In Review: Shama Rahman Band at Manchester Jazz Festival 2015livemcrnews classical and jazzAn eager crowd awaited the Shama Rahman Band performing on the last day of Manchester Jazz Festival 2015.  In fact the queue stretched around the Thwaites Festival Square to see what was set to be one of the highlights of MJF’s 2015 programme.

The Shama Rahman Band, comprising of Shama Rahman herself, on sitar and vocals, accompanied by Christopher Lane (guitar), Nicolas Rouger (saxophone), Thodoris Ziarkas (bass) and Oberon King (drums and percussion), has devel-oped a strong reputation for original, playful music.  It is music which draws on Rahman’s Bangladeshi roots, memories, Middle Eastern influences and even the streets of London.

From the very outset, her infectious personality shines through.  She is beam-ing with delight as she opens the set with the beautiful piece Time.  It’s an ode to how we manage to fall in love again and teases the mystical and exotic sounds of the sitar – her beautiful delicate vocals accompany the entrancing sound before the drums, guitar and saxophone join in, kicking the tempo up a notch.  It builds to a busy and exciting passage as the saxophone takes centre stage before we are reminded of the thrilling middle-eastern influence with an-other exquisite sitar passage leading to a false ending and a delicate vocal pas-sage to conclude.

The scene and standard has been set very early and the untimely clock tower chimes and a touch of feedback are laughed off by the smiling Shama Rahman.

Shama Rahman at Manchester Jazz Festival 2015The Bengali and middle-eastern influences are common throughout the set.  In Bolte Paro Ki she demonstrates her bilingual abilities, singing in Bengali – her strong vocals over a busy bass, drum and sitar platform working perfectly in a track which brings cheers from the audience.

The sitar captivates in the striking Matchstick which displays a suspicion of Car-ribean influence mixed in with classic jazz and Bengali overtones.

The set is filled with variety.  Reflections features interesting rhythms and melodies, 26 Hour Baby more of a playful jazz vibe with changing paces keep-ing the audience hooked; Liquid Blue hints at a classic rock influence, whilst Ships In The Night from an ‘as yet unrecorded album’ which we hope becomes a reality sooner rather than later, moves from the smooth and traditional to the slightly punctuated and pacey leading to an outstanding crescendo.

She continues to smile throughout, clearly delighted to be performing and the audience respond in kind, clapping, cheering and hanging on every sound.

The story telling within the songs it excellent, drawing on the mystic, love, po-etry and nature.  And it is exactly this story telling ability which is featured in the closing piece Where Did You Come From a spoken word track, bursting with drama and intrigue.  Fittingly, the dramatic sitar opening gives way to beefy

saxophone interjections, with the vocal element hitting home perfectly to con-clude a set which has been simultaneously calming, exciting and invigorating.

Manchester Jazz Festival highlights: artistic di-rector Steve Mead's recommendationsCityLife looks through this year's MJF brochure with Steve to pick the shows that will give you a real taste of what the festival is all about.

This year's Manchester Jazz Festival has such a busy calendar as the annual event prepares to celebrate its 20th year of music and special shows.

In 2015, it's trying new things to connect with different audiences too - includ-ing a couple of shows aimed at young children, and designed to actually get them involved with the music through participatory dance and play.

But it's such a huge event this time that we asked artistic director Steve Mead to select a few of his favourite shows, a set of gigs that give punters a real flavour of what Manchester Jazz Festival is all about. Here are his selections…

Shama Rahman Band and Airelle Besson QuartetSM: “This is our final Sunday and these are lovely shows: Shama’s Indo-jazz, and Airelle is a trumpet player from France and a huge star there. She’s a bit like Bjork, with the theatrics and delivery.”

Pavilion / August 9 / 2.45pm & 4.30pm / £4 each

ReviewsStories from the Manchester Jazz Festival Contin-ued...August 25, 2015

Every year the Manchester Jazz Festival team meticulously recruit a number of talented solo artists and ensembles that deliver innovative and sophisticated performances, as well as bringing new international works to Manchester’s front door. This is very much the description that comes to mind in reflecting back on the last day of the festival and its final two perfor-mances from the Shama Rahman Band and Airelle Besson Quartet, both performing to a full house in the Thwaites Festival Pavilion on Sunday 9th August.

Combining the rich, expressive sound of the sitar with instrumentation that could be described as being more traditionally associated with jazz, the Shama Rahman band delivered a set that was captivating through its poetical storytelling, complex grooves, and carefully constructed instrumental interaction that was delivered with such ease. Each composition revealed a strong international influence as well as drawing attention to the ensemble’s ability to evoke a number of musical genres, yet producing their own unique sound.

The band line-up consist of Shama Rahman- sitar, vocals, and ukulele; Christopher Lane- gui-tar; Nicolas Rouger- soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophone; Thodoris Ziarkas- double and electric bass; Oberon King- drums, percussion.

The first track of the set was ‘Time’, as featured on the album 'Fable: Time', and is part of the storytelling collection of compositions that Shama informs us tell ‘human stories about how time affects us, its illusions, deceptions and myths’. From the distinct opening sounds of the jawari (the natural reverberation that the sitar is so famous for) the audience found themselves lost in the lyrical poetry that unfolded from both Shama’s accapella vocals after the sitar’s in-troduction to the track, (that almost sounded like the unfolding chimes of a clock) through to a faster tempo shift and urban folk energy created by the fuller ensemble of percussion, saxo-phone, guitar and of course, sitar.

The Shama Rahman Band performing at the Thwaites Festival Pavilion

Shama's music also introduced the audience to her multicultural heritage by singing in Bengali on the track Bolte Paro Ki (Can you tell me why?), which equally emphasised a strong Bengali folk music influence.

‘Personal Grey’ continued to demonstrate how the Shama Rahman band use the sitar in the context of storytelling, with the interplay between it and the soprano saxophone standing out in this particular track. Shama turned the the track ‘Reflection’ into an interactive performance

experience, instructing the audience to join in with contrasting sung rhythmic passages, adding a real playfulness to the musical narrative. ’26 Hour Baby’ continued the foot tapping energy of the set, with creative musical interjections and an ever changing tempo which added a delightfully unexpected turn to the seemingly mellow opening.

The Shama Rahman band performing track 'Reflection' at The Manchester Jazz Festival 2015.

Throughout the set Shama adopted a number of charismatic vocal delivery techniques, in-cludng a recitative-type approach which certainly suited the many stories she sang of and the inspiration behind them. There was no shortage of source material to sing about with Shama boasting careers as a scientist, neurophilosopher and actor, as well as talented musician!

We were also treated to new material in the form of ‘Ships in the night’ and ‘Liquid Blue’ later on in the set, both tracks that evoke a number of different genre influences, and will hopefully feature on a recorded album in the near future. For updates on upcoming new material and future concerts click here.