Act Four

Act Four

‘Jazz is all encompassing, it's not only about the music that you hear today. It's also the 120-130 years of musical evolution that has made it what it is. The history of music is as important as the music today,’ says Arjun Sagar Gupta, the brains behind the The Piano Man Jazz Club which has just turned four. When asked about one of his most memorable nights at The Piano Man Jazz Club, he takes us down the memory lane, ‘I recall this one instance during the silent son which still rings very vividly in my memory. There is a Delhi-based band called Blue, which is a blues band with Pranay Gurung, Kapil Chettri, Rahul Rai among others. They were all performing at The Piano Man, and during the Silent Song they played this guitar solo, which happened to be the most beautifully used silent song as he used the silence of the room to play with the dynamics of the solo. It blew my mind. It is still very very difficult to be able to pick one memory or incident  because the entire idea behind a lot of what we do is to facilitate what the artist creates, which are these moments that are so significant in themselves, and you never know what, when and how something might move you in some way. A hundred moments, maybe. Everyday is a new day.’

To celebrate its fourth birthday, The Piano Man Jazz Club is bringing together a musical extravaganza, with a sprawling line-up of musicians turned-into-friends-into family. Find all the details below:

20th September, Friday 

Bhavya Raj
Bhavya is a young Indie Pop Singer/Songwriter hailing from New Delhi. Composing since age 10 and writing songs since the age of 15, his songs are both in Hindi and English and often Bilingual too. His debut music video Spexy Girl has been running on MTV INDIES. Bhavya does renditions of popular artists from the likes of Bon Iver, Passenger, Tom Odell, Coldplay, James Brown, Daft Punk, Sam Smith, Louis Armstrong, Michael Jackson and A R Rahman.  

The Original Knock-Offs
The Original Knock-Offs came into being purely by chance during the course of a jam. It was sheer pleasure and spirit of being together that led Parvati, Fidel, Guelor, Shrikant, Madhur and Sharif to believe they had something going. However, when they first performed at The Piano Man, SDA in January 2019, they believed they had a good thing going which was great music and a fabulous connection! The band covers classic rock to jazz and blues to RnB and soul. They often call in friends - new and old - to join them for special gigs, adding to the fun and music. 

21st September. Saturday  

KRISHNA & PRAKTI
Krishna Vinod is a Delhi based singer and design student from Kerala. In 2003, she began her vocal training in Carnatic Music under the late Sri Reji George for 3 years. She later continued her vocal training at Performer's Collective under Mr. Yeashu Yuvraj who helped her grow tremendously and earn a Level 6 Performance Diploma from Rockschool London. Prakriti Nanda (Prakti) is a guitarist and vocalist whose playing style is heavily influenced by guitarists like John Mayer, John Butler, Ben Howard, SRV and more.  

BOLLYJAZZ
Bollyjazz brings a refreshing approach to playing classic Hindi Film tunes through a format of Jazz harmony and rhythms. The arrangements around some selectively chosen, well-known melodies have experimented with popular Jazz rhythms such as Samba, Bossa Nova, Swing, Funk, etc. that allow musicians to improvise and provide their own expression to a familiar tune. For the show at The Piano Man, Bollyjazz will perform as a Sextet with Nikhil Mawkin on Voice & Guitars, Nathalie Ramirez on Flute, Harshit Misra on Bass, Shantanu Sudarshan on Drums, Fabio Carlucci on trumpet, Nayeli Nava on saxophone and Ananddev Bannerjee as the Sound Engineer.