Bollywood Brass Band

Performance at The Spitz, London on 22nd Nov 2004
Reviewed by Ajay Pamneja

Bollywood Brass Band creating a riot on stage at The Spitz!

The band consists of a mixture of drum players and wind instruments/horns players including the saxophone, trombone, flugelhorn and cornet.

In an intimate venue like the Spitz, the space was perfect to hear and see the band at close quarters. The band are currently promoting their 3rd CD titled Movie Masala, dedicated to the last 50 years of Bollywood films. The band played some classics like 'Chura Liya hai tumne' and 'dum maro dum' alongside the recent hits like 'dil to pagal hai' and several others. The sound of the brass instruments has to be heard to agree with the statement that listening to this band can be so uplifting. The energy that goes into playing the instruments on the stage is infectious and audience cannot stop tapping their feet and eventually joining in on the dance floor. The one track which gets everyone going was also played on the night - 'Gur nalo ishq mitha' in its full glory with the dhol and a truly, madly dancing audience.

The addition of the dhol, tabla and the full drum kit along with the traditional drum brings the very complementary sounds to the whole ensemble which work very well with the brass sounds. The video projections of Bollywood film songs to accompany some of the tunes being played on stage adds another pleasant dimension to the whole performance.

To experience this for yourself, listen to their CDs or get down to one of their concerts near you. The CDs can be purchased at the Bollywood Brass Band's website at - www.bollywoodbrassband.co.uk.

Nomadica – Roots Revisited (Apr 2004)

Review by Dominic Rai

Review by Dominic Rai of the season of Jewish-influenced music organised by the Jewish Music Institute, the School of African and Oriental Studies and Multiculti at the South Bank.

The hottest band in the season was Kroke from Poland. (Kroke is a Yiddish word for ghetto). The band uses ancient Jewish culture to create new and unique compositions in an attempt to ask the question: ‘what does it mean to be a human being?’. 

I first came across the band last year when I heard its CD made with Nigel Kennedy, East Meets East. 

There are three performers – Tomasz Kukurba (violin, viola, vocals, flute and percussion), Jerzy Bawol (accordion) and Tomasz Lato (double bass). Tomasz Kukurba brought a lot of humour into the performance creating percussion on a double bass played by Tomasz Lato. 

The band has a lot of raw energy plus a strong fan base. All three wear hats and look extraordinary visually. They are masters of traditional kletzma music but imbue it with a modern sensibility. At times they sound jazzy, at times contemporary, at times classical. Their music is at once passionate and danceable.

They played for two hours non-stop. The audience would not let them go so they returned for encores ending with a traditional Serbian tune, Lullaby for Kamilla, which Jerzy Bawol described as one of the most beautiful pieces they had to offer.

Rosa Zaragoza is a singer inspired by Jewish-Catalan songs from the 15th century who has progressed to music from the Christian, Jewish and Islamic cultures of Spain. 

She is doing something very beautiful – picking up on early music which is a mixture of these three traditions. 

Her three-strong band includes a Muslim violin player Mohamed Soulimane and a Christian guitarist Lautaro Rosas. There is also an Asian percussionist S Chandra Naraine. 

Rosa is a gutsy performer but does not speak English so she worked with an interpreter. A few surtitles could have also helped.

Rosa excelled at the Sephardic wedding songs of North Africa. I look forward to seeing more of her work in this country. 

At a time of antagonism between the religions, she and her band are a very positive influence.

Daphna Sadeh and the Voyagers are a world music group with a Middle Eastern orientation based in London. 

Daphna, an Israeli composer and double bass player living in Cambridge for the past two years. brings together performers from contrasting backgrounds to create a cross-cultural musical tapestry.

She told me her father originally came from Germany and went to Israel via England. Her mother was born in Jerusalem of Russian origins and her maternal grandfather spoke fluent Arabic. 

She studied classical music at Manhattan School of Music although jazz was her first love. She wanted to find a musical language that suited her. This became a mixture of Israeli/Jewish and Middle Eastern music. 

She sees herself as being influenced by but also contributing to contemporary world music. She plans to release a CD later this year and perform at summer festivals followed by a European tour next year.

I found her sound very uplifting. Some of the compositions were 500 years old but recently rearranged. She celebrated the cultural differences of her homeland and it was great to be part of that. 

It was also great to see a woman leading a band, who included Stewart Curtis (saxophone, clarinet and flute), Koby Israelite (accordion), Nim Schwartz (oud) and Assaf Seewi (percussion). 

The Soul of the Fiddle featured a new kind of violin playing, one I had never heard before. The genius of the show was that the violin became the ambassador for different cultures. 

All the performers were virtuosi. The concert included Turkish music and an oud player. The Turkish violin had a lovely Middle Eastern feel to it that sounded as though it represented the true soul of Turkey. 

The Norwegian Hardanger musician Sven Olav Lyngstad performed fantastic wedding dance music. One piece, The Dance of the Devil, described strange wedding customs including people having a fight. We also discovered that Norwegian people drink to get drunk, dance and celebrate. 

The Indian violin was performed sitting down by Balu Raguraman. He featured Carnatic music from South India. The violin is a relatively new instrument in India but the performance showed it has become typically Indian. 

The percussion accompanying the violin was out of this world. The Bluegrass section played by Rick Townsend and other artists from the southern United States featured two violins, a cello and a banjo plus singing. 

The reviewer, Dominic Rai, is artistic director of Mán Melá, a British Asian theatre company. He has a specialist interest in Panjabi Sufi music.