History of the Blending of Indian Musics with Jazz/Black American Music
February 13, 2025 | 12:00 PM
206 Ingraham Hall
Presentation Details
Indian musics have had a marked influence on jazz since at least the 1950s. Jazz artists such as John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Alice Coltrane, Roscoe Mitchell, and John McLaughlin have blended Indian music practices into their jazz performances and compositions. Elements of Indian musics such as the use of a drone, rāg (melodic scales, patterns, and embellishments), tāl (rhythmic cycles), and their rhythmic vernacular have all been incorporated into jazz. This lecture will be a survey of Indian musics-influenced jazz from the 1950s until the present. It will also cover established and emerging generations of South Asian and South Asian-American jazz musicians of the last 10 to 20 years such as Vijay Iyer, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Rez Abbasi, the lecture’s presenter Aruṇ Lūthrā (leader of Aruṇ Lūthrā’s Konnakol Jazz Project), and others, who have brought Indian music into the mainstream of modern jazz and contributed to its continuing development and evolution.
About the Speaker
Arun Luthra is one of New York’s premier saxophonists, an award-winning composer, and an exponent of konnakol – the Carnatic (South Indian classical) music art form of vocalizing rhythms. As the leader of his Konnakol Jazz Project, he is one of the small group of U.S. musicians of South Asian heritage who have continued to explore the possibilities of fusing jazz with elements of Indian classical music, as well as drawing from the myriad cultures and traditions which he embodies, to create a vibrant new sound and style. Luthra has performed with his Konnakol Jazz Project across the United States as well as in Japan, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and South America. Arun Luthra was also the U.W.–Madison Division of the Arts Interdisciplinary Artist-in-Residence during the Autumn 2021 semester. More details: www.ArunLuthra.NET, www.KonnakolJazzProject.com, ArunLuthra.Bandcamp.com, SoundCloud.com/ArunLuthra, YouTube.com/ArunLuthraMusic
Arun Luthra is a D’Addario Woodwinds artist
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