# Richard X Bennett – What Is Now 2017: Free download & Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/10/10/richard-x-bennett-what-is-now-2017-free-download-video/
- Published: 2017-10-10T10:00:09+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Since moving to New York from his native Toronto in the 1990s, pianist and composer
Richard X Bennett has thrived as a performer in a broad variety of stylistic contexts.
Splitting his time between New York and Mumbai, he released a series of acclaimed
albums on several Indian imprints, with his last two on Times Music, India’s largest
label.**

Until now, however, Bennett had yet to put an album out on an American label. On
October 6, a dual release by Ropeadope Records will mark the pianist’s first American
recordings — the trio date What Is Now and the Indo-jazz quintet session Experiments
With Truth. Bennett displays his loose, percussive, and conversational instrumental
style on the trio album. The raga-infused music on the quintet album is something
else again, as stylistically remote from his trio opus as the Big Apple is from 
Bollywood.

RXB Experiments With TruthBennett is joined on both CDs by bassist Adam Armstrongand
drummer Alex Wyatt, with baritone saxophonist Lisa Parrott and tenor and soprano
saxophonist Matt Parkeraugmenting the trio on the quintet album. What Is Nowpresents
Bennett as a bold instrumentalist and as a composer of themes that beg for lyrics.
The album’s mood, energy, and tone range from the tender opener “Vital Grace” to
the playful “Go Against the Tide,” from the sanctified sway of “Sefrou Soul” to 
the cinematic scope of “Bittersweet Success.” One also gets a taste of Bennett’s
sense of humor on a distinctly original doo-wop arrangement of “Over the Rainbow.”

Bennett describes the quintet’s sound on Experiments With Truth as “Mingus meets
raga in the 21st Century.” Music he originally conceived and performed with North
Indian classical musicians is arranged and performed in a jazz context. “As far 
as I can tell it’s the first time it’s been done,” Bennett says. “I don’t claim 
to be a raga musician, because first off, the piano isn’t a raga instrument. I’d
say it’s raga-based. I like the analogy they use on cooking shows, ‘This is my take
on a dosa.’ As a jazz musician, this is my take on raga,” the vast vocabulary of
melodic structures, or modes, upon which classical Indian music is based.

“I was always somewhat of a minimalistic player,” Bennett adds. “The blues is also
like a specific raga, and if you play it academically it won’t sound right. You 
can’t just run the scales. With Indian music, everybody else was doing fusions based
on complicated rhythmic figures. I’m much more interested in the melodies.”

Experiments With Truth opens with “The Fabulist,” a long, persuasively surging piece
based on a particularly ancient raga (raga malkauns). “Portrait in Sepia” feels 
like an Ellingtonian tone poem by way of Calcutta, opening with an ominously swaying
cadence designed for Parrott’s brawny horn. The album’s centerpiece is the two-movement“
Durga Suite,” which evokes dual but very diverse aspects of the warrior goddess 
Durga (also known as Devi and Shakti). The title track, which borrows its name from
Gandhi’s autobiography The Story of My Experiments With Truth, is a stimulating 
and increasingly wild piece inspired by the early morning raga ramkali.

Richard X BennettWhile growing up in Toronto, Richard X Bennetthoned his own approach
to the piano. His highly personal sound flowed from limited contact with bebop and
early exposure to traditional New Orleans jazz and avant-garde combos like the Art
Ensemble of Chicago and World Saxophone Quartet. The first jazz he ever saw live
was South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim “and I walked out of the concert being
able to play five of his songs,” Bennett recalls. “I’ve always loved that inside/
out approach, Jaki Byard and Don Pullen. I don’t play bop but I do just about every
other jazz style.”

He introduced his Indo-jazz concept on the 2009 solo album Ragas on Piano (Dreams
Entertainment), and expanded the instrumentation with the late bassist Gaku Takanashi
and tabla master Naren Budhkar on 2011’s Raga and Blues(Mystica Music). Picked up
by Times Music, India’s biggest label, he released 2013’s critically hailed New 
York City Swara, with Takanashi, Budhkar, Carnatic violinist Arun Ramamurthy, and
drummer Michael Wimberly, followed by the 2015 duo album Mumbai Masala with Hindustani
vocalist Dhanashree Pandit Rai. Today Bennett also works with Honk & Tonk, a “N.
O.L.A. meets noir” duo with saxophonist Michael Blake, and composes for modern dance,
most recently a piece for the Alvin Ailey Company performed at the Essence Festival
in New Orleans.

Bennett will celebrate the release of What Is Now and Experiments With Truth in 
the company of his trio and quintet, at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City on 
Wednesday, October 11.

 1.  Vital Grace
 2.  Go Against the Tide
 3.  Silhouette
 4.  What is Now
 5.  Around We Go
 6.  Sefrou Soul
 7.  Andiamo
 8.  Bittersweet Success
 9.  Over the Rainbow
 10. The Camel

[Free download](https://dfiles.ru/files/vclm5xv0d)

![](https://i0.wp.com/images.vfl.ru/ii/1507489381/826b382d/18917451.jpg?w=640)

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