SOUNDTRACK: ADITYA PRAKASH ENSEMBLE-GlobalFEST Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #135 (January 13, 2021).
GlobalFEST is an annual event, held in New York City, in which bands from all over the world have an opportunity to showcase their music to an American audience. I’ve never been, and it sounds a little exhausting, but it also sounds really fun.
The Tiny Desk is teaming up with globalFEST this year for a thrilling virtual music festival: Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST. The online fest includes four nights of concerts featuring 16 bands from all over the world.
Given the pandemic’s challenges and the hardening of international borders, NPR Music and globalFEST is moving from the nightclub to your screen of choice and sharing this festival with the world. Each night, we’ll present four artists in intimate settings (often behind desks donning globes), and it’s all hosted by African superstar Angélique Kidjo, who performed at the inaugural edition of globalFEST in 2004.
The second band on the third night is the Aditya Prakash Ensemble.
Performing from their home base in Los Angeles, Aditya Prakash Ensemble highlights songs borne from South India’s Carnatic tradition. Prakash uses his voice as an instrument to tell powerful, emotive stories — which he reimagines in a fresh, dynamic way. Aditya Prakash Ensemble’s modern take on traditional music mixes in jazz and hip-hop and features a diverse L.A. ensemble.
The Ensemble is a quintet. With Julian Le on piano, Owen Clapp on Bass, Brijesh Pandya on drums and Jonah Levine on trombone and guitar.
As “Greenwood” starts, I can’t quite tell if he’s actually singing words (in Hindi or some other language) or if he is just making sounds and melodies. It sounds great either way. He sings a melody and then the upright bass joins in along with the trombone. He displays a more traditional singing and then Le plays a jumping piano solo which is followed by a trombone solo. The ending is great as he sings along to the fast melody.
“Vasheebava” is a song about seduction. Levine plays the guitar on this song. It starts with gentle effects on the cymbals (he rubs his fingers on them). Prakash sings in a more traditional Indian style and Levine adds a really nice guitar solo.
“Payoji” is a traditional devotional song and Prakash sings in a very traditional style. But musically it’s almost a kind of pop jazz. It’s very catchy with a nice trombone solo.
This conflation of Indian music with jazz is really cool.
[READ: January 11, 2021] Fearless.
“If one man can destroy everything, why can’t one girl change it?”-Malala Yousafzai
This book begins with this wonderful sentiment:
Not long ago, a wave of exciting books uncovered stories of women through history, known and unknown, for young dreamers around the world. Women who had been warriors, artists and scientists. Women like Ada Lovelace, Joan of Arc and Frida Kahlo, whose stories changed the narrative for girls everywhere. Readers around us were thrilled to discover this treasure trove. But there was something missing. They rarely saw women of color and even fewer South Asian women in the works they were reading.
It’s a great impetus for this book which opens with a timeline of Pakistani accomplishments (and setbacks) for women. The timeline is chronological in order of the birth years of the woman in the book. Interspersed with their births are important events and the year they happened.
Like in 1940 when women mobilized and were arrested or in 1943 when the Women’s National Guard was formed. In 1948, a law passed recognizing women’s right to inherit property. In 1950, the Democratic Women’s Association formed to demand equal pay for equal work (it doesn’t say if it was successful).
In 1973 the Constitution declared there could be no discetrmaton on the basis of race, religion, caste or sex.
But in a setback in 1979, the Hudood Ordinance passed which conflated adultery with rape, making it near impossible to prove the latter–and the punishment was often death.
And yet for all of the explicit sexism in Pakistan, the country accomplished something that America has been unable to do–elect a woman as leader. In 1988 Benazir Bhutto became the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The woman in this book are given a one-page biography and a cool drawing (illustrations by Aziza Ahmad). They range from the 16th century to today. (more…)
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The only thing better than finishing an awesome book is discovering that there’s a sequel and the quality and integrity of the sequel is just as strong as the original story.
