The Bodhisattwa Trio about to embark on 3rd European tour

Jun 3, 2019

The Bodhisattwa Trio

The dark jazz outfit will be playing 16 gigs across four countries from 14 June to 8 July

Kolkata was the mecca of jazz in India during the 1970s. Famous bars such as Moulin Rouge and Trincas were graced by hundreds of cultured music lovers to see the likes of greats like Carlton Kitto play atonal licks and big band arrangements. Today, the music has evolved to include much diverse styles, which is fitting to the genre’s character.

One such act is The Bodhisattwa Trio. Formed way back in 2012, the line-up of Bodhisattwa Ghosh on guitars, Premjit Dutta on drums and Roheet Mukherjee on bass released a three song EP Fuzzy Logic. Bassist Bijit Bhattacharya replaced Roheet in 2013 to cement the longest functioning line up till Bijit shifted base to Mumbai last year. They released two albums – Intersections (2013) and Heart of Darkness (2016).

While Intersections explored sonic areas and ideas that composer Bodhisattwa was searching for, Heart of Darkness gave a clear cut direction. However, with another line-up change and a new album - 4, The Bodhisattwa Trio have finally achieved what the previous two albums were hinting at. Now they have a sound and style which they can distinctly call their own.

Bodhisattwa is a very intense person and musician, who specializes in crafting bone-chilling soundscapes. Premjit, though chilled out, is a hard-hitting maniac behind the kit. He speaks a fast and mechanical language through mechanical patterns and convention breaking rhythms. Now add to this mix Arunava Chatterjee a.k.a. Shonai - a soft spoken, beach shirt wearing keyboardist who brought in an expansive harmonic range to the Trio’s music besides soloing features and a bass synth for the heavier end of the sound spectrum. Bodhisattwa’s apocalyptic and dehumanizingly pessimistic take on life and society, or the harsh truth, found proper form and shape.

With their album receiving widespread critical acclaim and a successful launch tour across the India, they are now traveling to Europe for a massive tour of 16 concerts within a span of 25 days, from 14 June to 8 July. Two shows are in Germany, five in Poland, four in Slovenia and five in Croatia.

The Bodhisattwa Trio had made the country proud by being the first Indian band to play at the prestigious Vilnius Mama Jazz Festival in Vilnius, Lithuania back in 2017. They are repeating the feat this time at Festival Lent in Maribor, Slovenia and Fest Jazza in Koprivnica, Croatia.

“We are really looking forward to the tour. We are going to play material from The Grey Album. With so many gigs, it is going to be a good experience for us,” said Bodhisattwa, while thanking Croatia based record label Intek Music, which mastered and produced The Grey Album, as well as Intek Slovenia for setting up gigs and arranging festival slots in their respective countries. The band is looking forward to further collaborations.

Through personal efforts and with the help of friends, they had first gone to Europe in 2014 to play 5 gigs in small venues and clubs across England, France, Slovenia and Croatia. In 2017, the number of gigs increased to seven spread across Germany, Poland, Croatia and Lithuania including the biggie Vilnius Mama Jazz Festival. This year, it has jumped to 16 gigs! Such progress by an Indian band in the European gigging circuit is nothing short of celebratory. This is a beacon of hope for numerous artists wanting to break into world markets.

But this has not come just by luck. Determination, hard work and uncompromising belief in doing what they want to do, have derived desirable results for the band. And they have much farther to go!

Their music, which can be described as experimental jazz fusion or even dark jazz, has the ability to forge connects anywhere in the world. Being instrumental, there is no language barrier. And the themes they project are universal - destruction of the world, Holocaust, death of nations and impending world wars due to bullying tactics of the most powerful nation in the global market. Their music attempts to unmask the bottomless greed of corporations and humans running them, exploitative capitalism and fascist inclinations. It also brings to the surface the double and triple standards humans maintain with the addition of cyber personas.

Abetting this terrifying approach to art is photographer Shan Bhattacharya. His photographs, which make the bulk of the band’s album art work, are dystopian to say the least. He unearths and showcases subjects that humans block off mentally. They are that jarring and powerful!

Now he has turned his attention towards tailoring videos for the Trio’s songs. The video of ‘Shame (Death of a Nation)’, a track from The Grey Album, is a non-stop barrage of fights breaking out in parliaments and political conventions, missiles, bomb explosions and ensuing mushroom clouds. The clips run backwards, making the scenes almost comical. Old school TV filters make it appear detached. Perhaps the intention is not to provoke but inform.

These themes are easily relatable by the global audience, not just Indians or Kolkatans.

Though highly uncomfortable, these issues are something we cannot close our eyes to. If kept unchecked, they are bound to create problems on a scale that will make life difficult for everyone on the planet. As honest artists, the Trio is simply trying to illustrate what is going on around them in contemporary times – an important facet of art which is gradually getting diluted at the face of crass commercialization and mindless, on demand 24X7 entertainment.