"Not Fusion": Indian Classical Music, The Blues, and Other Soundscapes

Drop by the Ruby on Friday at noon for a casual art talk and free lunch to learn about the behind-the-scenes aspect of the creative process, careers in the arts, and more.

This is a talk, interspersed with performances, about a music project made possible by multiple inheritances: Bombay's musical and auditory soundscape in the 1960s and 70s; Amit Chaudhuri's journey from Western pop to North Indian classical music; his return to the blues after a sixteen-year gap in 1999; his creation, from 2005 onward, of a repertoire that rejected the cultural assumptions of Indo-Western 'fusion'. Amit Chaudhuri will speak of how his project depends on listening to, and even 'mishearing', sounds: how, for instance, it began with him hearing the riff to 'Layla' in some notes he was singing while practicing raga Todi. The sounds of the Berlin U-Bahn; techno; the blues; pop; jazz standards, and, of course, Indian classical improvisation create the impetuses and frameworks for this journey.