More than a decade ago, the Bengali writer, academic and singer Amit Chaudhuri noticed that certain of his favourite rock songs shared melodic traits with some of the Hindustani classical ragas that he had learned.
Both employed the pentatonic scale – that simple, five-note mode that’s common to many folk musics around the world – and Chaudhuri set about putting together a band to explore these connections. They’ve since released two albums, mixing original material with radical Indianised reinventions of songs by the likes of the Doors and the Byrds.
Tonight he fronts a jazz-inspired quartet (piano, bass, guitar, tenor sax) with percussion supplied by a tabla player. Chaudhuri’s high baritone supplies the precise khyal-style vocals, while his left hand moves up and down almost precisely mirroring his pitch, as if he were controlling a giant theremin.
As a literary critic, Chaudhuri must be aware of the benefits of showing over telling, and the weakest parts of the show see him rather hammering home his thesis. Reinventions of Summertime, Eric Clapton’s Layla, Sympathy for the Devil and Across the Universe are rather laboured attempts to make the connection between the rock and raga, and end up sounding like an unpleasantly exoticised pub rock.
It’s much more effective when he seeks more subtle commonalities, particularly when the guitarist ditches the distortion pedal. My Name is Gauhar Jaan, inspired by an Armenian-Indian singer from Chaudhuri’s native Kalkata, is presented as an appealingly quirky post-punk song. The pattering 10/4 groove One Fine Day resembles Nick Drake, while the slow-burning 7/4 patterns of Saraswati hint at Tim Buckley. Both succeed in creating a completely new genre – a kind of pastoral Indo-folk fusion.
The show closes with a stunning, widescreen version of In a Silent Way, where Chaudhuri’s subtle ululations fit perfectly with Miles Davis’s aqueous theme. Fusion isn’t a word Chaudhuri likes to use but, at its best, that’s just what his music is.
