Prasant Radhakrishnan's VidyA
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Prasant Radhakrishnan's VidyA

Oakland, California, United States | SELF

Oakland, California, United States | SELF
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"With major venue set to open in S.F., the year looks promising for jazz"

VIDYA

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. His 2004 album, "Duality," can be found at www.prasantmusic.com, and this year VidyA will be resident composer at the Red Poppy Art House.
- San Francisco Chronicle


"Next Phase of VidyA: Prasant Radhakrishnan takes his South Indian-jazz blend to a new level of intricacy."

At age thirteen, saxophonist Prasant Radhakrishnan entered a kind of journeyman-apprenticeship that doesn't really exist these days. It didn't really exist back in 1996, either — but the stars just happened to align for Radhakrishnan, and he got "discovered" the old-fashioned way. He was a second-generation kid living in Phoenix, where he played in the middle-school band. A family friend invited him over to her house to meet Kadri Gopalnath, a famous practitioner of South Indian carnatic music who happened to be touring in Phoenix. They clicked, and Gopalnath took him on as a disciple, housed him in Mangalore, India, for four summers, and subjected him to a rigorous daily routine. Within four years, he had developed a style of music with no historical antecedent.

"I had zero interest in Indian classical music," said the 27-year-old saxophonist. "I wasn't against it, I just wasn't interested." Radhakrishnan came from a family of music aficionados, but none chose music as a profession. Even his teacher had no concrete aims. When the two first met, Gopalnath taught Radhakrishnan a few Indian scales and listened patiently while the young sax player tooted through his school band material. "He didn't train me from day one to be his successor," said Radhakrishnan. "In his mind, I'm gonna become a doctor or engineer."

Today, Radhakrishnan is best known as the leader of VidyA, a jazz trio featuring David Ewell on bass and Sameer Gupta on drums. He conceptualized the group about ten years ago as a means to present a vast arsenal of original compositions. Radhakrishnan's music straddles a thin line between two traditions — jazz and carnatic music — but tries to conserve the integrity of both. That's a tall order, he said. "One of the biggest challenges is to not make either of the kinds of music sound wrong, or bad, or kind of cheesy — you see what I'm saying?"

Radhakrishnan is anything but typical. He performs in a long tunic called a jubba, which is traditional apparel for South Indian men. Local artwork adorns the walls of his apartment, and the Mead notebooks on his desk are filled with lyrics written in Sanskrit. When he's playing an Indian classical concert, Radhakrishnan sits on the stage with his legs crossed. His face is a study in self-composure. He grew up listening to all the giants — Trane, Bird, Wayne Shorter — and he has the ingrained groove of someone who worked hard, studied a lot, and ultimately found his own voice. But he's working in a form that's entirely outside the jazz idiom. He's trying to achieve the forward motion of jazz without the harmonic changes.

"I think they're playing in nine," said one audience member at the Red Poppy Art House, counting beats on his fingertips. Correct, Radhakrishnan said later. The song is called "DSH," and it requires Ewell to play four- and five-beat bass lines over and over again, while Radhakrishnan zigs and zags over top.

VidyA's music is hard in the sense that it requires the three musicians to know two forms of music very well, and meld them together without stepping on either one. South Indian music is similar to jazz in that it starts off with a through-composed part called a krithi, then delves into long improvised sections using the main line of the song as a leaping-off point. But Indian music is structured around ragas (elaborate melodic modes) rather than chord changes, so it often requires the players to stay in one key for an entire song. For Radhakrishnan, it's critical to hew to that form. "If you're playing a bunch of chord changes, and just playing some Indian scales, they're not Indian ragas," he explained. "They're just scales and any jazz musician can do that."

Indeed, a lot of modern jazz musicians add Indian elements to their music — usually as a stylistic flourish or intellectual curiosity. Radhakrishnan is much more purposeful and directed. His music has jazz grooves, asymmetrical rhythms, and in-the-moment improvisations. It swings like jazz. But it's also deeply rooted in South Indian tradition. Radhakrishnan says he became conversant in both forms almost by happenstance.

The process by which he learned is called gurukulem, and it's exactly what the word implies. "These days, everyone studies by going to their teacher for an hour, going home, going to a teacher for an hour, going home," said Radhakrishnan. "In India the traditional method is you live there, study with him, and do everything for him." In this case, Gopalnath was the guru. He taught Radhakrishnan how to play by rote, usually by singing the melodies and requiring the saxophonist to write them down, or play them back on his horn. During his summers in Mangalore, Radhakrishnan woke up at 5 a.m. and practiced all day, every day. He stood in the corner and practiced while Gopalnath said his prayers. Gopalnath brought Radhakrishnan on tours, made him load up the equipment, and had him sit at the back of the stage, counting beats on his fingers.

To call that "arduous" would be an understatement. But the rigors of gurukulem paid tremendous dividends for Radhakrishnan, who spent the rest of his high school career studying jazz at a similarly intense level. At home he listened to every horn-playing legend in the Blue Note catalog, played in the all-star jazz bands, and eventually went on to study music and international relations at USC. After graduating, he got a performing arts fellowship from the American Institute of India Studies, which allowed him to spend a full year working in India. He formed VidyA in 2005 and recorded the group's self-titled album in late 2007. Roughly translated, the band's name means "knowledge" or "pursuit of a higher purpose."

"The first chapter was to bring these two forms together and have a natural sound without stepping on either side too directly," said Radhakrishnan, who is working on a second VidyA album. The next phase, he says, is to meld jazz and South Indian music in an even more intricate way.

With a Zellerbach grant and two concurrent artist residencies — one at Oakland Asian Cultural Center, the other at Red Poppy Art House — Radhakrishnan stands at an interesting juncture in his career. He's aware of America's obsession with Indian imports (in everything from Zakir Hussain to Slumdog Millionaire) but he's also wary of anything with East-West cachet. In fact, Radhakrishnan is somewhat of a traditionalist. He traffics in hybrid forms but fixates on purity. Some listeners compare his material to Coltrane. The analogy doesn't make that much sense to Radhakrishnan, except on an abstract level. "I think it might be because of what he was chasing for with some of the Indian music he studied," the saxophonist said. "He was going for that spiritual aspect. My teacher gave me that from the beginning, so it's just kinda been a part of me." - East Bay Express


"Karnatik Music Meets Jazz: Prasant Radhakrishnan takes his saxophone back to its jazz roots"

The saxophone has had a long history of finding unexpected homes for itself. When Frenchman Adolphe Sax invented the instrument in 1846, he was not able to persuade 19th-century composers to make it a regular member of the Romantic Symphony Orchestra. It was, however, enthusiastically adopted by jazz musicians during the 1920s and 30s, almost completely replacing the clarinet as a solo instrument during the bebop era.

In India, the saxophone has had a similar ambivalent relationship with the music intelligentsia. It remains an important part of the brass marching bands that successfully compete for wedding gigs with the primary native reed instruments—the shehnai in the north and the nagaswaram in the south. But the shehnai and nagaswaram were traditionally looked down upon as background instruments, not designed for serious listening, and the saxophone was considered to be a foreign interloper even in this humble territory.

The man who almost single-handedly made the Indian saxophone respectable was Kadri Gopalnath. The son of a nagaswaram player, he became captivated by the saxophone when he heard it in the Mysore palace band, and then spent 20 years studying with vocalist T.V. Gopalakrishnan and violinist Gopalakrishna Iyer until he developed an authentically Karnatik saxophone technique.

His performances on the soundtrack for the Tamil movie Duet gave him recognition in popular as well as classical circles, and in 2004 he was awarded the Padmashri by the Indian government. Today, thanks to Gopalnath, the saxophone is on its way to becoming as legitimately Indian as … well, the violin.

* * * * *

Gopalnath’s premier student is Prasant Radhakrishnan, who was born in Phoenix, Ariz., but grew up in a family that spoke both Tamil and Telugu. He learned Karnatik music on saxophone in the traditional guru-shishya relationship with Gopalnath in India, where he released two widely acclaimed albums of Karnatik compositions. These also featured violin and the traditional percussion accompaniment of mridangam, ghatam, and morsing. But Radhakrishnan also has a bachelor’s degree in jazz performance (and international relations) from the University of Southern California. His training in both music traditions enabled him to see that they shared an essential essence, and so he set out to establish some “international relations” with some other gifted Asian-American jazz musicians. The result is VidyA (the capital “A” is not a misprint), a combo that reunites the Karnatik saxophone with its jazz roots, and produces a compelling new musical synthesis.

Texas-born Gautam Tejas, who studied Karnatik violin in Tamil Nadu, completes the melodic duo format which is the heart of Radakrishnan’s and Gopalnath’s Karnatik performances. This duo is supported by the jazz rhythm section of bassist David Ewell and jazz traps player Sameer Gupta. Ewell and Gupta are the driving force behind several well-known jazz groups, including the Supplicants and Marc Cary’s Focus trio. But Gupta is also an accomplished tabla player, and uses his knowledge of Hindustani cross-rhythms to create astonishingly original percussive textures on his jazz trap set.

Hindustani and Karnatik musicians often use different words for the same concept (a Hindustani tihai is a Karnatik korvais) or even the same word for different concepts (the Hindustani rhythmic cycle rupak has seven beats, but Karnatik rupak has six beats). Consequently, VidyA’s original music often emerges spontaneously from both Indian and jazz roots with a minimum of technical conversation. “When I work on a composition. I sometimes write it out in Indian sargam, and sometimes in Western staff notation,” says Radhakrishnan, “but I don’t bring the written notation to rehearsals. I make a few explanations, play my parts, and then we all play together and the music evolves from that.”

Because Indian music and jazz have different ranges of expressive possibilities, this evolutionary process creates a remarkable fresh approach to improvisation. Jazz players usually prefer complex chord progressions that require rapid modulation between different scales. Indian musicians use no chords, only a drone, and stay in a single scale for an entire piece. This focus on a single scale and chord, however, makes it possible to use rhythmic variations which would run roughshod over a complex jazz chord progression.

The musicians of Vidya use their knowledge of Indian rhythms and scales to create both Hindustani and Karnatik variations on jazz instruments. The melodic solos often use the Karnatik formula of starting with sarvalaghu (double time outlining of the raga in a straight rhythm) and then progressing into kanakku (Tamil for “calculation,” which means to introduce more and more complex cross rhythms). They also frequently use Karnatik talas of five or seven beats, and Karnatik ragas which require the use of specific recognizable motifs. But 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.

Vidya’s latest showcase is as artists-in-residence at the Red Poppy Art House in San Francisco, where they are planning a series of collaborations with dancers, poets, and filmmakers.

“VidyA’s sound is not exotic, but quite the opposite,” says Tod Brown, director of Red Poppy. “It is a local development—present tense, present location, new culture in the making. In the Art House residency, they will continue this activity of reinterpreting, and artistically translating, the cultural developments in the world around us. Like a blade, they cut through outdated cultural myths to expose a new identity that lies at the intersection of the complex world we all live.”

Recording and concert information on VidyA and can be found at www.vidyamusic.com

Teed Rockwell has studied Indian classical music with Ali Akbar Khan and other great Indian musicians. He is the first person to play Hindustani music on the Touchstyle Fretboard. - India Currents


"VidyA: The Best of Both Worlds"

VidyA is a fresh ensemble that transverses the two worlds of Carnatic music (Classical South Indian music) and American Jazz. This remarkable ensemble will be visiting Santa Barbara on February 26th at UCSB Multi-Cultural Center. I spoke with the band’s leader and saxophonist Prasant Radhakrishnan while he was visiting Tamil Nadu, India.

It is my understanding that Carnatic and most Indian classical music styles are very traditional and prefer to stay within that tradition although there have been groundbreakers with styles and with instruments (I believe your guru Kadri Gopalnath made the saxophone “acceptable” in the Carnatic tradition). How was VidyA’s music initially received in those circles? Did you experience any resistance?

The concept of combining aspects of Indian classical music with musical traditions outside of India, especially the West, has been in practice for at least 60 years if not more. So listeners, critics and musicians alike are familiar with the idea and consider it as a different angle or genre altogether. Definitely the quality and level of taste associated with these projects have been varied recently. This alone could cause a “resistance” with Carnatic listeners on any mention of a hybrid or “fusion” project. Perhaps my association with both Carnatic and jazz music has lessened some of this.

Ultimately the level of intensity of purpose and thought put into the music can be the measure of its success conceptually. The music of VidyA has sprung from somewhere deep within us despite a certain level of technical complexity on the surface, so I think that has touched some who listen to it. Hopefully the music will go beyond even concepts.

American Jazz also has strict traditions, with a heavy emphasis on improvisation. How was VidyA’s music initially received there?

As far as I can tell, the listeners have been extremely gracious and embraced the music. We receive so much energy from the audience in our live shows. People crave music whose intention comes from the heart. So that always speaks without fail. The perceived strictness of the jazz tradition is a complex topic that is always in flux and discussion, but difficult to pin down.

The only thing I can think of is that serious jazz listeners or musicians point out that some of our songs are in one key, which is unusual for jazz. This is a necessity to preserve the beauty of the Carnatic ragams. The sheer melodic potency of these ragams with all their shades and nuances carry a different dimension of subtle music that would be lost during frequent chord progressions.

We have a special approach in many of our compositions that addresses even this, so listeners will have to look out for it. The first hint of this is the track Kaveri from our first album. Our upcoming second album takes VidyA into an even deeper level.

Is improvisation encouraged in Karnatic music like it is in American Jazz?

It is not only encouraged, it is a necessity and considered more than ½ the equation in a live concert. Musicians are measured by their improvisations.

In listening to your music, it seems you have found a true blend of both styles, and produce a truly unique and new form of music that flows naturally. When you started, did you know it would work?

First, thank you for that! I started the concept many years ago just as a natural progression of being immersed in both kinds of music. I was hearing this music in my head, so I knew it worked on that level. I’m thankful the music actually did come into existence in the real world.

Very few musicians are equally trained in such diverse styles, how has knowing both “languages” & cultures so well influenced you as a person?

I know it has shaped my life and who I am but it would be difficult to say exactly how. The musics are like two different worlds, but still they appear the same in many ways. I am grateful for having the expanded perspective of being exposed to so many influences.

What would be your advice to young musicians trying to find a different “niche” in the musical world?

Listen to as much different kinds of music as possible, but make sure it is good music. Feel free to emulate your musical heroes, but when you actually play on stage, be yourself. There is nothing better in life and music than to just be your true self.
- Music! The Sounds of Santa Barbara


"Sax player melds jazz, Indian classical music"

Most saxophonists play their instruments standing up, but today, Prasant Radhakrishnan is sitting down. His legs are crossed, his back is upright; the saxophone droops like a brass pipe from his mouth to the floor.

The 25-year-old is seated on a rug in the one-room Sangati Center in the Mission District of San Francisco. Several dozen spectators, all of whom have removed their shoes at the door, wait for Radhakrishnan to begin. Finally he drops his head, closes his eyes and leans his left shoulder in to coax the first noise from the sax. It is, when it emerges, not a jazzy or bluesy sound but a soft, distinctly carnatic murmur that ascends briefly, then tumbles down deep like a drone.

Radhakrishnan, who lives in Oakland, plays South Indian classical, or carnatic, music like this around the world. He has performed in India, Japan, Canada, Barbados and across the United States. Three weeks ago, he did a sweep of colleges in western Michigan and Chicago. In a few months he'll be touring India. The young saxophonist is often accompanied by a carnatic drummer, or mridungam player, and a carnatic violinist, as was the case at the Sangati Center. Other times he plays with larger ensembles or with musicians independent of the carnatic tradition.

Tonight, when he takes the stage at the Climate Theater, he'll play with his jazz trio, VidyA.

"Prasant is redefining the way to play saxophone, and the way for us to listen to it," says Howard Wiley, an accomplished saxophonist and a regular at Yoshi's jazz club in Oakland. "He's coming from a very different place than I am, but his love for organic music, and his commitment to excellence, and just his attempt to master his instrument - those are the truest judgment of a musician."

Radhakrishnan's technique on the saxophone is unique. South Indian classical music is built upon ragas, seemingly simple lines of notes that, unlike scales in the Western tradition, have countless oscillations coloring each phrase. A stringed instrument like the violin or a wind instrument like the bamboo flute can reach these liminal tones to great effect. Conventional wisdom has it that the saxophone - a keyed instrument that emits audible gaps between each note - can't do the same. Indeed, the sax is almost never included in traditional carnatic ensembles.

But Radhakrishnan has developed novel fingerings and new reed techniques so that it can. He sits rather than stands, and throttles his chest and throat as though he were singing through the mouthpiece of the instrument.

"I focus a lot on the vocal aspect of the music," Radhakrishnan says. "In carnatic music, whatever you do, you try to mimic the vocal. Whether it be violin or flute or guitar, you're trying to make the instrument sing, literally to the point of matching words. The tone of the saxophone closely resembles the human voice, so while it may be challenging to play in the carnatic tradition, it really adds a new depth to the music."

Radhakrishnan is not the first to play saxophone this way. His guru, Kadri Gopalnath, is. The two met when Radhakrishnan was a 13-year-old living in Phoenix, and playing saxophone in a mediocre middle school band. Gopalnath saw talent in his future pupil and invited him to spend a summer studying at his home in southern India. Radhakrishnan, who at the time admits to being "bored by Indian classical music" but "intrigued" by his guru, agreed.

He soon began a gurukulam, or complete immersion, with Gopalnath. He slept on a bare cot behind his teacher's house. He took cold showers. Gopalnath awoke him most mornings before dawn and passed along knowledge of carnatic saxophone at any and every hour of the day.

"That first summer was one of the most memorable experiences of my life," Radhakrishnan says. "It was like reading 'Zen and (Confucius in) the Art of Swordsmanship' or something."

Radhakrishnan returned to India the next two summers. By 17 he had recorded his own solo album, "Swara Sudha." He attended the University of Southern California, where he earned degrees in international relations and music. He began to tinker with his own techniques and, as a musician who had grown up straddling two cultures (carnatic music and American jazz), mused over how to bridge the two.

Now three years out of school, Radhakrishnan has produced two more carnatic albums and spearheaded the Bay Area jazz ensemble, VidyA, that's pioneering trans-cultural terrain. David Ewell, who plays frequently with Wiley and Lavay Smith and has toured internationally with Lauryn Hill, is the trio's bass player; Sameer Gupta of the Supplicants and the Marc Cary Trio is on drums. Last year VidyA were resident artists at the Red Poppy Art House in the Mission District.

"When I listened to VidyA for the first time, it just seemed so clear that it was a very present-time music," says Todd Brown, a painter and co-director of the Red Poppy. "For Prasant, this is just what he hears when he goes to bed at night; it's literally an outgrowth of a person straddling two worlds. And it's giving artistic expression to that new ground, that new identity."

"Carnatic music is religious music," adds Ewell, who has had to work to integrate the bass into the sliding tones and polyrhythms of carnatic saxophone. "There's all sorts of layers of meanings to the ragas. That's true of jazz, too. Jazz and blues basically come out of the music of the black church, of gospels and spiritual songs. So there's a resonance there."

VidyA has recorded its first album, which is due out in April. Radhakrishnan will be playing with VidyA locally, and touring nationally with his carnatic saxophone until then.

"Ultimately, whatever tradition you're coming from, music has to touch you emotionally," Radhakrishnan says. "When I'm performing, I'm not trying to say, 'Here's some jazz,' or 'Here's a little splash of carnatic.' It's more organic than that. It's about making people feel on the most basic level."

Prasant Radhakrishnan

and VidyA will perform

at 9 tonight at the Climate Theater, 285 Ninth St. For ticket information, call (415) 263-0830.

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle


- San Francisco Chronicle


Discography

VidyA (2008)

Photos

Bio

These three 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.

Prasant Radhakrishnan

Prasant Radhakrishnan is VidyA's saxophonist, founder and composer. A senior student of Carnatic saxophone pioneer, Kadri Gopalnath, Prasant has performed solo internationally in both the Carnatic and Jazz traditions and released three critically acclaimed Carnatic saxophone albums.

David Ewell

David Ewell is one of the most sought after bass players in the Jazz and contemporary music scene. His innate sense for improvised music has made him a inseparable part of VidyA's intense sound. David has travelled the world playing with jazz greats while performing regularly with Marc Cary, Howard Wiley, Lavay Smith and many others.

Sameer Gupta

Sameer Gupta has established himself as a powerful voice in percussion and improvised music. His background in Indian classical percussion combines with his powerful drumming to create a dynamic soundscape for VidyA. Also a composer, Sameer has worked in several succesful ensembles, including the Supplicants and Kosmic Rennaissance.

David and Sameer have performed together in various ensembles for several years.