“Raga is emotion. It’s music that can transform you from feeling happiness to feeling despair or vice versa,” says Ali Riaz Baqar. “And it does it all without words. I’ve never experienced anything quite as powerful before.”
For the Pakistani-Australian guitarist and composer, 35, mastering the ancient Indian classical musical form of the raga has become a consuming quest. Having initially fallen in love with the intricate acoustic guitar arrangements of the jazz pioneer Joe Pass and independently releasing several of his own solo guitar improvisations, he formed the fusion quartet Jaubi in 2013.
Since then, he has been merging the spiritual tradition of raga with improvisation to remarkable effect. Over three albums — The Deconstructed Ego (2016), Nafs at Peace (2021) and In Search of a Better Tomorrow (2023), a collaboration with Polish jazz group EABS — Jaubi (meaning “whatever, whoever” in Urdu) have established a unique sound at the meeting point between Indian classical music and jazz, drawing upon the legacies of greats including John Coltrane, Don Cherry and Yusef Lateef, who all took inspiration from South Asian music.
Read the feature on Hyphen Online.
[This piece was published on 12/09/24]
Comentários