“The Blues tells a story in itself. It
can make you happy or give you a feeling to swing,” says Vinesh Iyer, of The Live Music
Project (TLMP).
This is the sixth
year in a row that TLMP as the official partner in India is celebrating the
Blues. Our event will coincide with over 100 simultaneous worldwide Blues
concerts and events in celebration of International Blues Music Day,” adds
Vinesh.
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The first Saturday
of August is celebrated as Blues Music Day globally and on this day, musicians
look at celebrating, promoting and preserving the rich legacy, tradition and
future of the great art form and international language known as blues music.
Saturday’s Gig
The TLMP has organised a special line up
that will play on Saturday, August 4, 2018 at Firefly Benaulim. It will have
the Goa’s Blues Collective. The first set will have a duo performance from Cliff
De Souza and Shayne Ballantyne. “Cliff is Goa’s legendary Blues Man (Vox,
Guitar) and Shayne is the next generation Blue’s guitarist of Goa (lead
guitarist),” says Vinesh.
The second set will have the full band –
Joe Ferrao (groovy/funky bass) and Clifford Sequeira, a top drummer of Goa.
This will be followed by an open jam where musicians are invited to come and be
part of the jam session after the band has finished their sat. Vinesh adds that
there will also be surprise guest artistes for the night.
Sunday’s Gig
The TLMP has organised a special
Blues-Rock-Jazz jam on Sunday, August 5, 2018 at Firefly Benaulim. This will be
part of the ‘Legends Of Music Series: Revisiting Waterfront Music’.
Waterfront is one of the first
progressive rock/fusion bands in the world experimenting with and blending
genres varying from rock to serious jazz and western classical. “Its founder,
Roger Dragonette, will be coming from Pune along with Derek Julien (lead
guitar, Waterfront), Elvis Lobo (guitar) and legendary Indian drummer Steve
Sequeira,” says Vinesh. The line up also includes Kittu (Christine Siqueira) on
vocals.
Waterfront has had an interesting
journey. They were the first Indian band to tour Europe in the 1970s, and that
too, playing their own English originals. From 1972 to around mid 1974, the
line-up was Dragonette, Adil Batiwala (keyboard), Soli Dastur (guitar), Julien
and Trilok Gurtu (drums). At some point in 1974, Trilok moved to Europe and was
replaced by Ranjit Barot. Not too long after that, Adil left India and the band
carried on as a four piece unit till mid 1980. During this period, Adil would
join in on his infrequent visits to India.
Besides their original music that was mostly written
by Dragonette, they also played covers except heavily improvised renditions of
the same. They were fresh and had new energy that was received fantastically by
their audiences. “Our own compositions were amalgamated from what we were
listening at the time,” says Dragonette, who drew inspiration from the Rolling
Stones, The Beatles etc and progressive bands like Chicago and Traffic.
