With jazz fusion having been around for some forty years now, it's not so easy to be distinctive in that field anymore. Garaj Mahal manages to stick out, mainly due to massive chops by all four group members and a dizzying array of influences each group member brings to the table. Those influences get sliced, diced, and mixed in liberally on their latest release w00t, their first one for Indianapolis, Indiana based Owl Studios.
Formed in 2000, band members Alan Hertz (drums), Kai Eckhardt (bass), Eric Levy (keyboards), and Fareed Haque (guitars) make up a true supergroup, as are all outstanding maestros on their respective instruments.
Haque has already gotten his due here as a key member of the Dixon-Rhyne Project as well as putting out some notable world fusion albums under his own name. But these days, Garaj Mahal is his main gig. Born to parents from Pakistan and Chile and well-travelled in his youth, Haque is one of the most versatile guitarists out there today. He's mastered classical, jazz, rock, and Indian styles, including the electric sitar.
The other guys aren't exactly scrubs, either. Eckhardt graduated from the prestigious Berklee School of Music with honors and later taught there. He's played with Steve Smith's Vital Information, John McLaughlin, Randy Brecker, and Billy Cobham, just to name a few. His bass technique, as amply demonstrated on the plainly titled "Bass Solo" is Victor Wooten good.
Levy benefited greatly from being the offspring of musical parents and then receiving formal training at the Music School of Northern Illinois University, where his professor there was his future bandmember Haque. Like Haque he shared a background in classical music, among other styles. He also picked up a keyboard style that bears some semblance to a guitar, much as Herbie Hancock became so adept at doing in the seventies.
Garaj Mahal is more of a live act (their first three albums were all live records) and w00t represents only the third studio release in their eight year existence. Like the prior two, this latest one showcases their skills rather well as they blend jazz with James Brown-styled funk, hip-hop, rock, and some sounds from the other side of the globe. The difference this time is the compositions (the songwriting chores were split nearly evenly among all four bandmembers). For perhaps the first time, the songs on a studio album abound with the complexity and nuance that match those immense skills.
More to the point, there's more Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return To Forever in their mix than before, and they pull it off without losing their funk-filled world fusion identity in the process.
Article comments
1 - Larry Narachi
A great studio effort ! We bought the CD at the merch table at the recent SF/Yankee(sept26,08) gig and LOVE IT.