Indian jazz is upping the ante again

As bands begin touring again, plunge into the newest wave of Indian jazz, with artists collaborating to create music that is progressive and open-minded, from home grown Carnatic jazz to an Afro beat-influenced version

Back in 2019, at the height of pre-pandemic freedom, unrestricted musical events, and generous budgets, The Many Roots Ensemble was an eight-piece jazz band. Besides the multi-city core of guitarist, bassist, drummer and saxophone player, “we had a three-piece song section, a keyboard player, a percussion guy and rappers,” recalls guitarist Subid Khan about their NH7 Weekender performance. Now, it is just the core four making music on their own.

It makes sense for a band like Many Roots to have a fluid crop of talent at its disposal: its signature sound blends jazz with a variety of North African and West African music, as well as Afro beats from Nigeria, along with elements of Indian folk and street music. The demand of each composition is different, so “when the occasion and budget allows, we get featuring acts,” says Subid over a call from Goa, where he is currently making music with Jarryd Rodrigues, Souvik Bhattacharya and Abhishek Debsidkar.

Many Roots will be making its debut in South India with a performance at Chennai’s Black Orchid restobar this Friday, kicking off the Southside Groove Tour with Chennai-based jazz-rock band Jatayu.

The three-stop tour, put together by Shrikanth Natarajan of The Chennai Scene, will be taking the two bands to Catamaran Brewing Co in Puducherry and Fandom at Gilly’s Redefined in Bengaluru as well, in the hope of exposing music lovers to newer, more playful versions of homegrown Indian jazz. As comparatively younger musical acts, albeit with steady followings within the country’s indie circuit, they are not the only jazz artistes looking to build an audience in the country.

As Jatayu guitarist Sahib Singh explains, “Conceptually, both of us [Jatayu and Many Roots] are doing the same thing: we are both collaborative projects looking to work with different artistes. The music for both is progressive and open-minded, be it our Carnatic jazz or their Afro beat-influenced jazz. We have been meaning to play with Many Roots, who have never played down South, so we thought we would show them around.”

This will be Jatayu’s second tour in recent months, after its Restless Tour with Harini Iyer in Delhi, Gurugram and Hyderabad. Collaboration is inherent to jazz; the genre demands to be played around with. So, obediently enough, after Harini, Jatayu is currently working with a number of Indian and international artistes including Chennai-based jazz vocalist Susha to release a string of singles.

Bands like Jatayu, Till Apes, The Revisit Project, The Many Roots Ensemble are part of the latest crop of Indian Jazz musicians — the newest wave in a tide that has been steadily turning for over two decades now. For Tanish Thakker, who co-runs the platform Jazz in India founded by Emmanuel De Decker, making note of upcoming talent, platforms and festivals is an everyday task. He explains, “They are what we call the new jazz cats. There are so many different genres and different styles of Jazz today. First you have the calibre of Gino Banks, Rhythm Shaw, Vasundara Vee, Mohini Dey, Ravi Chari and Rakesh Chaurasia and many more in that space.”