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Abstract:
Indian musicians listening to jazz experience both familiarity and disorientation. Many
aspects of the music seem similar to the familiar world of rag [melody] and tal [rhythm], but
are combined in ways that make sense only sporadically, if at all. A typical jazz audience
reaction is often similar to (if rowdier than) that of rasikas [connoisseurs] in a mehfil [small,
intimate concert setting]; but what are they reacting to? Furthermore, the term jazz catalyzes
controversy. The idiom is younger than the century, and has undergone so many
transformations that the jazz styles of 1925 and 1965 share few commonalities. One jazz
afficionado's list of great performers and artistic/aesthetic priorites may vary wildly from
another's. It is confusing, but no different from the way jazz musicians feel about Indian
music! While they know that tremendous concentration, virtuosity, and musicality are
involved, they are intimidated by their lack of an educated perspective from which to listen
to the music of India.
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