Taking the Indian American jazz hybrid to new heights

Carnatic music legend Kadri Gopalnath and jazz musician Rudresh Mahanthappa fuse genres on their multi-city US tour

NEW YORK: The music world is getting thick with hybrids. Carnatic music legend Kadri Gopalnath and fiercely innovative Indian American jazz musician Rudresh Mahanthappa kick off a much-anticipated US tour this week.

Jazz composer Mahanthappa who lives in New York is happy to be breaking new ground by going all the way back to his Indian roots. He will be performing on Thursday and Friday at the Asia Society in Manhattan with his “musical hero” Gopalnath and their co-led Dakshina Ensemble. They will perform later November in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the Walker Institute in Minneapolis and a host of other venues in Amherst and Ohio. 

“If I had to call our music something maybe I would call it Indian American music. I would call it hybrid music. I would certainly not call it fusion which I tend to call the ‘F word’,” Mahanthappa said in a pre-concert Asia Society interview. Guggenheim fellow Mahanthappa who teaches at The New School said the tour was a “real exchange of cultural information” and celebrated the legacy of jazz and aspects of South Indian music which are thousands of years old.

“I have been a huge fan of Kadri Gopalnath. As a joke my older brother gave me one of his CDs called “Saxaphone Indian Style.” I couldn’t believe that someone was playing Carnatic music on a truly western instrument,” said Mahanthappa, who first collaborated with Gopalnath in 2005. They hit a high note and are credited with creating a following for Indian American jazz both in India and the US. 

One may be a traditional Carnatic musician while the other is an American jazz composer, but both are masters of the alto saxophone. Defying standard genres has traditionally been a risky move, but US critics have hailed the cross-cultural collaboration between Gopalnath and Mahanthappa as a fresh direction for jazz. The Jazz Times hailed the unusual collaboration as a “rousing success” while The New Yorker said the “grab-you-by-the-collar (musical) attack dares the listener to turn away.” This is, of course, not the first time musicians have blended styles successfully to create genres (that’s how rock ‘n’ roll came about).

Born in Trieste, Italy, and having grown up in Boulder, CO, Mahanthappa now lives in New York and teaches at the New School University. Kadri Gopalnath was born in Karnataka. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2004.

Joining Gopalnath and Mahanthappa on the US tour are South Indian violinist A Kanyakumari, guitarist and sitar player Rez Abbasi, Poovalur Sriji (mridangam), bassist Carlo deRosa and drummer Royal Hartigan.