RXB What Is Now 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.
RXB Experiments With Truth 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.
Richard X Bennett 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.
Bennett will celebrate the release of What Is Now and
Experiments With Truth in the company of his trio and quintet, at Rockwood
Music Hall in New York City on Wednesday, October 11.
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