• Source:JND

Multifaceted Indian singer, composer, and music educator Harini Iyer is bringing her Tamil Jazz Collective to Delhi on Sunday, July 26. The artist will be performing at The Piano Man, Eldeco Centre as part of New Orleans & Company and The Piano Man Partnership. This has made waves among jazz listeners who are excited to explore the genre with a twist of Carnatic music.

In an exclusive conversation with The Daily Jagran, Harini Iyer explained what inspired her to explore the intersection of Carnatic music and jazz, considering how rare this is. The singer claimed that her musical journey has been influenced by moving around constantly. She said, "I am trained in Carnatic music, and I have studied Jazz for a few years, and these two forms together made sense to me. This has been 10 years in the making, but as an act, we are two years old."

tamil jazz collective

She also called Tamil Jazz Collective her "way of connecting with my mother tongue." "I grew up in Mumbai, so I learned to read and write Hindi. But since we moved back and forth quite a lot, I wasn’t able to learn the language that well. And I lost touch with Tamil as well. Now, I can only speak Tamil. I wish to learn to read and write in Tamil. I feel a lot of millennials feel this way; we felt like we didn’t know where we belonged, so English became a language we started thinking in as well," Harini explained.

Tamil Jazz Collective Has Created A Unique Musical Identity

The excitement around the TJC performance at The Piano Man is considerably high, especially among the first-time listeners. Talking about what expectation the audience should have, Harini Iyer claimed, "We always encourage our audiences to come in without any expectations."

She added, "One aspect is the popular Jazz Standards translated to Tamil, which everyone loves, but Tamil Jazz Collective is growing bigger than that now. We are branching into more originals. Not just my existing originals but also writing new music as a band. Our sound makes you happy but also makes you go inward, I suppose. People have said they have never heard a sound like this and that they really enjoyed learning something about themselves through it."

Tamil Jazz collective at the piano man

Jazz And Carnatic Music Have Far More Similarities

Jazz is famous for its blue notes, and Carnatic music is famous for its microtonal gamakas. When asked if there is an emotion that exists in Tamil Jazz that doesn't exist in either genre on its own, Harini explained, "Jazz and Carnatic music have far more similarities, and we explored this as a workshop at Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory when I was a visiting faculty member in 2019. Both forms have improvisation as their crux, which is Manodharmam in Carnatic music. And both forms are a way of life. You can keep learning all your life."

"To me personally, they independently didn’t create as big an impact. I was escaping Carnatic music because I was forced into it as a kid, but when I learned Jazz, I realised I processed and parsed everything in Carnatic swears and gamakams. So, Tamil Jazz Collective is really a long and twisted way of connecting with my roots. As for the blue notes, Carnatic music has them too, but not so commonly. We call it Graha Bedham, a concept that Balamurali Krishnan explored quite often."

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Are Fusion Genres In Music The Future?

Harini Iyer believes that future generations are impressively inclined towards fusion genres of music, especially Tamil Jazz. "The good thing about this fusion is that people can also go explore the roots and beginnings of each of these art forms separately. Even within my family, I have a few cousins who love and fully understand what TJC is and also Gen Z nephews who feel that Carnatic music needs to be experienced as a pure form, and we all coexist with respect. I love dialoguing with the young; there’s so much to learn from them! "

Talking about the future of Tamil Jazz Collective, Harini promises that a lot is happening. The band is recording and streaming some original singles. Additionally, a concept EP and planning for bigger tours next year are on the cards.

 


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