Occupy Wall Street (NY)…one month in…music and politics a part of social change!

Text by Jim Hoey
Video by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

A quick visit to Wall Street these days reveals a lot: it’s business as usual around Zucotti, or Liberty Park, bankers and stockbrokers pass by unmolested on their way to the next meeting or power lunch, and 2 massive towers rise up from within a camp of construction workers at Ground Zero. But the camp in the public park is unlike anything Wall Street has seen for a long time, and this ragtag group of Occupy Wall Street protesters are still out en masse, trying to hunker down and keep up the momentum of their fight through the windy Fall and chilling Winter.

Here at this site, we’ve been covering the protests, and the music that’s been heard around it, for a few weeks now. Any protest against corruption, inequality and injustice is not easy to dismiss,  especially when it’s peaceful and has staying power, and it draws from all elements of society, as this one does.

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Concert review: a night of Indian-American music, another example of great local talent reaching forward into new territory!

Date: September 23, 2011
Venue: Baruch College’s Performance Space (NY)
Concert review by Jim Hoey

This recent night of Indian-American music at Baruch College’s performance space, on Sept. 23rd, is another example of great local talent reaching forward into new territory, and simultaneously upholding the traditional apects of Hindi-inspired Bollywood soundtracks. Two bands,  Ravish Momin’s Tarana, and Sameer Gupta’s Namasker, took two different approaches, drawing from the same traditions.

It was incredible to hear Momin on drums in Tarana, with the exquisite accompaniment of Trina Basu on violin, mixing live percussion with trademark electronics. They slowly built up a loose framework for the extensive and soulful improvisations, playing most of the 4 new tracks on the new EP After the Disquiet. The achievement of Tarana is that with even the most traditional of folk-Hindi rhythms as a point of departure, their songs can take subtle turns down different paths to a more Middle-Eastern or Asian sound, then more modern, and can often switch mid-piece without any jarring or noticeable transition point.

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