Sunny Jain Collective: Taboo at Joe’s Pub.

I caught the premier of Sunny Jain’s new project last Thursday at Joe’s Pub. Jain was commissioned by Chamber Music America and co-sponsored by Sakhi for South Asian Women and Breakthrough to compose music about the situation of domestic violence, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS, (particularly as these issues pertain to women) so the title of the performance, Taboo, is well-chosen.

Taboo consists of Sunny Jain on the drums and dhol (more on this later) along with several regulars from the Sunny Jain Collective: Marc Cary on piano, Steve Welsh on tenor saxophone/sound effects, Gary Wang on bass, and Samita Sinha and Achyut Joshi sharing vocals. For the premier performance of this material the group faired well, although there were some definite rough patches.

Sheila Chandra

Caught Sheila Chandra’s New York debut the other night at the lovely Joe’s Pub. Love that room. Anyway, there’s been a lot of speculation about whether she’d fried her voice singing in the way she does (both quiet and intense), which put undue stress on the vocal chords. I’m no doctor but the results were typically steller regardless of how it worked. So she drops out for a while and then I noticed she was doing a WOMAD a while ago and I began to hope that I’d finally get my chance after interviewing her back in 2000. In that interview she talked of different vocal traditions beyond her Indian music and that talk now bears itself out in songs that will be her next record. (Yep, she said from stage there would be a record soon.) Interestingly, she mixed European folk songs, European choral traditions (one song was in partially in Latin) and I believe there was an Irish jig thrown in for good measure. Not what I expected, but her worldclass voice transcended the root material to make it seem very natural. Irish and Chinese music can sound alike at times, and now I’m hearing a connection between Irish and Indian styles. All this and she was up there alone singing a capella or accompanied by prerecorded drones. Very cool stuff. TH