Ravish Momin’s Trio Tarana
Sunday, Mar. 21, 2010 – 7:30 pm
Kranzberg Art Center
510 N. Grand
Admission: $15

“What Momin posits here is a fresh, forward-thinking aesthetic that reaches beyond standard east-west jazzology or identikit exotica; his playing on a very non-standard kit, comprising of cajon and talking drums as well as traps, are of a man on a quest for novel musical narratives as well as novel sounds.”- Kevin Le Gendre (Jazzwise UK)

Ravish Momin’s Trio Tarana, formed  in 2003, is led by percussionist/composer Ravish Momin, born in India, while currently residing in New York City.  Violinist Skye Steel, and Greg Heffernan (cello, electronics) round out the group.  Their last stop in St. Louis came nearly 5 years ago, and the trio has been busy trotting the globe playing festivals ever since!  The St. Louis stop for HEARding Cats will be one of only a handful of North American tour dates in 2010.

The trio features the unique instrumentation of violin, cello, and percussion, and primarily utilizes East-Asian rhythms (including Indian, Japanese, Afghani), Middle-Eastern and North African rhythms as the foundation for a new creative musical experience.  Click the following link for a video clip of a Trio Tarana piece based around a 13/8 rhythmic cycle, entitled Tehrah.

Momin cut his jazz teeth performing/recording with members of the  Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).  The AACM was co-founded in the 1960s by tenor-saxophonist legend Kalaparush Maurice McIntrye and pianist Muhal Richard Abrams. The AACM initial membership also included Roscoe Mitchell, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Leroy Jenkins (with whom HEARding Cats founder Rich O’Donnell recorded the album Leroy Jenkins Driftwood: The Art of Improvisation), Lester Bowie and other influential performers who clung to the adage “Ancient to the Future,” and still continue to explore the boundaries of jazz.  Inspired by their music, Ravish has kept on developing Trio Tarana, continuing to search across various world music genres. Lately, he has managed to re-invent the band with a brand-new line up, as well as introducing the element of electronics to create lush ambient soundscapes and other-worldly textures.

They had released a critically acclaimed debut entitled “Climbing the Banyan Tree” in 2004, on the Portugal-based CleanFeed Record Label.  Of their debut CD, AllAboutJazz.com had said: “It is fair to say that Trio Tarana is without precedent in the world of improvised music. A true synthesis of North African, South and East Asian motifs with classical organization and the immediacy of free improvisation has probably not existed prior to “Climbing the Banyan Tree.”

The trio has recently performed at  The Calgary Jazz Festival (Canada, 2009), Jazz Lent (Maribor, Slovenia, 2009), Cultural Festival Zacatecas (Mexico 2009), Jazz Ao Centro Festival (Coimbra, Portugal, 2008), and also toured China and the UK.  They’ve performed at New York City’s Rubin Museum of Asian Art on multiple occasions, and most notably, at the Yardbird Suite Jazz Club (Edmonton, Canada, 2007), Detroit Institute of Art (US, 2006),  Mediawave Festival (Hungary, 2006), the Jazzin’ Tondela (Portugal, 2005), the prestigious Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery (Washington, DC, 2005), the New Music Circle (St. Louis, MO, 2005),  9th Annual Asian American Jazz Festival (Chicago, IL, 2004), the Taipei Arts Festival (Taiwan, 2004), amongst other performances.  They have also been recently featured in TimeOUT Magazines (London, Lisbon, HongKong and Chicago), ‘Village Voice’ (New York), ‘Jazz.pt’ (Portugal) and in ‘JazzImprov’ (France), Redstar  Magazine (China) amongst various other domestic and international publications.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity!

*bio and press info taken from www.ravishmomin.com.

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