Drummer Tarun Balani and guitarist Siddharth Gautam join hands to present a reinterpretation of Tarun’s original compositions

Drummer and composer Tarun Balani and guitarist and instructor Siddharth Gautam take to the stage next week for an evening of improvisational music. Tarun has been recognised for his innovation in jazz, with his albums — Sacred World, Dharma and The Shape of Things to Come — being a testament of his work. The upcoming performance will be a reinterpretation of some of the songs from his albums, providing a fresh perspective to his original compositions. We get chatty with Tarun to explore his upcoming performance in the city.

“I have been playing, recording and releasing music for almost over a decade now. A lot of my work is primarily with my quartet and quintet. So, the albums that I have released were written and performed in a quartet and a quintet format. What is special about this concert is that I’ll be reinterpreting a lot of that music in a duo format. Not only are we going to reinterpret the music and perform it in a duo scenario but we are almost going into a very experimental and minimalistic space where we’ll be exploring these compositions for just guitar and drums. I am really excited about this and it goes into this new paradigm of sonic exploration that we are also experiencing for the first time,” begins Tarun.

Talking about how the collaboration with Siddharth took place, Tarun reveals, “I got an invite to perform at the UNESCO International Jazz Day in New Delhi. My band is in New York. So, I don’t play this music often in India. I do a lot of my solo work in India. Siddharth and I, we’ve been meeting at a few jam sessions. We also teach together at the Global Music Institute in Greater Noida. I just took the chance and thought it would be very interesting to play as a duo setup. It was an experiment and I think it worked out quite well.”

The upcoming performance is a reinterpretation of the pieces from Tarun’s albums — Dharma and The Shape of Things to Come, which he says are, “two sides of the same coin.” Dharma is an exploration of a more personal introspection outside of Tarun’s writings. The album is based on the personal developments that happened in Tarun’s life. It’s a social commentary on his wedding, the politics around it and religion. The album is more melancholic and acoustic-centric. Shape of Things to Come, on the other hand, happened when new members joined his quartet and the band was looking for a new sound. They brought in a lot of electronic sounds into the group.

Since most of the songs in the albums were designed in a quartet and quintet format, we asked Tarun about the challenges he faced while shifting the songs into a duo format. He says, “First and foremost, I have to give a lot of credit to Siddharth for doing all the heavy lifting in terms of playing all the melodic and harmonic parts. I’m the composer of the pieces and I compose at the piano. I’m not playing them live. We were actually met with awe and surprise because the music sounded complete. What was challenging was to shape the music and improvise with each other without the rhythm section backing us. Typically, you would have the bass player or a piano player and they’d play the changes and then you can improvise over that. But I think that was the big challenge on how to bring in a more extensive improvisation into the set.”

Talking about his experience playing in Bengaluru, Tarun reveals, “A lot of my concerts during the early stages of my career, took place in Bengaluru. One of my band members is from Bengaluru, so, I spent a lot of time hanging out with him, rehearsing with him and playing shows. The audience is really great. They come with an open mind.”

Finally, we end our chat with Tarun, asking him about his upcoming projects, where he tells us that he is in the post-production stage of his upcoming fourth album. “It will be coming out in May 2025 and we will be playing some of that music in Bengaluru. The album is titled as Kade Milda Si (when will we meet). After the show here, we will be heading to Goa, Chandigarh, Kolkata and Mumbai,” he says signing off.

Entry free. August 22, 7 pm. At Bangalore International Centre, Domlur.

Email: alwin@newindianexpress.com

X: @al_ben_so