Hindustani classical music goes bluesy

Amit Chaudhuri, writer and musician has defined fusion in his own way, thanks to mishearing that led him to find similarities between blues and Hindustani ragas

Hindustani classical music goes bluesy

Amit Chaudhuri, writer and musician has defined fusion in his own way, thanks to mishearing that led him to find similarities between blues and Hindustani ragas

His is a unique take on fusion and you will hear a riff of the Eric Clapton's famous track Layla when he performs the raga Todi. These mishearing or riffs as he chooses to call them are what drove Amit Chaudhuri, author and musician into his own world of fusion. "I was interested in these moments of mishearing in unexpected ways.

I wanted to do something to explore these convergences like play the All India Radio (AIR) theme in a jazz setup," says Chaudhuri. He refers to it as a recontextualisation of the sounds and plans to play a series of them from his two released albums, This Is Not Fusion and Found Music along with a few unreleased ones for the first time in the city.

Music for Chaudhuri began at an early age owing to his mother Bijoya Chaudhuri, a Hindustani classical singer specialising in Tagore songs and the ambience of classical music around. "When growing up in Mumbai, I used to play the guitar and sing. My first exposure to music was in the form of blues and rock 'n' roll.

I began listening to Hindustani classical music at the age of 15 and learnt the same when I turned 16", says Chaudhuri who practically turned against Western sounds as a student in England. By the time he returned from his stint in England in the year 1999, he was a published author and a performing classical musician.

"I began listening to a lot of old records, especially blues at this stage. And this is when I began finding similarities in the sounds of blues and Hindustani classical," says Chaudhuri. Thus was born his sound that starts with the elements of Hindustani classical moving onto strangely familiar blues tunes.

Besides the music, Amit Chaudhuri has published several works of fiction and poetry including those like Afternoon Raag and A Strange And Sublime Address. Talking about parallel career he says, "Both are like different cells I inhabit. I don't prioritise. There have been times when I have thought about giving up both and opening a second hand bookstore."

He admits to doing both at different times in a day and of also having days when he does only one of the two, music or writing. One wonders how the music influences his writing and vice versa. He says, "That is one thing I have not been able to figure out yet. I don't feel like a writer when playing and hardly feel like a musician when writing. There are similarities though. Both involve a fair amount of listening to the world."