It’s a festive Friday evening in December and at one of Belgium’s great musical institutions, the Royal Conservatory in Ghent, one musician is being far from conservative.
Marco Bardoscia clambers across his double bass and stretches perilously low to wobble a single string and emulate an eastern drone instrument while also trying not to drop his spectacles. It’s quite a sight.
Even more intriguing than that precarious pose is the band’s overall sound.
Ragini Trio are a jazz act who only perform interpretations of Indian classical music and their work is winning friends across the world. Nathan Daems, a saxophonist who channels the sound of Indian flutes, is the founder.
“It’s a concept that we didn’t really premeditate,” says Daems after that rapturously received performance, part of Ghent’s annual Glimps festival. “I transcribe the melodies for myself and that’s the only thing I bring to a rehearsal. Usually the drummer and bass player don’t even listen to the original.”
Ragini Trio began three years ago as a music-school project. Daems had been encouraged to actively explore different genres and decided to combine his prime musical passions.
“I was studying jazz but listening to a lot of Indian classical music,” he says. “Indian classical is mainly about improvisation, just like jazz; they just have different parameters. So I took existing Indian melodies, some recent, some very old, some we don’t know exactly how old, and we started playing them, messing them up a little bit.”
Original article by Si Hawkins
Continue reading at The National:
Ragini Trio on giving Indian classics a unique musical twist
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