seven beats, a time cycle of seven counts known as [INAUDIBLE]. The composer of this is a traditional composer in Carnatic music, Shyama Shastri, who lived between 1762 and 1827. And the raga is ananda bhairavi. It is somewhat like a minor scale.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
RAVIKIRAN: I would like more of this and less of the [INAUDIBLE], please.
[TUNING INSTRUMENT]
[MUSIC - RAVIKIRAN, "MARIVERE GATI"]
RAVIKIRAN: Can you please reduce the high ends somewhat? It's like--
[MUSIC - RAVIKIRAN, "MARIVERE GATI" CONTINUES]
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Next we'd like to play another original composition by Ravikiran. This one is called "No Nonsense Fives," and it's in rag janaranjani.
RAVIKIRAN: This piece was actually born out of the-- against the background that all my other pieces in five had so much nonsense before it. So I thought, OK, at least let me attempt something with no nonsense in fives. The concept behind some of these compositions-- some of these are actually arranged for Western classical symphony orchestras as well. We have a different arrangement for the jazz groups like this. Some of them are even arranged for quartets or quintets and chamber orchestras.
The concept of this is melharmony Basically, melharmony is harmony with an emphasis on the melodic rules of evolved melodic systems. For instance, the Indian raga system is a very highly evolved melodic system of music. So we do create harmony in this-- you will actually notice it more when we have symphonic arrangements presented by orchestras-- but in this kind of thing you'll probably be able to see some glimpses of meloharmonic principles. And in this we are just going to start off with a very short prelude by me, and then follow it by the composition.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "NO NONSENSE FIVES"]
[APPLAUSE]
[TUNING INSTRUMENTS]
PHIL SCARFF: OK. Thank you very much. That last piece was, again, "No Nonsense Fives." We'd like to conclude our concert this evening with a composition by Purandara Dasa. And this one is in rag sindhu bhairavi, and it's called "Tamburi Meetidava." And we've arranged this in such a way of-- we've set this to more of a West African feel. "Tamburi Meetidava."
RAVIKIRAN: Just for information, Purandara Dasa lived from 1484 to 1564. Many of his compositions, they are traditional tunes, but some of it has also been tuned by other people because some of the original have been lost. But he's hailed as the father of Carnatic music. He's had a lot of students' lessons as well.
[MUSIC - NATRAJ, "TAMBURI MEETIDAVA"]
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Thank you very much. Thank you. That was "Tamburi Meetidava." Thank you once again. And you've been listening to Bertram Lehmann on drums and percussion. Let's hear it for Bertram Lehmann over there on drums.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: All right. Laying it down on tabla and multi-percussion we have Jerry Leake. Jerry Leake.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And back here on string bass we have Mr. Mike Rivard. Mike Rivard on string bass.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Yeah, Mike Rivard.
And of course our special guest of the evening, Sangeet [? Samrat ?] Chitravina N Ravikiran. Let's hear it for Ravikiran.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: And I'm Phil Scarff on saxophones. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PHIL SCARFF: Thank you very much. And of course we are Natraj. Thank you so much for coming out this evening to the concert and thanks so much for MITHAS and also Art of the Improvisers and Mark Harvey for organizing this program today. And we hope to see you again. Please check us out on the web, natrajmusic.com, check ou our Facebook page and like us on Facebook. Check out the recordings on the way out and the mailing list, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you. Good night.