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57RudreshMahanthappaRising Star Jazz ArtistRising Star Alto SaxophoneBy Shaun BradyTo me, fusion was the Yellowjackets,” laughed RudreshMahanthappa. Despite his ambitious recent projects integratingjazz and South Indian music, and more recently electronics, theBrooklyn-based altoist rejects the fusion tag as inappropriate.His resistance is justified. More properly, Mahanthappa could be considereda hybridist, having created a new form whose cross-culturalparentage is evident but inextricably blended. His music is marked not bythe heavy accent of a non-native speaker, but by the lilting inflections of afluid multi-linguist.While he welcomes the attention that’s been paid to his recent work,Mahanthappa expressed some trepidation that the focus has been more onprocess than on results. His influences, like those of frequent collaboratorssuch as pianist Vijay Iyer and guitarist Rez Abbasi, are interwoven withhis experience growing up as a first-generation hyphenate-American.“The concept of the melding of these two cultures being more importantthan the music itself is disturbing to me,” he said. “People like me andVijay and Rez are uniquely equipped to deal with this particular synthesizingof ideas, because we’re living it culturally every day. So it’s not somuch about trying to achieve the goal of putting these two things together—Ifthat’s your goal at the outset, it becomes this exotic cut and paste,more about people playing in the same room than about playing together.”Mahanthappa’s first explicit engagement with his heritage was at leastas much a social as a musical statement. His 2004 CD Mother Tongue (Pi)confronted a certain American cultural ignorance, asking the question,“Do you speak Indian?” to a number of Indian-Americans and basing itsmelodies on their replies in several of the myriad languages actually spokenon the subcontinent.Last year’s Kinsmen (Pi), the debut CD by Mahanthappa’s DakshinaEnsemble, a collaboration with Carnatic saxophonist Kadri Gopalnath,was lighter on the cultural critique but just as fraught with technical difficulties.The project had its inception more than 15 years earlier, whenMahanthappa’s brother bought him a Gopalnath album called SaxophoneIndian Style on a lark. The music within had a profound impact.Over the next several years, Mahanthappa caught Gopalnath live on acouple of the elder saxophonist’s rare U.S. visits, and in 2003 actuallybroached the subject of a collaboration. It became a reality a few monthslater under the auspices of New York’s Asia Society.Mahanthappa visited Gopalnath in India in 2004. The music that resultedweaves together East and West like a tapestry, forming a rich, colorfulimage in its fullness. “There are a lot of bad fusion projects where somebodyjust harmonizes a raga the same way they would harmonize ‘ByeBye Blackbird,’” Mahanthappa said. “It’s pretty dreadful. Figuring outhow to avoid that was important.”Growing up in Boulder, Colo., Mahanthappa’s Indian-American heritagehad been, at most, a casual influence on his life. But later in hisdevelopment, Mahanthappa felt compelled to explore the music. In 1994,he traveled to India’s Jazz Yatra Festival with a student group fromBerklee College of Music and returned with an altered perspective.“The music was incredibly inspiring,” Mahanthappa said. “I obviouslyfelt connected to it, but I also felt like I could sit down with those recordsand play along with them, try to extract things the same way I did when IJazz Artist,Rising Star63 Rudresh Mahanthappa46 Anat Cohen43 Vijay Iyer41 Jason Moran36 Lionel Loueke36 Esperanza Spalding29 Mary Halvorson23 Miguel Zenón21 Mike Reed20 Donny McCaslin19 Julian Lage17 Chris PotterAlto Saxophone,Rising Star128 Rudresh Mahanthappa82 Miguel Zenón65 Dave Binney59 Jaleel Shaw33 Steve Lehman32 Jon Irabagon35 Steve Wilson29 Grace Kelly27 Ted Nash22 Matana Roberts18 Antonio Hart17 Yosvany Terrysat down with Coltrane records and Charlie Parker records.”Shortly thereafter, fellow saxophonist Steve Coleman introducedMahanthappa and Iyer, leading to a friendship and musical partnershipthat has flourished over the past decade. The two were in the initial stagesof integrating Indian concepts into their own music, and each approachedthose concepts from a different angle—Mahanthappa interested in themelodic side, Iyer the rhythmic.The altoist’s first attempt to form a project exploring those interestscame in Chicago in 1996, while he was earning his masters at DePaulUniversity. The sax/guitar/tabla combo never gelled to his satisfaction atthe time, but he revived the idea recently as the Indo-Pak Coalition, whichalso issued its first CD, Apti (Innova), last year. The trio features Abbasiand tabla player Dan Weiss.“It’s three people who are dealing with the Western musical languageand the Indian musical language at the same time,” Mahanthappa said.“So things are a little more malleable compositionally, in that we don’tnecessarily have to adhere to Indian structural elements.”Samdhi, the latest progression on Mahanthappa’s musical path, featuresguitarist David Gilmore, bassist Rich Brown, drummer DamionReid, mridangam player Anand Ananthakrishman and Mahathappa playingalto and laptop. The quintet further blurs stylistic boundaries, supplementingthe composer’s Indo-jazz expression with a responsive, improvisingcomputer instrumentalist.“In doing Kinsmen I realized there were some more complex things Iwanted to work on,” Mahanthappa explained. “I also want to get moreinside of this electronic stuff. The idea for Samdhi was to integrate all ofthis into a new piece that was not so blatantly Indian.”In addition to the aforementioned groups, Mahanthappa’s ongoing projectsinclude Mauger, his collective trio with bassist Mark Dresser anddrummer Gerry Hemingway; MSG, a trio with Irish bassist RonanGuilfoyle and Indian-French drummer Chander Sardjoe; and RawMaterials, his ever-evolving duo with Iyer.“I don’t feel like I’m still struggling to figure out how Indian I am orhow American I am,” Mahanthappa concluded. “I’m very much at peacewith the fact that it’s a constant exploration.”DBMICHAEL JACKSON36 DOWNBEAT August 2009