JAZZ REVIEW : Uttal Mixes Indian, Western

Jai Uttal has an interesting World Music idea. Take some of the devotional melodies, the ragas and the talas of Indian music and add a few Western touches--jazz-style improvising, funk rhythms and the like.

Been there, done that, you say? The Mahavishnu Orchestra, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, among numerous others?

Too true. But Uttal, who performed a one-nighter at LunaPark Sunday, is not a casual grazer through another culture. A serious, longtime student of Indian music, he has built an entire repertoire around vocalizations of such Hindu songs and chants as “Hara Shiva Shankara” and “Radhe Radhe.” The instrumental work of his seven-piece band flows from the essential music of the vocals, rather than simply pasting itself on the surface.

All of this could have resulted in an experience only marginally removed from a service at the Hari Krishna temple. But the unique blend of jazz-tinged trombone and Indian-styled violin in many of the melodic passages and the effective mixture of Indian percussion with jazz and funk rhythms managed to be convincing without distorting the elements of either music. The trombone solos of Jeff Cressman--especially using a plunger mute--were potent illustrations of creative musical bridging.

Principal focus of the group, however, was the laid-back Uttal. Standing front-and-center, occasionally playing a hand-pumped harmonium or a mini-sarod, but mostly singing, he had the charisma of a root-bound ficus tree. But the lack of visual stimulation didn’t matter to a jam-packed audience that swayed and rocked with the rhythms of the tabla, the dunbek and the conga, and joined Uttal in singing of some of the repeated lines of his songs. It was a demonstration of the impact of cross-cultural musical blending.