LIVE REVIEW: Shez Raja at Wall2Wall Jazz Festival

Jazz Mann’s Ian Mann writes, “A thrilling way to round off a week of excellent live performances. Raja’s blend of energy, showmanship and superb musicianship is irresistible and he & his band are always a great hit with audiences.”

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For the full review, please click on the image, above.

For the full review, please click on the image, above.

REVIEW: Shez Raja 'Tales from the Punjab'

Jazz Journal’s Roger Farbey writes, “Whilst comparison with other West meets East jazz recordings is inevitable, Raja has carved out his own characteristic sound that might be described as Asiatic-Modal Jazz.”

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British born bass-guitar virtuoso Shez Raja journeyed to the Punjab early in 2020 to discover his roots. While in Lahore he had the opportunity to team up with some of the leading musicians of the subcontinent. This recording is the result of that meeting.

Raja has an impressive musical history. Educated at Leeds College of Music he rapidly became an in-demand session musician. He has released six albums including the critically acclaimed Journey To Shambhala (Raja Records, 2019) featuring guitarist Wayne Krantz and percussionist Trilok Gurtu.

The list of musicians he’s collaborated with on recordings and gigs reads like a who’s who of jazz: Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Soweto Kinch, Shabaka Hutchings, John Etheridge, Dennis Rollins, Denys Baptiste, Oren Marshall and Arun Ghosh, to name just a few. He’s also appeared at many of the UK’s major venues including the Glastonbury Festival, Ronnie Scott’s, the Southbank Centre and Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Raja and his trusty Fodera Emperor 5 Custom five-string electric bass shine throughout the album, but the Punjabi musicians enlisted here all provide stellar melodic and percussive accompaniment. Whilst there is no sitar involved here there is instead the sarangi, whose three strings evince the melody whilst the 35-odd resonance strings provide a drone of sorts. Here it’s played by one of its most well-known exponents, Zohaib Hassan. On Adventures In The City Of Wonders, Ahsan Papu’s bansuri (a bamboo flute) interplays with the sarangi whilst Raja’s inventive, meaty bass lines dominate the piece.

Whilst comparisons with other West meets East jazz recordings are inevitable – John Mayer and Joe Harriott’s Indo Jazz Fusions, John McLaughlin’s Shakti and 4th Dimension immediately spring to mind – Raja has carved out his own characteristic sound that might be described as Asiatic-Modal Jazz.

The hypnotic Maye Ni Main Kinu Akhan is underpinned by an ostinato bass guitar line that invokes memories of Coltrane’s A Love Supreme overlaid by Fiza Haider’s keening vocals and a host of beguiling percussion. Haider’s soaring contribution to the opener Angel’s Tears is reminiscent of Flora Purim’s lissom singing on Chick Corea’s Light As A Feather (Polydor, 1973). Interestingly, the comparatively short running time (by today’s standards) automatically invites repeated and welcome plays.

Discography
Angel’s Tears; Adventures In The City Of Wonders; Mantra; Maye Ni Main Kinu Akhan; Maharaja; Enlightenment (33.32)
Raja (elb); Fiza Haider (v); Ahsan Papu (bansuri); Zohaib Hassan (sarangi); Kashif Ali Dani (tab); Qamar Abbas (cajon). Lahore, 2020.
Ubuntu Music UBU0077

REVIEW: Shez Raja 'Tales from the Punjab'

Kind of Jazz’s Matthew Ruddick highly recommends the new album.

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Magical journey to the Punjab with bass player Raja.

If Shez Raja's previous album, Journey To Shambhala (2019) "looked East", as Rob Mallows suggested in his KoJ review, his latest, Tales From The Punjab, sees him dive deeper into his heritage to great effect. “In early 2020 I went on an adventure, travelling around the Punjab to explore my South Asian identity and immerse myself in the musical culture of my roots. Whilst in the vibrant city of Lahore I was honoured to collaborate with some of the most accomplished musicians of the subcontinent, from young virtuosos to veteran classical musicians."

He is joined in these tales by vocalist Fiza Haider, Kashif Ali Dani on tabla, Ashan Papu on bansuri flute, Zohaib Hassan on sarangi (a bowed, short necked instrument) and Qamar Abbas on cajon, a box-shaped percussion instrument, more often heard in Latin American music.

The Raja original, Angel's Tears, opens the album, and provides a good introduction to each of the musicians, with Raja, Dani and Abbas laying down a simple but cool rhythm, before Haider joins with a haunting vocal. Raja takes a superb solo, which sounds almost guitar-like, before the haunting sarangi comes in and the percussion heats up. Papu contributes a brief bansuri solo, too, before Haider comes back in with her wordless vocal. It's a intriguing, haunting opener, that sets the tone for what follows.

The improvised Adventures in the City of Wonders follows, and almost sounds likes two pieces; the opening section brings to mind a dawn call to prayer, with Haider singing over the drone of the sarangi and Raja's bass, but this soon gives way to a more upbeat section, as though the city is coming to life, driven by Raja's simple but funky bass line. The change is very effective, with the stringed sarangi soloing over the infectious percussion.

Listen to Adventures in the City of Wonders here:

Mantra first appeared on Raja's Gurutopia album as Shiva Mantra, but this reinvention works very well, with Haider replacing Monika Lidke on vocals, and Papu effectively replacing tenor saxophonist Vasilis Xenopoulos. Maye Ni Main Kinu Akhan is again improvised, and the opening features Haider singing a traditional melody with words by the poet Shah Hussain. Raja's bass and Dani's tabla then establish a gently funky groove, over which Hassan and Papu solo.

Maharaja also previously appeared on Gurutopia, and features more of the deft, funky playing that we normally associate with Raja. There are also some electronic treatments on here, which lend the tune more of a fusion flavour, without detracting in any way. Enlightenment brings the album to a close, and as the title suggests, slows the pace, with Papu's bansuri playing over Raja's bass and Dani's exceptional tabla.

The album is short by modern standards, at less than thirty-five minutes, but never outstays its welcome. I loved it, and preferred it to Raja's more fusion-oriented albums. It's more delicate, less showy, and shows another side to Raja's playing which I had not fully appreciated. It will be interesting to see how he brings this album to a live setting when things open up. Highly recommended.

Jazz: what a difference ney makes

Jazz Journal’s Trevor Hodgett writes, “The Wirral-born bassist Shez Raja found that re-recording some of his Brit-born tunes in the Punjab took them into another dimension.”

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Shez Raja at the Jazz Café, London. Photo by Monika S Jakubowska

Shez Raja at the Jazz Café, London. Photo by Monika S Jakubowska

“I was able to dig deeper than before into my musical heritage” says bass guitarist Shez Raja of his current CD Tales From The Punjab, which was recorded in Lahore, Pakistan. “I’ve always blended east and west in my music but this time I’ve got a more authentic eastern sound and I was overjoyed to work with the musicians over there.”

Raja was born on the Wirral to a Punjabi father and an English mother. His music has generally been labelled “Indojazzfunk” and his previous albums have featured guests like Randy Brecker and Mike Stern. On Tales From The Punjab, however, he worked with North Indian classical musicians Ahsan Papu (bansuri flute), Zohaib Hassan (sarangi), Kashif Ali Dani (tabla), Qamar Abbas (cajón) and Fiza Haider (vocals).

“It’s always been a dream of mine to experiment and step outside my comfort zone with Indian classical musicians” he says. “I literally met them for the first time in the studio, pressed the record button and started playing. And from the first moments I knew something magical was happening.”

Raja found himself inspired. “I run creativity masterclasses and I’ve been on this quest for years to understand what drives creativity. I’m on this constant search for ways to become more creatively alive and I think the key is through collaborating with musicians who ideally are quite different to you.”

Three of the tracks on the album, Angel’s Tears, Mantra and Maharaja, have been recorded by Raja on previous albums. “I was really fascinated to see what would happen with these Hindustani classical musicians on those compositions – and it was a completely joyous experience. The emotion is quite different and the musicianship and approach are different and for me that was a great way to learn and grow as a musician.”

The other three tracks on the album are improvisations. “There are 10 parent Indian scales or thaats and within each of those you’ve got hundreds of ragas designed to generate certain emotions. So we’d agree a thaat or raga – and that was it!” says Raja, still sounding amazed at the communal creativity. “Someone would start off and we’d go on feeling and then someone would start soloing and we’d support the soloist. It was a spiritual journey: I can’t describe it in any better way.”

The rapport between the musicians is clearly audible on the album. “I related to them as jazz musicians. At the core of what these guys are doing is improvisation which is fundamental to Western jazz so the improvisational element of our musicality is how we connected. And it was a musical playground for all of us with new sounds and approaches. I’m used to playing with keyboardists and guitarists [but] because there were no harmonic instruments I played in a more harmonic way. There was a drone and then melodic instruments so I was playing all the chords and a lot of arpeggios and spelling out harmony more than normal. There’s no tradition of bass guitar or bass frequency instruments in Indian music so I was bringing this very earthy frequency which these guys aren’t accustomed to. I think that inspired them and gave them different avenues to explore so I think we came up with something different and quite special.”

Maye Ni Main Kinu Akhan features a musical setting of a poem by Shah Hussain, a 16th century Sufi poet from Lahore, sung by 17-year-old Fiza Haider. “It’s a melody that this poem’s been sung to for hundreds of years. It’s an almost standard piece, about loneliness. Fiza’s extraordinary and when she sang that she just sent us all on this musical adventure.”

Another of the improvisations, Adventures In The City Of Wonders, was inspired by Lahore itself. “It’s like a different planet compared to the UK. The kindness and generosity of the people are so lovely and the sights, the sounds, the smells, the architecture, the food, the hustle and the bustle … It’s really vibrant, a real city of wonders and that’s what I had in my mind, playing that improvisation.”

Raja studied tabla and music theory rather than bass guitar at Leeds College of Music and believes that his tabla studies have influenced his bass playing. “Certain rhythms are straightforward on the tabla but incredibly difficult on the bass. But playing the tabla they embedded themselves in my improvisational vocabulary and I found ways to play them on the bass which brings a unique element to my playing. Equally, I started [as a child] on the violin. The tuning is very different so there are certain patterns on the violin which are difficult to play on the bass but I managed to pull it off and that gives a different sensibility to [my] melodic playing.

“I love all aspects of bass playing. I love groove playing and that hypnotic approach to repetitive bass lines and riffs and I also love improvised soloing and high register playing – I’ve got a five string bass with a high C instead of a low B. And one of the things I enjoy most is when somebody else is soloing and I’m playing a bridging role between the soloist and the drummer and listening really intently and tracing this dynamic conversation between the players. Playing that role is joyous and at times meditative.”

Raja clearly sees a spiritual element in music making. “For me spirituality is about an appreciation of a power bigger than one individual and a sense of oneness with other people. So, just naturally, whenever you play music with people there is a spiritual connection there because you are communicating on this intangible level. And very often, especially when I’m improvising, I get into this meditative state of being at peace. For me that’s a huge attraction of playing music.”

Tales From The Punjab seems sure to expand Raja’s audience. “I’m absolutely delighted with what we achieved and I’ve had loads of people telling me they’ve never heard anything like it. The Indian market have picked up on it and it’s opening up the world music audience as well, which is brilliant.”