BORN TO PLAY
INTERNATIONAL BASS STALWART VICTOR WOOTEN SAYS THAT MUSIC IS JUST ANOTHER LANGUAGE THAT CAME TO HIM NATURALLY
US-based Grammy-winning bass player Victor Wooten will be performing at GD Birla Sabhagar on April 7, as part of a four-city tour of India with a fusion ensemble. He speaks to t2 about his expectations from the trip, finding a place for bass in Indian classical sound and being born into a musical family.
What are you looking forward to on your India tour?
This will be my first trip to India, so I am really looking forward to visiting your country. I’ve heard many wonderful things and am excited to experience them for myself. I love the music, food, culture, and people, and am looking forward to making some new friends.
What are your expectations from Calcutta listeners?
So far, I have no expectations from the audience. I will just do my best and hope to make them happy.
You have been working with Indian classical musicians for a while now. Your maiden India tour is primarily with a fusion set-up, with classical percussionists along with (Chennai-based guitarist) Prasanna. How did this project come about?
I have Prasanna to thank for this visit. He has been trying to get me to India for many years now. I’m very happy that it is finally happening. He put the musicians together for the concerts. I hope I can keep up.
How do you approach the bass in an Indian classical context?
From my understanding, there is not usually any bass in Indian classical music. So, I just use my understanding and experience of listening to tell what to play. I also know that the other musicians will let me know if I am playing something that doesn’t work. But, because this is a blend of cultures, I expect to add something a bit different to the mixture of sounds.
What inspired you to pick up the bass as an instrument?
I am the youngest of five musical brothers. When I was born, they realised that they needed a bass player in the family to complete the band. That became my role immediately.
Was there any defining moment when you knew that you would be playing music for the rest of your life?
No, not really. I’ve been playing for so long that it has always felt natural. I can’t really remember when I knew I would never have to do anything else to make a living. I don’t think that I ever thought of it that way. Music, to me, is a language, and speaking it is a natural part of my life, just like speaking English. I’m fortunate to be able to travel the world making people happy with my music.
Who are your biggest influences?
My parents and brother have always been my biggest influences in music and life.
What is the secret of your signature tone?
Like our speaking voice, there is no secret to it except that we didn’t have to try to get it. We’ve always had our voice and have developed it over time — without much effort. Music is the same. Just play naturally and eventually everyone will realise his or her natural voice. Play well and everyone else will appreciate it and ask how you got it.
What is the most important quality a bass player should possess?
A good groove!
What do you look for in musicians you’re playing with?
I like playing with any musician who is a good listener. That is what is needed to make other musicians feel comfortable. I also like a drummer who doesn’t over play, has good time and plays tastefully.
Who are your favourite bass players and drummers in contemporary music?
There are many, many wonderful bass players on the scene. Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, Oteil Burbridge, Carles Benavant, Janek Gwizdala, and many more. Dennis Chambers, J.D. Blair, Derico Watson, Will Kennedy, Steve Smith, and Roy Wooten are just a few of the many drummers that I like.
What projects do you have planned?
I recently finished an audio version of my book The Music Lesson. I hope to release it in the very near future. It was a very big project to complete with lots of readers and musicians. And yes, I also hope to record another solo project in the near future as well as continue teaching, sharing, and running camps in Tennessee.
ARKA DAS
As appeared in t2, The Telegraph, March 26, 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Sigmar Polke at CIMA
Polke’s eclectic vision
It’s a fortunate proposition for the Calcutta viewer to witness a comprehensive sequence of Sigmar Polke’s works.
The Cologne-based artist/ photographer is a central figure in post-war German art and has been at the cutting-edge of moderne kunste (the modern art movement from 1968 which is “credited with irony, parody and…is audaciously poster-like in style”) with a constantly mutating style, with a marked irreverence for the conventional.
The series of Polke’s 40 gouaches on show at CIMA Gallery, titled Music From An Unknown Source, offers a glimpse into this eclectic artist’s vision. The exhibition, in association with Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata, was inaugurated last Friday by film-maker Gautam Ghose, who spoke of Polke’s art as “explaining the inner soul”.
A biting, sardonic wit has always underscore Polke’s work, often hailed as an anarchist trait. He had been one of the founders of the Capitalistic Realism, the anti-art movement which started in Germany in 1963.
The works on display all date back to 1996; much later than the period in which Polke was still discovering his visual language. These gouaches offer a glimpse into the fluid evolution of that idiom; the art surpasses boundaries of a language to morph into symphonic music; of tone, texture, form and figure. The title of the display warrants this process.
Comic strip-like drawings and digitised photograph-like images share wall space with splashes and tonal swirls in this mid-90s series, replete with titles that are often snatches of conversation; perhaps a nod to Dadaist influences. In his curatorial note on the display, Bice Curiger points out Polke setting “traps” that “some interpretations would appear to walk straight into”.
“There, Have A Bit More Caviar, It’s Delicious With The Vodka”, reads one. The corresponding image is of a street scene, a situation which can give rise to a hundred interpretations. The ambiguity of image and title — the latter obviously a lead-in from the artist to coax the viewer into the game of analysis — is deliberate; perhaps a hint at encouraging freedom of thought, from convention, as it were.
Vibrant colours, especially crimson and lilac, a latter-day obsession with the artist, invade some of the “figurative” poster-like works: a family portrait in According To Statistics Every German Owns 10,000 Things.
The figurations are almost surreal, dream-like. The geometry often veers to the chaotic, but converges on a harmonious whole. The social commentary is all-pervasive, albeit always with the humour in place. Even on blatantly sexual themes, like the Sphinx of Sigmund Freud, with a nude man and woman lolling in the foreground, presents a nebula of papercut cards with pop-artesque baby figures on them. The elemental is another recurring motif.
Polke is known to use everyday objects in his work — paint, lacquers, pigments, screen print and transparent sheeting in a single frame. Music From An Unknown Source presents gouaches, where the unique rhythm of Polke’s art finds new expression in a molten, disintegrated cadence.
Given the analogy of music, it is fitting to quote one of Polke’s titles to define this show: “What’s it actually about?” “What do you find in your mouth?” “I find the inside.” “And in the inside?” “In the inside I find the morning”. “Listen, your mouth is made for your ears. Listen.”
ARKA DAS
As appeared in The Telegraph Metro, April 19, 2010
It’s a fortunate proposition for the Calcutta viewer to witness a comprehensive sequence of Sigmar Polke’s works.
The Cologne-based artist/ photographer is a central figure in post-war German art and has been at the cutting-edge of moderne kunste (the modern art movement from 1968 which is “credited with irony, parody and…is audaciously poster-like in style”) with a constantly mutating style, with a marked irreverence for the conventional.
The series of Polke’s 40 gouaches on show at CIMA Gallery, titled Music From An Unknown Source, offers a glimpse into this eclectic artist’s vision. The exhibition, in association with Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata, was inaugurated last Friday by film-maker Gautam Ghose, who spoke of Polke’s art as “explaining the inner soul”.
A biting, sardonic wit has always underscore Polke’s work, often hailed as an anarchist trait. He had been one of the founders of the Capitalistic Realism, the anti-art movement which started in Germany in 1963.
The works on display all date back to 1996; much later than the period in which Polke was still discovering his visual language. These gouaches offer a glimpse into the fluid evolution of that idiom; the art surpasses boundaries of a language to morph into symphonic music; of tone, texture, form and figure. The title of the display warrants this process.
Comic strip-like drawings and digitised photograph-like images share wall space with splashes and tonal swirls in this mid-90s series, replete with titles that are often snatches of conversation; perhaps a nod to Dadaist influences. In his curatorial note on the display, Bice Curiger points out Polke setting “traps” that “some interpretations would appear to walk straight into”.
“There, Have A Bit More Caviar, It’s Delicious With The Vodka”, reads one. The corresponding image is of a street scene, a situation which can give rise to a hundred interpretations. The ambiguity of image and title — the latter obviously a lead-in from the artist to coax the viewer into the game of analysis — is deliberate; perhaps a hint at encouraging freedom of thought, from convention, as it were.
Vibrant colours, especially crimson and lilac, a latter-day obsession with the artist, invade some of the “figurative” poster-like works: a family portrait in According To Statistics Every German Owns 10,000 Things.
The figurations are almost surreal, dream-like. The geometry often veers to the chaotic, but converges on a harmonious whole. The social commentary is all-pervasive, albeit always with the humour in place. Even on blatantly sexual themes, like the Sphinx of Sigmund Freud, with a nude man and woman lolling in the foreground, presents a nebula of papercut cards with pop-artesque baby figures on them. The elemental is another recurring motif.
Polke is known to use everyday objects in his work — paint, lacquers, pigments, screen print and transparent sheeting in a single frame. Music From An Unknown Source presents gouaches, where the unique rhythm of Polke’s art finds new expression in a molten, disintegrated cadence.
Given the analogy of music, it is fitting to quote one of Polke’s titles to define this show: “What’s it actually about?” “What do you find in your mouth?” “I find the inside.” “And in the inside?” “In the inside I find the morning”. “Listen, your mouth is made for your ears. Listen.”
ARKA DAS
As appeared in The Telegraph Metro, April 19, 2010
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