Monday, March 23, 2009

Rudresh Mahanthappa

Rudresh Mahanthappa (who happens to be the son of the high energy physicist K. T. Mahanthappa who many of us in the field know well) is a jazz saxophonist who has experimented in recent years with Carnatic classical music along with the well-known Carnatic musician Kadri Gopalnath. The New Yorker recently ran a full length feature on him, which also talks of his most recent "astonishing" and "spellbinding" album Kinsmen. Part of the album is a collaboration with Gopalnath and the violinist Kanyakumari and it's an album that is truly remarkable (listen for example to the piece Longing or Kalyani).

Kinsmen is unfortunately not available in India as a CD -- however it can be legally downloaded from Pi Recordings, a small New York based label (Pi), for $9.99. Some of the individual pieces are also available for download in case you don't want to 'risk' buying the full album, for $0.99 a piece. Definitely worth the money.

1 comment:

Jay said...

While watching Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the blues" a saxophone tune(in a shot of NYC)reminded me of Rudresh's music... and it was a pleasant surprise to find his name in the credits!