Pianist/Composer Richard X Bennett
Connects Mumbai & New York City
With 2 New Ropeadope Releases,
His First Recordings on an American Label,
Due October 6
Trio Date "What Is Now" &
Indo-Jazz Quintet Album "Experiments With Truth"
Both Feature Rhythm Section of
Bassist Adam Armstrong & Drummer Alex Wyatt
Baritone Saxophonist Lisa Parrott &
Matt Parker on Tenor/Soprano
Are Added on "Experiments ... "
CD Release Show Set for October 11,
Rockwood Music Hall, NYC
August 25, 2017
Since moving to New York from his native Toronto in the 1990s, pianist and composer Richard X Bennett
has thrived as a performer in a broad variety of stylistic contexts.
Splitting his time between New York and Mumbai, he released a series of
acclaimed albums on several Indian imprints, with his last two on Times
Music, India's largest label.
Until now, however, Bennett had yet to put an album out on an American label. On October 6, a dual release by Ropeadope Records will mark the pianist's first American recordings -- the trio date What Is Now and the Indo-jazz quintet session Experiments With Truth.
Bennett displays his loose, percussive, and conversational instrumental
style on the trio album. The raga-infused music on the quintet album is
something else again, as stylistically remote from his trio opus as the
Big Apple is from Bollywood.
Bennett is joined on both CDs by bassist Adam Armstrong and drummer Alex Wyatt, with baritone saxophonist Lisa Parrott and tenor and soprano saxophonist Matt Parker augmenting the trio on the quintet album. What Is Now presents Bennett
as a bold instrumentalist and as a composer of themes that beg for
lyrics. The album's mood, energy, and tone range from the tender opener "Vital Grace" to the playful "Go Against the Tide," from the sanctified sway of "Sefrou Soul" to the cinematic scope of "Bittersweet Success." One also gets a taste of Bennett's sense of humor on a distinctly original doo-wop arrangement of "Over the Rainbow."
Bennett describes the quintet's sound on Experiments With Truth
as "Mingus meets raga in the 21st Century." Music he originally
conceived and performed with North Indian classical musicians is
arranged and performed in a jazz context. "As far as I can tell it's the
first time it's been done," Bennett says. "I don't claim to be a raga
musician, because first off, the piano isn't a raga instrument. I'd say
it's raga-based. I like the analogy they use on cooking shows, 'This is
my take on a dosa.' As a jazz musician, this is my take on raga," the
vast vocabulary of melodic structures, or modes, upon which classical
Indian music is based.
"I was always somewhat of a minimalistic player," Bennett
adds. "The blues is also like a specific raga, and if you play it
academically it won't sound right. You can't just run the scales. With
Indian music, everybody else was doing fusions based on complicated
rhythmic figures. I'm much more interested in the melodies."
Experiments With Truth opens with "The Fabulist," a long, persuasively surging piece based on a particularly ancient raga (raga malkauns). "Portrait in Sepia"
feels like an Ellingtonian tone poem by way of Calcutta, opening with
an ominously swaying cadence designed for Parrott's brawny horn. The
album's centerpiece is the two-movement "Durga Suite,"
which evokes dual but very diverse aspects of the warrior goddess Durga
(also known as Devi and Shakti). The title track, which borrows its name
from Gandhi's autobiography The Story of My Experiments With Truth, is a stimulating and increasingly wild piece inspired by the early morning raga ramkali.
While growing up in Toronto, Richard X Bennett
honed his own approach to the piano. His highly personal sound flowed
from limited contact with bebop and early exposure to traditional New
Orleans jazz and avant-garde combos like the Art Ensemble of Chicago and World Saxophone Quartet. The first jazz he ever saw live was South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim
"and I walked out of the concert being able to play five of his songs,"
Bennett recalls. "I've always loved that inside/out approach, Jaki Byard and Don Pullen. I don't play bop but I do just about every other jazz style."
He introduced his Indo-jazz concept on the 2009 solo album Ragas on Piano
(Dreams Entertainment), and expanded the instrumentation with the late
bassist Gaku Takanashi and tabla master Naren Budhkar on 2011's Raga and Blues (Mystica Music). Picked up by Times Music, India's biggest label, he released 2013's critically hailed New York City Swara, with Takanashi, Budhkar, Carnatic violinist Arun Ramamurthy, and drummer Michael Wimberly, followed by the 2015 duo album Mumbai Masala with Hindustani vocalist Dhanashree Pandit Rai. Today Bennett also works with Honk & Tonk,
a "N.O.L.A. meets noir" duo with saxophonist Michael Blake, and
composes for modern dance, most recently a piece for the Alvin Ailey
Company performed at the Essence Festival in New Orleans.
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| Mini-videos from "What Is Now" |
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| Mini-videos from "Experiments With Truth" |
Photography: Sean Yoo
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