All that’s jazzAt the recent launch of an international lifestyle clothing chain, the stage and the venue had been set in black and blue for a night of ‘romance and blues’, with an ensemble of musicians that boasted the likes of guitar virtuoso Aamir Zaki, drummer extraordinaire Gumby and two musicians who had been specially flown in for the event: Columbian saxophonist, Diego Miguel and Syrian cellist, Diaa Harb. The event also showcased the talent and skills of Shehrez Zaki, Aamir’s nephew, who played bass on several songs.

With a full attendance from the glitterati of Karachi, the performance was opened by Diego, who proceeded to perform a solo on the saxophone titled Summer Time. He was accompanied on off-time drums by Gumby, who is otherwise better known in local circles for his high-powered, energetic drumming during various rock concerts.

We see a different side of Gumby when he performs in jazz: he plays with a care and finesse that makes every beat stand out. One moment, his drums are barely audible as he switches to brushes, holding the composition together and building up anticipation for what is to come next. The next moment, he lets go and picks up tempo, playing fast enough to have his drumming dominate the performance entirely, albeit for several captivating moments. As a performer, Gumby demands attention — he plays with a heart and soul that reaches out to all those present.

Although Diego tried to punctuate Gumby’s drumming here and there, he mellowed in comparison and seemed to have given up in the end. The spotlight then moved on to a corner in the audience from where appeared the surprise performer of the evening, Aamir Zaki, who quickly took to the stage and launched into a cover of Funky Chicken, a popular number by renown bassist, Jaco Pastorious. A light, fun composition, Aamir seemed to enjoy the performance.

Holding the guitar close in the classical position, he plucked away at the strings, inviting applause and shouts of encouragement from those present. Now and then, he would motion towards the saxophonist who, for some reason, looked like he felt out of place and would politely toot on the saxophone while Aamir would take over the performance again. The performance ended with Gumby, Diego and Aamir each throwing in a lightly energetic solo.

They then left the stage to make space for Diaa, the featured cellist, who began by performing an Arabic-inspired composition. He started out slowly, blending in the melody gracefully. He could be seen peering in at the audience as if to gauge their response. Diaa played with a confidence that spoke volumes of his experience when it came to performing live and which starkly contrasted the polite hesitation that Diego had displayed till then.

Following the performance, all the musicians took the stage, and with Aamir Zaki on lead and Shehrez Zaki on bass, they launched into a cover of Steely Dan’s classic number, Do It Again. Aamir, who was very much at home on stage, seemed to be providing cues to every musician to perform their individual bits. Shehrez on the other hand, was comparatively shy, keeping himself away from the limelight, playing a steady bass line throughout. The introductory notes of the next cover, Baker Street by Gerry Raferty were met with delightful yells from the audience. Aamir threw himself into the song and provided a heartfelt rendition of the lyrics. Customising the song to suit his own musical style, he concluded the song by swinging the guitar around in an energetic solo.

The final piece consisted solely of improvisations by each musician. One thing that Aamir and Gumby have in common is the sheer amount of energy that they both display when left to perform what comes to them naturally. Instinctively familiar with each other’s style, their performance was perfectly complemented. It was heartening to note that this energy seemed to rub off on Diego as well, who launched an aggressive solo on his saxophone. The composition was then brought back to the same Arabic-inspired number that Diaa had opened his performance with. Aamir played the same melody on his guitar and Diaa took the lead and complemented it on his cello.

There are very few performances that let you relive every single moment with the same initial excitement, and the Dockers San Francisco launch by event managers Dream Merchants happened to be one of them. More exciting than the performance itself was watching the music evolve with the musicians who instantaneously acquainted themselves with each others’ style of performing. Diego’s last solo in which he shed his inhibitions was significant in the sense that it was probably the only moment when he truly seemed to give himself to the performance.

The musicians’ personalities shone through each instrument they played, and the night, coupled with the impeccable ambience, turned out to truly be drenched in jazz and blues.

First Published:
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December 24th, 2006

A farewell to Kara

The Arts Council Theatre opened the doors of its auditorium last weekend for the screening of the last movie to show at the Sixth KaraFilm Festival, Immaculate Conception by Jamil Dehlavi. A huge crowd had gathered in the hallway, most waiting patiently while a few complained consequent to the 45-minute delay. Within minutes, the same crowd dispersed to fill the auditorium seats and the movie began. Post-screening, a question and answer session took place.

The Sixth KaraFilm Festival, which carried the Ghalib-inspired tagline of Tamanna Ka Chatta Qadam (the sixth step of desire), was symbolised by a butterfly over a desert rose, the desert rose being used as a symbol for Karachi. The sixth Kara also carried forward a tradition of having the film-maker and the audience interact, a move which no doubt proved to be popular among movie-enthusiasts, students of film-making and anyone who was interested. Instances in which a film began late were rare and occurred in a select few, which was a welcome change from last year’s Kara.

he venue featured a creatively done up stage with a grid of screens showing scenes from different movies towards the right side and the Kara butterfly set against colourful squares at the other end. Although beautiful to look at, the set-design was not ideal for performances since the sheer detail tended to distract the viewers’ focus from those performing during the ceremony. There were large screens scattered throughout the venue which displayed the names of the award winners and clips from the Ciepie- (pronounced seepee meaning seashell) winning movies.

The event was hosted by Adnan Malik and Zainab Qayyum to a full house comprising politicians, musicians, television personalities, businessmen and film-makers. Although their tenure on stage seemed well scripted, one could not help but notice how they, at times, seemed to blatantly read from the bits of papers they carried.

It was interesting to note that although the featured directors for the current Kara were Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi, British-desi film-maker Jamil Dehlavi and the French film-maker Frabcoise Traffic, the one movie that sold out before the day of its showing and which managed to elicit the largest crowd was the Indian import, Omkara, no doubt for the star power it wielded in the form of an appearance by Bollywood actor Ajay Devgan. This was evident from the small group of people that seemed to monitor every move he made and followed him everywhere (even to the restroom where additional security had to be posted) at the closing ceremony that took place at the PAF Museum.

The first performers of the evening were a French jazz band that went by the name of Caravan Quartet, courtesy of the Alliance Françoise. Although their backstage warm up depicted them as skilful musicians, they failed to create much of a presence on stage (save for those sitting near the front). A major reason can be accounted to the fact that the sound during their performance wasn’t good. They closed their performance with a song about “the relationship between a man and a woman”.

Begum Nawazish Ali took the stage before the second group of musicians came up and sent the audience rollicking with her cleverly humourous take on the film-makers present and on the movies that were meant to be. Donning a new blonde look, no one was spared from the Begum’s suggestive comments as she engaged the audience for roughly half-an-hour before prancing off stage.

Sajid and Zeeshan, the second act to perform, started off with their animated single, Freestyle Dive. Complementing their performance were clips from their videos and graphics that were being displayed on the screens around the hall. They went on to perform a non-video single off their debut album titled Free And Underestimated, and subsequently closed the performance with the extended version of their single King of Self, which they dedicated to Kara. The sound during their performance was much better and could be heard clearly. Though one isn’t sure whether their performance fully catered to the audience present, the response they elicited was much better than the one that was given to the Caravan Quartet.

But the real stars of the evening were Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood of Strings, also the last act to perform and by then the evening had dragged on into the wee hours of the morning with the audience quietly raving for food. They performed some of their most popular singles from Na Jaane Kyon to the rock version of their recently popular number, Yeh Hai Meri Kahani, with which they closed their act. They proved to be immensely popular with the crowd, both young and old.

Besides the incredibly prolonged duration of the event, the only other criticism is that there just seemed to be too many awards that were given out. Most of those who were given the awards weren’t present and out of those who were, Ahmed Rizvi’s acceptance for the awards given to Man Push Cart was the most memorable. The sixth KaraFilm Festival has come a long way from its inception, and anticipation for the seventh one has already begun.


Kara Awards

Best live action short:
Tricko (The T-Shirt) by Hossein Martin Fazeli (Czech Republic) Avatar by Llvis Quilez (Spain)

Best animated short:
Adjustment by Ian Mackinnon (United Kingdom)

Best Pakistani film made for television:
Daani directed by Farooq Rind and produced by Khalid Ahmed

Best documentary:
AFSPA, 1958 by Haobam Paban Kumar (India)
Fuego de Angel (Angel’s Fire) directed by Marcelo Bukin (Spain and Peru)

Best female actor in a leading role:
Nathalie Baye in Le Petit Lieutenant (France)

Best male actor in a leading role:
Saif Ali Khan in Omkara (India)
Ahmad Razvi in Man Push Cart (US)

Best female actor in a supporting role:
Rukayya Prachi in Ontorjatra (Bangladesh)

Best male actor in a supporting role:
Raza Jaffrey in Infinite Justice (UK-Pakistan)

Best cinematography:
Marcel Zyskind for The Road to Guantanamo (UK)

Best editing:
Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom for
The Road to Guantanamo (United Kingdom)

Best original screenplay:
Jaideep Sahni for Khosla Ka Ghosla (India)

Best adapted screenplay:
Vishal Bharadwaj, Robin Bhatt and Abhishek Chaubey for Omkara (India)

Best musical score:
Vishal Bharadwaj for Omkara (India)

Best direction:
Ramin Bahrani for Man Push Cart (US)

Best feature film:
Girish Kasaravalli for Nayi Neralu (In the Shadow of a Dog) from India

Lifetime achievement award (1):
Talat Hussain

Lifetime achievement award (2):
S. B. John

KaraFilm Society award:
Mahesh Bhatt


First Published:
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December 24th, 2006

Keeping it real with Josh



Contrary to belief, the Josh lads turn out to be rather nice. They were in Karachi recently for the launch of their third album, Mausam, and despite a hectic schedule during their three-day stay, they agreed to a last-minute interview.

The current line-up of Josh comprises Q (Qurram Hussain) and Rup (Rupinder Magon). For this particular interview, Q is the first to turn up in a new afro hairstyle and a pair of shades that make him look uncannily like Lenny Kravitz. He laughs at the similarity, and then proceeds to relate how he once gained access to a club in Morocco pretending to be Kravitz himself. Q is originally from Karachi — he stayed in Pakistan for some 15 years before moving to Canada with his family. Compared to Rup, he seems eager to answer questions first, turning out to be quite a chatterbox.

Rup, who arrives shortly after, is quieter with a tendency to add a witty remark here and there. He is more on guard and — as I later discover — is primarily in charge of the ‘business side’ of Josh. Hailing from a somewhat religious Sikh family, Rup picked up the tabla at the age of six and later on advanced to the harmonium. He also knows how to play the piano.

The spiritual aspect to Josh’s music appears to come from Rup, whose first musical experience came when he accompanied his mother to the gurdwara (Sikh temple) where she would sing hymns supported by his tabla beats.

Teaming up with his brother, Rik, and Shazi Hussain, they formed Josh and went on to perform covers of various popular films and Punjabi songs, qawwalis and ghazals. Around that time, Q was finding his own musical voice, which in turn ended up as a contribution towards Josh’s debut album: he composed and wrote the title track Mein Hoon Tanha. The album was released sometime in 2001 and received a lukewarm response. By the time their second album, Kabhi, was released in 2004 — that brought them into international focus as a promising new band — Rik had left Josh.

Rup elaborates why: “He left during our pre-Kabhi days and decided to take on a more spiritual side to life. He didn’t want all the media attention; he just wasn’t built for that.” While previously Rik used to be around their studio a lot, Rup says he rarely ever visits now. “He actually sang on Kabhi. If you the read the credits, his name is there.”

Apparently, he is still quite an indispensable entity. “He started the band,” adds Q. “He is still the first guy we can go to to get the most honest opinion.”

The band members started Josh Entertaiment some two years ago with the idea that they would start producing artistes. Have they been successful in finding and producing an artiste so far? “Every time we get round to it, something new comes up. The idea is still there and we have done some projects that we haven’t released just yet. It’s just a company where we produce different artistes, from the music to everything, including the lyrics,” says Rup. “More importantly though, it is very difficult to find new artistes or accept new artistes who are serious.”

“We are willing to guide them if people are willing to work hard,” adds Q. “People have this misconception that it’s easy to put out a song and the rest takes care of itself.”

With Josh based in Canada, who are the people they are working with? “We’re predominantly working with desi people at the moment, but even now, we’re not sure whether the record is going to come out,” says Rup. “We can take artistes from anywhere because we meet a lot of people through our channels. But right now, Josh Entertainment is a very small thing. The reason we started it is because we’re primarily producers, not just singers.”

“The songwriting aspect allows us to do so much more with our talents, so we have that window of opportunity open,” adds Q, elaborating further upon how they make music: “We’re always making music whenever we can. An idea will generally come when I’m not sitting in the studio but driving, etc. I call myself on my home number and I leave a message about that idea. So then when I go back home, I make a piece based on that idea.”

Musicians don’t start out making a lot of money; most of them have to keep on working on their music and learn to take rejections before they finally get their big break. But even after becoming ‘successful musicians’, most of them continue with their day jobs, since a career in music does not guarantee a paycheque at the end of each month. Both Q and Rup had day jobs before Kabhi; do they plan to continue with them? “When Kabhi was popular, we were doing a lot of shows, and we expected that by the time we would be ready with our next album, we would put it up,” says Q, adding, “But what we didn’t take into account is that the business side of things can take very long. Kabhi was our first successful album, but I guess we weren’t experienced enough.”

“We are still poor musicians,” says Rup simply.

“Being successful in desi music is not the same as being successful in North American music, especially while living here. It is a big problem on its own as far as the monetary aspect is concerned. We can’t do shows as often, among other things. That being said, we are able to sustain ourselves. But we still have to think about budgets,” says Q.

“Things are very good, actually. The fact that we’ve gone through the ghareeb phase, our habits are still the same. We are still not going to go and spend exuberant amounts of money for nothing; we are still going to look for a good deal. It has a lot to do with the training we got from our parents and that we don’t believe in wasting money. There is no point in being flamboyant; there is nothing to gain from it,” says Rup reflectively. Relating this to the album, he says, “In fact our first track, Mahi Ve, speaks about that. It has a Sufi touch to it, ‘Mahi Ve Mahi Ve Arz Karan, Menu Di Asmani Fitrat De,’ which means give us those heavenly habits. The idea was to talk about a song where we could remain humble.”

Q has previously admitted to having been an ardent follower of Slash and has listed Sound Garden, Pearl Jam and the Stone Temple Pilots as some of his favourite bands. The music found in these bands (primarily rock) is not the kind of music that Josh is known for. How did that come about?

“I guess it’s because I wasn’t looking out to make a rock band,” laughs Q. Rup adds thoughtfully, “Listening to something doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make it.” “The other thing is that then there have been so many other things that have influenced me,” says Q. “We used to have a lot of arguments in the beginning. Coming from rock, I had a different idea of not only how music should be made but how it should be promoted, etc. But then it changed after meeting Rup, who was listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and a lot of heavy eastern music like qawwalis.”

“There is a song called Ajnabi in Masuam that has predominant guitars,” adds Rup, referring to the album. “I think that’s the most guitars any song of ours has ever had.”

“What is good about going through a lot of influences is that there is evolution in music and you will see that in Masuam, from song to song,” finishes Q, bringing the conversation back to their album. The title track of the album, Mausam, is a cover of a Pakistani song. What is the story behind that? “Q always talked about this program called Fifty Fifty. So we got the DVD and there were these hilarious skits which we thought were fantastic,” answers Rub. “In between these skits, they used to play a song once in a while. One of these songs was Aaey Mausam Rangeelay Sohanay by Zubeida Khanum. I fell in love with it and I kept singing and humming it. I said we should do a remake of this song.

“In three albums we haven’t done any remakes. One day, Q called me up and said that he had made the music for it. I came over and listened to it and was wowed,” continues Rup. “We’ve actually changed the melody on it and a word or two as well. The music is all completely different.” Since Masuam is a Pakistani song, Josh is planning to shoot the video of the song in Pakistan as well.

It’s good to know, though, that the band members of Josh have a good head on their shoulders. They have come a long way since their first album, Mein Hoon Tanha, and despite whatever they might say, their music is still very commercial — their primary listeners are the masses.

A number of artistes complain that they often have to concentrate on the business aspect that distracts them from making music. Rup says, “Any successful artiste will tell you that, but you have to remember that it’s a race out there and it keeps you on your toes.”

Adds Q, “I don’t think it has affected us creatively as far as music is concerned. We don’t think about how to make a saleable album.”

Mausam seems like an album for all seasons (as the cover will also display: there are tiny icons beside every song depicting what season it belongs to). But whether it rises to the magnanimous success of Kabhi is something that is yet to be seen.

note:
— photograph 1: Josh, Q and Rup.
— photograph 2: Qurram Hussain aka Q.
— photograph 3: Rup aka Rupinder Magon

credits:
Photography by Amean J

First Published:
Images
December 3rd, 2006