Date: Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Venue: Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center
Concert review by Sarah Rayani
On a very rainy evening, under an awning at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Asphalt Orchestra delighted and surprised a group of about 100 soggy New Yorkers. I came to hear about the avant-garde “street” jazz group through Sunny Jain, one of their 3 percussionists. Jain is a Punjabi American-born drummer, dhol player and composer who seamlessly fuses the two styles he grew up listening to — Jazz and Indian music. In addition to being a member of the Asphalt Orchestra and his own Sunnay Jain Quartet, he plays in a Baraat group – traditionally a North Indian wedding processional band – called Red Baraat.
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Asphalt Orchestra is a horn and percussion group, which consists of 12 talented and diverse musicians, all fully committed to creating a truly unique sound experience. No one genre of music takes precedence in the eclectic jazz set-list, where influences range from rock to New Orleans marching band music. The band achieves a unique sound combining familiar instruments –
trumpets, trombones and drums – with a piccolo flute, a 35lb Tuba, and a home-crafted and duct-taped three drum, three cowbell, and cymbal body contraption.
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At times they played recognizable songs – Frank Zappa’s “Zombie Wolf” for example – and at other times there were indescribable sounds, like an odd Earth rumbling or tweeting. One of the female trombone players performed a memorable piece with the three drum player, in which she made industrial sounds that could equally be mistaken for a motorbike or a didgeridoo.
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Another highlight was when Sunny and the Tuba player backed a soprano sax solo, in an upbeat tune filled with joyous outcries and shouts.
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Whichever small group of instruments happened to be playing, the whole group was involved in the story-telling. Asphalt Orchestra seems to develop a story behind every part of each song they perform. They communicate the storyline through their movements, their facial expressions and the type of sound they choose to make with their instrument. They have a professional choreographer who plans the movements, dances and big running transitions for the whole program. As a dancer and performer myself, I was truly impressed that not one of them broke character for even a moment, throughout the whole set.
There were joyous cries, there were moments where two or more musicians were pretending to be a flock or birds tweeting horns back and forth, or two courting animals, varying the volume and intensity of their instruments in a flirtatious frenzy.
On more than one occasion the members of the orchestra walked straight into us, the dripping wet, umbrella-covered audience. At those moments you could feel the vibrations of the drums, the deep elephant-like rumblings of the tuba, and we became part of the story-telling too. There was never a dull moment.
It was exciting, it was strange and it was truly like nothing I had ever experienced in New York City before, yet it was instantly
understandable and likeable. By the end of the set, all 12 members were playing each number together, and the songs were getting more and more exciting, upbeat and raucous. It ended with a traditional marching band song, delivered, of course, in an untraditional manner, to the loud applause of all who attended.
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Check out Sunny’s interview!
