[indo-jazz fusions] - [recordings] - [biography] - [reviews]

I.N.J.A
Chrissie Murray - JAZZWISE. September.2000

* * * * Recommended

Rarely, if ever, does violinist-composer John Mayer get due credit for his groundbreaking work in Indo-jazz fusion. Mayer did it first, and he did it here, easing the way for Ravi Shankar's later headline-grabbing collaborations with The Beatles, John McLaugghlin's flights of fantasy with the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Shakti, Alice Coltrane's monumental epics of the 70s right up to the nu-fusion of today's young Asian movers 'n' groovers such as Trilok Gurtu, Nitin Sawhney and Talvin Singh.

In the mid-1960's, John Mayer, a young violinist with the Royal Philharmonic, seriously challenged the conventions of the day by bringing together a double quintet which dared to play a new music - an innovative mix of Western classical, Indian folk themes and free-jazz stylings. The 'Indian' side comprised Mayer (violin/harpsichord), Diwan Motihar (sitar), Chris Taylor (flute), Keshav Sathe (tabla) and Chandrahas Paigankar (tambura) alongside the 'jazz' component- Joe Harriott (alto), Eddie Blair (trumpet), Pat Smythe (piano), Rick Laird (bass, later to work with the Mahavishnu, of course) and Alan Ganley (drums). With Harriott's early death in 1973, the group disbanded. But four years ago, Mayer creared a vibrant, energetic, new Indo-Jazz Fusions group to play a pile of dynamic new charts. Drawn from some of our brightest young music students, the band today includes Mayer's son Jonathan, himself a gifted composer and an inspired sitar player (traditional and electro-acoustic).

Inja (the title track is a new Kenny Wheeler tune) is Mayer's third new Indo-Jazz Fusions album and best so far. Partly sponsored by the Birmingham Conservatoire, the music has at last got the treatment in the studio it deserves.. The interwoven patterns and cross-rhythms of mayer's 'Ganga Ma', 'Bandish', 'Gaud-Sarang' and 'Acka Raga' (written originally for Acker Bilk, would you believe) certainly evoke the spirit and feel of the old Indo-Jazz line-up and, indeed, 'Subject@ is a touching tribute to the much-loved Joe Harriott. Mayer's interesting 'Vasant Mukhari', incidentally, is based on the classic Indian raga which was taken to Spain in the form of the Maquam (Arabic scale) Hijazi where it evolved into Andalusian flamenco. Fascinating stuff. And if you get the chance to see this wonderful group live, don't miss them. Go and see for yourself how history was made.

Peter Bacon - Birmingham Post. 19th August.2000

Back in the early 60's, violinist and composer John Mayer started to develop the idea of mixing the traditions of jazz and Indian classical music and four decades later, it might not sound so ground-breaking but it's clearly just as fertile a field for musical endeavour.
There is little conflict between jazz and Indian music in its improvisational and open-ended nature and time signatures in modern jazz have moved away from the constant 4/4 of old; the difficulty comes in combining the conventional scales of jazz with the micro-tones of the Indian scales.
To a certain extent, Mayer lets the melodies and harmonies stay firmly in the jazz camp, while rhythmically the tabla rules but it would be easy just to have musicians improvising freely over the sound of the sitar and tabla.
What Mayer achieves is something far more complex and interesting - by working out complex ensemble arrangements, he keeps the conversation between the two styles constantly evolving and with very satisfying results.
Trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, who was in on Mayer's early experiments, contributes the title tune for this CD, with the rest being supplied by the band which, aside from Mayer, is a very young one indeed.
This project is partly sponsored by Birmingham Conservatoire and Mayer remains one of the city's unsung heroes as a keeper of its heritage.

Roger Thomas - JAZZ REVIEW / Issue 11. August 2000

"Ah yes, this must be some of that wonderful 'crossover music' which an increasingly desperate record industry keeps trying to flog to the Robbins Report generation, eh cats? Well, my perception of a crossover audience is one which, disillusioned by all this music which attempts to be so many things that it ends up being nothing at all, simply crosses over to the pub during the interval. And stays there. What an immense relief it is, then, to find that John Mayer's legendary group is alive and better than ever.

The genesis of Indo -Jazz Fusions in the sixties is of course a landmark in the history of Britjazz. The group was formed by Mayer and the legendary Joe Harriott, each coincidentally representing non-indigenous cultures which were even then adding new perspectives to British music, and recorded a couple of LP's which became highly sought-after. For some listeners the story ended there; others kept tabs on this captivating music, noting the reissue of the LP's, its subsequent appearance on CD and, along the way, the two CD's which the group recorded for Nimbus.

The overriding factor, however, is the joy-inducing realisation that the group got it right to begin with and have simply gone on getting it righter and righter, its evolving roster of personnel simply adding to, rather than diluting, the group's originality. Mayer in particular has long been one of the few musicians whose grounding in both Indian music and the various musical traditions of both the USA and Europe has been genuinly watertight, if I'm allowed to mix metaphors. This has meant that the 'fusion' takes place in a context of genuine musical integration rather than at the superficial level which the likes of Shiva Nova settled for when, for example, they acquired Orphy Robinson as a collaborator. For many others who have attempted to develop the form, it's been a road paved with good intentions but leading nowhere.

This CD, however , is absolutely the right stuff, being once again exactly what it appears to be - a powerful, elegant, frequently witty and technically masterful undertaking which explores and, crucially, extends the ways in which jazz and Indian music are genuinely at home with each other. It's worth buying this disc just for the woodwind riff on the opening track, or for the composition contributed by I-JF veteran Kenny Wheeler, or even for "Acka Raga", the jolly encore piece at the end of the disc which Mayer wrote for Acker Bilk and which the elderly will also recall as the theme music for one of Robert Robinson's television shows. Interestingly, a press release relating to a different group altogether has just hit my in-tray, in which 'Indo-Jazz fusion' is offhandedly referred to as an identifiable musical genre. Hmm..."