Musical perfection
Presented by: Top Shelf, Sandy Evans and Sirens Big Band
Reviewed: 28 October, 2022
Saxophonist and band-leader Sandy Evans travelled to Mumbai in 2014 on a Churchill Fellowship to explore partnerships between traditional Indian music and Western jazz. From that fruitful visit, and her long-standing collaboration with tabla-player Bobby Singh, eventually came the extraordinary musical masterpiece that is Bridge of Dreams.
This ambitious, audacious, luscious work is a collaboration between Evans, Singh, Sirens Big Band (lead by bassist Jessica Dunn), tabla-player Aneesh Pradhan, harmonium-player Sudhir Nayak, and extraordinary vocalist Shubha Mudgal. Each composition contains elements of ensemble instruments, solos, and vocals. Western jazz and traditional Indian music engage in a dialogue, sometimes meeting in the middle of the eponymous bridge to whisper, and sometimes shouting across it. There are moments of exquisite call-and-response, and moments of gentle competition. What there are not is moments of mediocrity.
From the opening number Dharti Ke Darbar, Shubah’s magnificent voice filled the theatre, and sent a shiver down every spine. How these vocals combine so perfectly with the big, loud, gutsy, sound of Sirens Big Band, is a phenomenon to behold (or beheard?). A basic jazz framework gave space for various solos and duos throughout the evening, including a stand-out duo between Dunn and drummer Ali Foster. Every composition in this show is perfect in its own way, but worthy of particular note is Tabla Spiral, which cycles around Padhant, which is the vocalisation of the bols (or strokes) used in tabla playing, and echoes the use of scat in jazz singing. Evans’s magnum opus is Beam, Arch, Suspension, developing the bridge theme. She literally drew these three types of bridges onto manuscript paper, and took it from there!
Bridge of Dreams is a night of exemplary music, performed and written by musicians at the top of their game. This is the kind of musical fusion work which forms the backbone of OzAsia: work that is important, diverse, and masterful.
And most importantly, Bridge of Dreams is a joyous, exuberant performance of divine music. It is no wonder that Thursday’s audience jumped to its feet without hesitation and demanded an encore.
Reviewed by: Tracey Korsten
Photo credit: Tony Ni & Xplorer Studio
Venue: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Season: Season ended
