The Darshan Doshi Trio/ Live On Tour 2021


BY NARENDRA KUSNUR 

The Darshan Doshi Trio/ Live On Tour 2021

Label: Self-released 

Genre: Jazz fusion

Rating: ****

One of the most prolific drummers in India, Darshan Doshi has played regularly with the main music directors in Hindi films. He's also been parallelly involved in jazz fusion, heading The Darshan Doshi Trio.

The group, also comprising guitarist Rhythm Shaw and bassist Avishek Dey, has recently released a collection of live performances that took place in October last year. Two songs have guest vocalists.

The result is a set of fantastic improvisational pieces, with each musician complementing each other brilliantly. The opening track 'Insrhy Master' begins with a drum passage after which Shaw and Dey get into jazz-funk mode, with a fantastic interchange with Doshi.

A highlight is an adaptation of Dizzy Gillespie's iconic piece 'Night In Tunisia', played with a different feel. This is one of the two covers here, the other being 'The Shadow', written by fusion band Garaj Mahal, whose bassist Kai Eckhardt is popular in India.

The other instrumentals 'Four For One' and 'Triple Threat' contain virtuoso playing. Vocalist Vasundhara Vee appears on 'Run', co-written by Dhruv Ghanekar. Starting with a soul flavour and lines about separation, it moves to highly charged scat vocal territory, before repeating the line "I'm running back to me." She had released this song independently with a video too.

For the other vocal piece, the trio gets into Indo-fusion with Varijashree Venugopal improvising on the popular raag Jog composition 'Saajan More Ghar Aayo', with the crash of drums and moody guitars backing. The live video of this song is available on YouTube.

In all the tracks, there is fantastic rhythm-play and Doshi shows perfect command over the genre. Shaw is a young genius, whose earlier experience with Louiz Banks Guitar Synergy has shaped his skills. Bassist Dey has played with multiple line-ups, and fits in naturally with the set-up. All in all, a fabulous team.



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