Prasant Radhakrishnan’s VidyA: South Indian Classical Meets Jazz

VidyA merges Jazz with the melodic and rhythmic nuance of South Indian Classical (Carnatic) music. Led by critically-acclaimed saxophonist, Prasant Radhakrishnan along with David Ewell (bass), Sameer Gupta (drums) – Hamir Atwal performs as guest drummer at this performance. VidyA has emerged with a soulful, penetrating sound that pushes the labels of “fusion” or “world music.”

These artists have an almost telepathic interplay, incorporating the forward motion of both Indian Classical and Jazz rhythms while elaborating Carnatic ragas infused with melodic richness. The group weaves in and out of the two genres while all the time merging them into one. VidyA translates the language of Carnatic music into the idiom of Jazz.

VidyA has been featured at venues such as SFJazz, San Jose Jazz, Yoshi’s, Asian American Film Festival, Recontraire Internationale in France and more. Radhakrishnan’s original compositions for VidyA have been commissioned by the De Young Museum via the Jazz at Intersection series and awarded the Zellerbach Family Fund grant among others in 2010. VidyA will release their second studio album of original compositions later this year.

Prasant Radhakrishnan: Saxophone
David Ewell: Bass
Drums: TBA

“…Pioneering trans-cultural terrain.” – San Francisco Chronicle

“VidyA’s music breathes at the very center of a cultural crossroads between the North American jazz idiom and the Carnatic music of South India. VidyA’s music is a new vein of North American music… present tense, present location, new culture in the making.” – Todd Brown, Red Poppy Art House

“…when these patterns are played on saxophone, violin, string bass, and jazz drums, there is a build-up of emotional energy and intellectual complexity which seems to recreate the energy that was present at the birth of bebop in 1940s New York. In fact, if Charlie Parker or Dizzie Gillespie had heard VidyA at that time, I think it would have never have occurred to them that VidyA’s music was Indian. They would simply have wondered where these cats had found a sound that was so mercilessly free of the standard melodic and rhythmic clichés.” – Teed Rockwell, India Currents

“A style that’s madly percussive and sparkling… combines jazz’s sweet dreaminess with the Indian form’s insistent rhythmic and tonal changes.” – SF Weekly

“Imagine ragas and American blues folded into a single moment. It’s a fusion of Indian classical and jazz, and the leader, Prasant Radhakrishnan, 24, points the way for a number of Bay Area improvisers.” – San Francisco Chronicle, “Year in Jazz” (January 2007).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hv9eW47W4A
http://vidyamusic.com
http://prasantmusic.com
http://music.prasantmusic.com/album/vidya

$15 admission.  Cash only.
Doors at 7:30 pm.  Show at 8:00 pm.