George Brooks Summit –||- Spirit and Spice [Earth Brother Music]

Tags

George Brooks, Jazz, Saxophone

George Brooks Summit - Spirit and Spice

George Brooks Summit –\\- Spirit and Spice [Earth Brother Music, 2010]

George Brooks is a prolific and diverse saxophonist and composer, acclaimed for successfully bridging the worlds of jazz and Indian classical music. He is the founder of several important Indian fusion groups including Summit with Fareed Haque, Kai Eckhardt, Zakir Hussain and Steve Smith, Bombay Jazz with Larry Coryell and Ronu Majumdar and the Kirwani Quartet with Dutch harpist Gwyneth Wentink and Indian flute maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia. 2010 brings us the release of George’s new Spirit and Spice CD (on Brooks’ Earth Brother Music label) as well as Abstract Logix’s release of the Raga Bop Trio CD featuring George, drummer Steve Smith and south Indian electric guitar phenomenon, Prasanna. In the fall of 2010 he will reunite with his mentor/colleague Terry Riley and Asian Underground innovator, Talvin Singh for an extensive tour of Europe and the UK.

George’s deep understanding of raga has lead to collaborations with many of India’s most respected artists including Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Kala Ramnath, U.Srinivas, Ronu Majumdar, Vikku Vinayakram, A. Sivamani, Louiz Banks, Shankar Mahadevan and Dr. L. Subramanium. He has performed at major festivals throughout India and appears on numerous Indian recordings and the soundtracks of Indian films.

New Releases [Jazz] … for the Week of 7/19/2010

Tags

George Brooks, Jazz, New Releases, Prasanna, Steve Smith

Greetings’ jazz aficionados, I’m back with an intricate canvas of what’s -cool- and maybe not so -cool- from a optimistic perspective we don’t usually find in the diet of the chromatic pop music culture. The origin of new music featured each week encompasses various branches of jazz, which exudes a wealth of complex and distinctive styles, insinuating textures, immaculate melodies, and relentless rhythms exalted by the definitive voices of creative artists serves up sounds to quench our immutable thirst for quality music.

Featured Album of the Week

Smith, Brooks & Prasanna

Steve-Smith–George-Brooks–Prasanna -\\- Raga Bop Trio – [Abstract Logix, 2010]

The music of the Raga Bop Trio is an organic blend of jazz, rock, funk, afro-Caribbean and Indian classical music. In this music there is the strong influence of western harmony and melody as well as U.S. style grooves and Euro-jazz atmospheric feels. From the Indian side, George Brooks brings his expertise in the north Indian Hindustani style and Prasanna – being from Chennai, India – is an expert in the south Indian Carnatic style.

I grew up with the U.S. jazz/groove concept and starting in 2002 I’ve incorporated north and south Indian rhythms into my playing. For me, the distinctive quality of the Raga Bop Trio is that the writing and playing employ a seamless amalgamation of all the individual components.