The Women’s Raga Massive Put on a Cutting Edge Indian Music Festival Starting Next Week

The Women’s Raga Massive represent the female contingent in the Brooklyn Raga Massive, the intrepid collective taking traditional Indian music to new places. Since there are still as many problems related to sexism and the glass ceiling in Indian music as there are anywhere else, the Women’s Raga Massive play an important role in providing a platform for this city’s formidable female talent base. The Women’s Raga Massive’s Out of the Woods Festival starts next week, with a fantastic lineup of shows.

It kicks off on March 14 with a rare New York appearance by veena virtuoso Saraswathi Ranganathan, who’s playing two sets, at 7:30 and 9:30 with her brother, Ganapathi, on mridangam at the Jazz Gallery. Cover is $20.

Then on March 16 starting at 11:30 AM, the Women’s Raga Massive are sponsoring a free roundtable discussion on empowerment, Metoo and sexism in South Asian artistic communities at the Rubin Museum of Art. It winds up at 2 with two of the world’s most lyrical, captivating Indian carnatic violinists, Trina Basu and Anjna Swaminathan “engaging together in an improvisational dialogue with an art piece of their choice during a special museum tour.” The concert by itself is $19/$14 stud/srs, but participants in the roundtable get to watch for free.

On March 21 at 7 PM there’s an extremely relevant immigration-themed multimedia performance, Ask Hafiz, at Joe’s Pub. It tells the story of writer Sahar Muradi’s tumultuous journey from Soviet-ruled Afghanistan to Queens. “Along the way, following an age-old practice, she turns to the book of poetry by Hafiz for advice. The answers are revealed through songs composed and sung by edgy Iranian-American songwriter Haleh Liza, dance choreographed and performed by Malini Srinivasan, with music by Adam Maalouf, Trina Basu, Bala Skandan and Rich Stein.” Cover is $20.

The festival winds up back at the Rubin Museum on the 29th at 7 with a performance by the Women’s Raga Massive featuring an especially potent lineup: santoorist Deepal Sanghvi Chodhari  – star of the early morning party at the 2017 Ragas Live Festival – plus powerhouse singer Roopa Mahadevan, with Roshni Samlal on tabla and Rajna Swaminathan on mridangam. Cover is  $30

The Women’s Raga Massive compilation album got a rave review here last year. In addition, many members of the Women’s Raga Massive are represented on the Ragas Live Festival compilation album, streaming at Bandcamp. That one’s almost sixteen hours of live performance at the annual allnight party that began in the WKCR studios in 2011 and includes material from the following six years.

It’s an embarrassment of riches. Having listened to about half of it since getting it last fall, it’s a mix of classic ragas played by some of the biggest names in Indian music, plus state-of-the-art originals and a handful of strange cross-genre collaborations that usually work. If you want to get somebody hooked on Indian music, introduce them to the Ravi Shankar performance of Raga Bhimpalasi at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and this. And then bliss out with them.

The Women’s Raga Massive are well represented on it. Basu is all over it, most strikingly in an an absolutely gorgeous suite by her string band Karavika, moving from a wistful pastorale to several spine-tingling crescendos. Mahadevan delivers volley after volley of shivering, meticulously nuanced melismatics throughout a marathon forty-minute raga. And another fantastic singer, Mitali Bhawmik – who is not part of this spring’s festival – creates calmer rapture throughout a similarly epic take of Raga Bihag.

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Reinventing Indian Music at a Well-Loved Red Hook Institution

Pretty much every Thursday, the Brooklyn Raga Massive take over the Jalopy. While many members of the vast Indian music collective play traditional repertoire on Indian instruments, the organization dedicates itself not only to preserving those traditions but also taking them to new places. The eclectic series of special guests, who play at 8:30 PM followed by a jam session, bring jazz, Americana, Middle Eastern and Balkan sounds to the music, and vice versa. Cover is $15, but if you’re a competent musician, bring your axe: admission to the jam is free after 10 PM. Just be aware that while some of this hemisphere’s foremost Indian musicians often join in, this is neither a cutting contest nor an open mic. Rather, if you have some familiarity with Indian music, or you’re at least comfortable being directed to play in a given scale or mode, it can be like getting a free master class from some of the best in the business.

This week’s installment on Jan 17 features cellist George Crotty, whose eclectic career spans Celtic and traditional Jewish music as well. If you were one of the dedicated crowd who made it out even deeper into Red Hook last October for the Brooklyn Raga Massive’s 24-hour raga marathon, you have some idea of what to expect.

In 2017, this blog was in the house for the marathon’s overnight segment, from about half past two to nine in the morning on a Sunday after a memorial service for a friend. This may sound cliched, but the often haunting modes of those morning ragas – played by a succession of string and wind instrument players and percussionists – had a viscerally healing effect.

Last October, the game plan was to catch the beginning of the marathon, staged at Pioneer Works. The show began with the Pradhana Dance and Music Company (sounds like an all-purpose Kolkata entertainment conglomerate, right)? This group actually hails from these parts. Kathak dancer Jin Won spun with an airy effortlessness, bringing to life the kind of classic mythological poses that decorate ancient sacred sites throughout parts of the Hindustani subcontinent. Percussionists Michael Lukshis and Kaumil Shah gave her a groove; they were later joined with a similar terse elegance by sitarist Indro Roy Chowdhury.

The next ensemble, Raman Kalyan, played one of the traditional early-evening ragas, characterized by an uneasy quality meant to depict the tension in the shift between night and day. Flutist V. K. Raman was joined by violinist Arun Ramamurthy, making the first of his many appearances in a 24-hour span, playing subtle flickers and wide swaths of melody over the rhythmic rises and falls of Akshay Anantapadmanabhan’s mridangam.

Riveting, magical singer Mitali Bhawmik held the crowd rapt for the next hour, backed by Anirban Chakravarty on harmonium and Dibyarka Chaterjee on tabla, finally building to a meticulously modulated, shivery crescendo of microtones. After a set of more American soul-flavored originals by singer Ganavya and her backing unit, slinky allstar string band Karavika took the stage.

“I haven’t seen these guys in ages,” a raven-haired beauty remarked to her neighbor in the crowd, an oldtimer wearing a hat with a minor-league Mets logo and nursing a 24-ounce beer. He admitted to not having heard them in ages either: both were visibly psyched to see them play (much as it seemed that he was going to be there for the duration, she outlasted him).

Frontwoman/violinist Trina Basu led the quartet through mesmerizing thickets of counterpoint and intertwining melody, cellist Amali Premawardhana adding some striking, unexpected cadenzas, bassist Perry Wortman keeping the hypnotic pulse going in tandem with mridangam player Rajna Swaminathan. Most of the themes, from lowlit nocturnes to a cinematic storm suite, were originals; they ended with a couple of expansive, dynamically shifting variations on ancient carnatic melodies. 

Captivating Cutting-Edge New Indian Sounds from the Women’s Raga Massive

True to their bandname, the Brooklyn Raga Massive draw on a huge talent base, including but not necessarily limited to players who specialize in Indian classical music. Their rise from their early days at a grungy little Fort Greene bar to big summer festivals is a rare feel-good story in recent New York music. These days, they reinvent John Coltrane and Terry Riley, put on all-night raga parties and push the envelope with where Indian music can go.

Because all of their members are busy with their own careers, the cast is constantly rotating. The Brooklyn Raga Massive also have a subset, the Women’s Raga Massive, whose new compilation, compiled by brilliant violinist Trina Basu, is steaming at Bandcamp. 20% of the proceeds from the album are being donated to the nonprofit Indrani’s Light Foundation, dedicated to empowering women and combating gender violence. They’re playing Joe’s Pub tonight, March 31 at 7 PM; cover is $20.

The artists here are a mix of singers and instrumentalists. Although most of the tracks ultimately draw on centuries-old melodies, most of the arrangements are brand-new and very innovative. The album opens with flutist Rasika Shekar’s Uproar, rising from a brightly modal swirl to a mashup of Afro-Cuban jazz and modal carnatic riffage fueled by Hooni Min’s emphatic piano.

Basu’s string band Karavika contribute The Time Is Now, its warmly undulating melody over alternately scattergun and hypnotically thumping percussion. Cellist Amali Premawardhana’s memorably gentle solo sets up a brightly soaring response from Basu. A bit later on she and her violinist husband Arun Ramamurthy join forces with the aptly titled, epic Tempest, building from a hypnotic, rhythmic pulse to echo effects, a funky sway and all kinds of juicy, microtonal bends and churning riffs before a final calm.

Multimedia artist/singer Samita Sinha represents the avant garde with the sparse, childlike vocal piece Suspension. Arooj Aftab’s poignantly melismatic vocals swirl over Bhrigu Sahni’s delicate acoustic guitar and Baqir Abbas’ bansuri flute in the sparse, spacious Man Kunto Maula, a more traditional piece.

Mitali Bhawmik’s vocal ornamentations rise from restraint to pure tremoloing bliss in Miyan Ki Malhar, above a stately backdrop of Ramachandra Joshi’s harmonium and Meghashyam Keshav’s tabla.

Pianist/singer Ganavya Doraiswamy’s Nithakam: Dedication to Prashant Bhargava is a somber Indian take on Gershwin’s Summertime. Violin/piano sister duo Anjna & Rajna Swaminathan team up with guitarist Sam McCormally for the broodingly modal Indian gothic trip-hop anthem Ocean of Sadness. Then paradigm-shifting carnatic choir the Navatman Music Collective flip the script with their playfully hip-hop tinged Urban Gamaka (Hindolam Thillana), singers Roopa Mahadevan and Shiv Subramaniam trading shivery microtonal licks over a steady, swaying backdrop.

Navayee, by Persian-American singer/guitarist Haleh Liza Gafori is a balmy love ballad animated by Matt Kilmer’s clip-clop percussion. Psychedelic soul singer Shilpa Ananth works subtle dynamics with similarly lush atmospherics in Enge Nee, against Takahiro Izumikawa’s bubbly Rhodes piano.  

The album’s longest and most trad track is sitarist Alif Laila’s twelve-minute-plus segment of Raga Kedar, a brisk romp right off the bat that doesn’t wait to get to the shivery, spine-tingling heart of the matter. It’s arguably the high point of the album; the ending is a complete surprise.

Violinist Nistha Raj matches and then jauntily trades riffs with alto saxophonist Aakash Mittal in Jayanthi, which is only slightly shorter. Yalini Dream narrates an imagistic antiwar poem over Ganavya’s vocalese and atmospherics to close the album. Fans of cutting-edge Indian sounds like these should also check out the Brooklyn Raga Massive’s other albums, especially their Coltrane covers collection, which feature some of these artists.

Lavish, Paradigm-Shifting Indian Choral Sounds from the Navatman Music Collective

Like the Brooklyn Raga Massive, the Navatman Music Collective are a semi-rotating cast of some of New York’s most innovative Indian instrumental and vocal talent. Just the fact that they’re the only carnatic choir in this hemisphere attests to the group’s adventurousness. Bands have been making rock music out of ancient carnatic themes since the days of the Beatles and Grateful Dead, and then there’s Bollywood, but Indian classical ensembles typically have no use for harmony because it doesn’t exist in the tradition.

When the Navatman Music Collective harmonize, their sound is lush, and otherworldly, and unlike any other choir in the world. Other times, they’ll all sing a single melody line in unison, or with the men and women at each end of an octave. The group are playing the final day of their enticingly eclectic Drive East Festival of Indian music and dance at 2 PM on August 27 at Dixon Place; $20 tix are available along with numerous multiple-show deals and full-festival passes.

The group’s debut album, An Untimely Joy is streaming at youtube. They open strikingly with An Ode in Eight Verses, a stately processional set to an uneasily melismatic, Arabic-tinged mode over an oscillating drone and mysterious bell accents.

The second track, Offering (an excerpt from raga Gavati) features percussionist Rajna Swaminathan and violinist Anjna Swaminathan, cantering along on a tricky but elegantly boomy rhythm: the interweave of voices is rapturously kaleidoscopic.  The movie theme Sweet Infatuation showcases the ensemble’s core mens’ and womens’ voices, bandleader Roopa Mahadevan alongside Kamini Dandapani, Vignesh Ravichandran, Janani Kannan, Preetha Raghu, Kalpana Gopalakrishnan, Shraddha Balasubramaniam and Shiv Subramaniam. They bolster a balmy, conversational duet between Subramanian and Mahadevan over airy violin and bubbly flute.

The ensemble sing the album’s most epic. majestically kinetic, unpredictably serpentine piece, Summer Love in unison, answered by dancing flute and violin in places. A Blue Note puts the strings of similarly innovative Indian trio Karavika front and center in an acerbically chromatic, moodily enveloping piece, the swooping, melismatic violin of Trina Basu anchored by Amali Premawardhana’s stark cello and Perry Wortman’s bass, taken upward by the choir’s resolute intensity. The album winds up with the playful Urban Gamak, Mahadevan and Subramaniam trading shivery microtonal riiffs over a steady, swaying backdrop.

Fans of Indian music will hear things they never heard before on this magical, energetic album; those whose taste in choral music gravitates toward adventurous composers like Arvo Part or Caroline Shaw should also check it out. And the group are amazing live.

Karavika Bring Their Gorgeously Dancing Americana-Spiced Indian String Music to Joe’s Pub

Karavika are one of the most interesting, individualistically compelling ensembles in New York. Their new second album Of Earth and Sky – streaming at Bandcamp – blends classical Indian styles with American folk tinges. Like the music of any other culture, Indian music spans the entire emotional spectrum; Karavika’s is on the introspective, hypnotic side, punctuated by purposeful, animated soloing and catchy string riffage. The core of the band is Trina Basu on violin, guitar and vocals, Amali Premawardhana on cello, and Perry Wortman on bass and mandolin, bolstered by Arun Ramamurthy on violin, Roopa Mahadevan on vocals, Jay Gandhi on bansuri, Advait Shah and Sameer Gupta on tabla and Rajna Swaminathan on mrudangam. They’re playing the album release show on August 11 at 7:30 PM at Joe’s Pub. Sarod-percussion duo Camila Celin & Roshni Samlal open the night; general admission is $15.

The album’s opening track, Your Passing Touch builds out of a fluttery bed of strings under spiky mandolin, then hits a catchy, plaintively waltzing groove: you could call it Indian folk noir. A jaunty minor-key blues violin solo is the last thing you’d expect, but it’s tasty and it has bite. A droll false ending sets up a remarkable, parallel mando solo by Wortman. It ends unresolved.

All the Pretty Little Horses begins with a muted, looping pizzicato violin riff anchoring a moody, searching bass solo, then the vocals kick in, a tender lullaby that’s one part Appalachian folk, one part Indian, with a marvelously terse cello solo. The first of two ragas, Raga Behag is probably the shortest raga you’ll ever hear, a plaintive, melismatic violin solo over a steady cello drone that rises a bit as the piece goes on. The Time Is Now sets a warmly nocturnal string melody over alternately scattergun and hypnotically thumping percussion, Premawardhana’s memorably gentle solo setting up a brightly soaring one from Basu.

The second micro-raga, Raga Kalyani blends dancing violin melismatics with gracefully exploratory vocalese. The album’s most epic. anthemic track, peppered with all sorts of cleverly flitting interludes, is Thillana Jaya Ragamalika, Mahadevan’s lilting vocals over a balletesque groove. Young Leaves of the Bodhi Tree is a return to spare, brooding intensity, a quiet showstopper that unfolds with fingerpicked guitar, vocalese harmonies and cello, picking up steam with an emphatically potent bass solo. The final cut is Oh Watch the Stars, a gently triumphant lullaby that perfectly capsulizes Karavika’s vision of a seamless match between the inward-directed but simmering rapture of Indian music and the comfortable rusticity of Americana. Only in New York, folks.