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Musicians: R.A. Ramamani vocal, T.A.S. Mani mridangam, Ramesh shotham kanjira, morsing, ghatam, udu, Charlie Mariano altosax Mike Herting keyboard
Recording date: December 2005
Recording place: Ashwini Studios, Bangalore
There is no better way to describe this outstanding project than with Mike Hertings own words:
"I had my first contact with the Karnataka College of Percussion in Cologne in 1983 at a concert for Charlie Mariano’s 60th birthday. While many of the musicians present (as is customary at such parties) suspiciously eyed the stage and were unwilling to go up there and play spontaneously, the Indian virtuosos simply went there and began to play. The stage was full in no time at all, because nobody wanted to pass up this opportunity to jam. None of the musicians present will ever forget the openness and cheerfulness during such serious playing of Ramamani Ramanujam and T.A.S. Mani. All of a sudden, there were no more egos, which prevented the others from getting involved. It was no longer a question of competing with the others and finding your place in the pecking order – so to speak – but instead all were obsessed with simply playing music across borders and styles. It was a unique and – for many of us including me – a formative experience.
Consequently, I felt honored when Charlie suggested to me in 1999 to arrange the music of Karnataka College for big band. In spite of that, I was again overwhelmed by the warm-heartedness and the unconditional will to collaborate of Rama and Mr.Mani. I never once sense a shying away from new ideas and sounds, but – to the contrary – the two doyens of KCP encouraged me to try new things and to use their own compositions as I saw fit. As a result, the preparatory work and concerts of KCP with the WDR Big Band Cologne were a delightful and fruitful experience for both sides and for the audience too.
We developed a very good relationship and friendship during the course of this work and in the subsequent years. I traveled to Bangalore every year to intensify my knowledge of Karnatic music, play music with the Manis and take voice and theory lessons from Rama.
The collaboration already resulted in a tour through Germany and the neighboring countries in 2004. Encouraged by the success and spurred by the new possibilities of combining Western harmonies with India melodic-rhythmic virtuosity, the members of KCP 5 met in Bangalore in December 2005, where we recorded the present record in two days. I hope that inexperienced listeners can also appreciate the beauty and openness in the Indian sounds of this music collaboration. I myself am very thankful to have had the opportunity to work together with these excellent musicians. A big thanks to Charlie Mariano too, the world musician par excellence, whose curiosity, perserverence and power of integration were and are the stimuli for many musicians to deal with other cultures. Thanks Charlie! We would all be a lot poorer without you …
Last but not least, I would also like to thank Ramesh Shotham, who has supported and promoted collaboration between German and Indian musicians untiringly for 30 years. This record and KCP 5 would not have been possible without him. Many musicians such as myself have learned from him that music only starts to sound good when we put aside our egos and vanity." (Mike Herting)
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