(Jazz, World Fusion, Raga) Richard X Bennett - Experiments With Truth - 2017, MP3, 320 kbps

Pianist/Composer Richard X Bennett plays unique and soulful jazz with a sound all his own. His albums, the jazz-raga quintet Experiments With Truth and the groove jazz trio What Is Now were released simultaneously by Ropeadope Records in October 2017. He also has six critically acclaimed raga-based records on Indian labels. In New York, he has performed at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, The Guggenheim Museum, The Rubin Museum and Central Park Summerstage. Internationally, he has played in over twenty countries.
“he’s charting the future as mightily as Miles Davis did in the 70s” Midwest Record.
“exceptionally gifted pianist” Simon Redley Music Republic Magazine.
“hypnotic..That’s what makes it so interesting when those cascading Indian patterns known as ragas are played on a very Western instrument: the piano. Pianist Richard X Bennett has been doing this for years, and to striking effect” John Schaefer, WNYC “adds a jazzy harmonic dimension to Indian ragas' horizontally inclined structure. It often evokes the focused ferocity of the singers of Hindustani music, as on his latest solo album, Pure” Richard Gehr, Village Voice “The Ten Best Concerts in New York This Weekend” “there is a flawless musicianship running through everything, especially in the melodic department; matched in intensity by deeply-felt emotions.” JazzdaGama “The music hangs together with a kind of brilliance. Surely this is one of the most successful endeavors in this realm I have heard in a long time.” Gapplegate Music Review.
https://www.richardxbennett.com/

Indian-jazz modal fusions have a long history, going back to the 1960s with John Mayer [the composer-violinist], followed by Ali Akbar Khan with John Handy, Shanti, Charlie Mariano, Vasant Rai with members of Oregon and Winter Consort, and lately George Brooks. The quintet of Richard X. Bennett, with Matt Parker and Lisa Parrott on melody-driving saxophones, Adam Armstrong on bass, Alex Wyatt at the drums, and Bennett before the piano, give us a nonclassical approach to the raga that yet capture some of the related moods associated with time of day. Moreover, the raga mode is kept with quasi classical ornamentation. While the meditative, profound alap is absent, the pieces can be construed as jor with an occasional gat follow-up. The chosen ragas [Malkauns, Marwa, Durga, and Ramkali] are chiefly chromatic with ascending and descending scales the same, although differing emphasis of notes do occur classically. They thus lend themselves to Western instrumentation. (George Harrison's Marwa Blues is a rock example.) Bennett's ensemble, compared to its predecessors, is more directly raga oriented by its better adherence to the limited mode and in keeping to the related mood. Hearing a raga on jazz instruments performed in jazz manner intrigues. The album is very worthy to this style of fusion.