Following a commission award from the American Composers Forum in 2002, alto saxophonist and educator Rudresh Mahanthappa draws more specifically on his Indian ancestry to compose the suite that makes up the music on Black Water. This recording, his second as a leader, finds Mahanthappa -- who has been a sideman with the likes of such jazz notables as David Murray, Greg Osby, Jack DeJohnette, Vijay Iyer, Joe Lovano, and Steve Coleman -- dedicating the CD to all who have had the courage to leave behind their own culture and identity upon arriving in a strange new land. Opening with the compelling and fiercely individualistic "Balancing Act," the saxophonist immediately takes flight with an unflagging drive of bebop rhythms and speed that culminate into melodic fluency. Accompanied by pianist Vijay Iyer, Francois Moutin on bass, and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums, the quartet's improvisational techniques are blistering and well-crafted. Iyer, a piano phenom in his own right, plays exceptional solos that round out the musical sentences Mahanthappa is voicing. Moutin, known for his work with Martial Solal and Michel Portal, provides first-rate bass accompaniment -- both rhythmically and melodically. Kavee, who tours frequently with dynamic pianist Omar Sosa and Henry Threadgill, keeps the demanding rhythms interesting with his stellar use of cymbals, colors, and textures. At times, Charlie Parker's influence peeks through on such tunes as "I Like It When You Play the Blues," but overall, Black Water is in Rudresh Mahanthappa's own intense alto saxophonist voice -- which is definitely one of the strongest voices on the jazz scene. - Paula Edelstein (allmusic)
Officially, Black Water is the second album by alto saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa.
( The Preserver, a blazing follow-up to 1997's Yatra, remains in the can.) Commissioned by the American Composers Forum, this powerful suite deals in part with the difficulty of immigration, not only for those who make the journey but also their progeny - people like Mahanthappa and pianist Vijay Iyer, both first-generation Indian-Americans. The two have cemented their musical partnership by way of Iyer's own quartet (see last year's Panoptic Modes, also on Red Giant) and an ongoing duo project called Raw Materials. It is largely their rhythmic and harmonic rapport that regulates Black Water's volatile tides.
Mahanthappa's music is highly active, influenced mainly by M-Base and non-Western rhythmic concepts. When he's in full gear, his lines practically overload the senses with their sheer velocity and timbral bite. But this new opus has a contemplative side; episodes like "Viraha" and "Faith" find him entering an incantational space that he carries off quite uniquely, his Indian influences coming to the fore. Titles like "What's a Jazz?" and "Are There Clouds In India?" seem to gently mock the child-like befuddlement that can accompany a first encounter with a foreign culture. The former cut, with a twisted contrapuntal head that almost sounds like a knowing update of "Ah-Leu-Cha", finds bassist Francois Moutin and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee delighting in a furious solo exchange. On "Joe Made the Face" (dedicated to Joe Viola), Iyer and Mahanthappa practically achieve a mind-meld, playing the tune's accelerating unison lines with a near-perfect symmetry. Mark Turner and Kurt Rosenwinkel displayed a comparable hook-up on "Bo Brussels", from Turner's In This World (Warner Bros.). This kind of elevation and refinement is not simply a cut above the norm; it arguably redefines the norm. - David Adler (allaboutjazz)
The title of Rudresh Mahanthappa’s new recording, Black Water (Red Giant), refers to the ocean, the prodigiously wide and deep body of water you cross when you leave your culture behind. The 10-song suite, tied together with interrelated rhythmic and melodic motifs, serves as a meditation on cultural displacement, but it’s also an opportunity for the saxophonist-composer to explore his Indian ancestry in music. Here is what you will not hear on Black Water: tablas, sitars, incantation or drone. This is not Indo-jazz fusion. Aside from very subtle touches-a saxophone played with a pinched sound and an occasionally sliding pitch or a rhythmic cell built from a 10 1/2-beat cycle-Mahanthappa’s music is cutting, sleek and heavily rhythmic modern jazz. It has more in common with the music of Steve Coleman or Greg Osby than it does with that of Ravi Shankar.
“I grew up listening to Indian religious music,” Mahanthappa says. “Later, I studied it, because I had a relationship to it. I gravitated to it, like Steve Coleman gravitated to certain African music. He felt a cultural draw to it. But I’m not trying to create a fusion. If I wanted to do that, I’d get a tabla player. I’m trying to express those sounds in the context of jazz today. I’m trying to make a hard statement-some sort of expression of Indian-American identity. I think that’s expressed throughout the record.”
Mahanthappa’s quintet includes pianist Vijay Iyer, who also grew up a first-generation Indian-American largely cut off from other Indians. Mahanthappa met Iyer several years ago through Coleman and found that they shared very similar backgrounds as well as the same musical interests: tight, biting and funky postbop derived from Parker and Coltrane and manifest in Osby’s and Coleman’s music. “It was miraculous that we met,” Mahanthappa says. “It’s almost like we’re cousins or brothers.”
Not surprisingly, their interaction forms the core of Black Water. Mahanthappa spends much of the recording playing easily and comfortably at driving tempos, subdividing the spaces between Iyer’s pounding chords with his long, twisting melodies. Even though Mahanthappa draws inspiration from his ancestry and the mysterious pain of the Indian diaspora, he presents it here honestly and in his own language-that of modern jazz. The tabla player is not missed. - Aaron Steinberg (jazztimes)
Tracks
01. Balancing Act
02. I Like It When You Play The Blues
03. Viraha
04. What's A Jazz?
05. Rejoice: Sing Your Own Song
06. Simonize
07. Joe Made The Face (For Joe Viola)
08. Are There Clouds In India?
09. The Crossing
10. Faith (Intro)
11. Faith
RUDRESH MAHANTHAPPAalto saxophone
FRANÇOIS MOUTIN acoustic bass
VIJAY IYER piano
ELLIOT HUMBERTO KAVEE drums
All music composed by Rudresh Mahanthappa
Recorded at The Studio, NYC on April 8, 2002
Red Giant Records - RG012