Red Baraat interview
Date: December 28, 2011
Venue: Brooklyn Bowl (Brooklyn, NY)
Interview and videos: Sohrab Saadt Ladjevardi
Archive for the ‘Interview’
Interview: Susmit Sen (India) – India’s Jerry Garcia?
Date: September 14, 2011 – Venue: Drom (NY)
Text, interview and video by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Last month I got an email from Shampa Chanda inviting me to see her artist, the Indian guitarist Susmit Sen, for whom she had organized a concert at Drom in the Lower East Side. Reading the press kit which described Sen’s music as “…comparable to that of Jerry Garcia and John McLaughlin.” I thought “OK, let’s check the young Ravi Shankar out playing rock music on a guitar instead on his sitar!”
When I entered Drom he had already started his show. Instead of seeing a young Indian rock musician I saw a middle aged “normal” looking guy. No long hair, no leather pants and no R&R attitude, no Marijuana, but a very polite speaking and behaving gentleman.
Interview: The Secret Chiefs 3′ Trey Spruance dreams of performing in Iran?
Date: September 13, 2011
Venue: Le Poisson Rouge (NY)
Text by Jim Hoey
Video interview and photos by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Interview coordination by April Centrone
For this East Coast tour, members of the Secret Chiefs 3 drove cross-country from Seattle to NYC, thanks to Hurricane Irene, and managed to get it all together with new members, despite little practice time or much sleep. Trey Spruance and his rotating cast of musicians (including April Centrone of NYC on percussion) continue the exploration of cinematic and Middle Eastern (Persian) rhythms, mixing in all elements of western metal, surf rock, and noise, in a harmonic brew that switches and turns and blasts away at every step.
Interview: Lucas Jeanpierre @ Bryant Park (NY), August 11, 2011
Date: August 11, 2011
Location: Bryant Park
Video interview by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
For DooBeeDoo it is always interesting to know how foreign musicians feel and think about NY’s music scene and life in this city. This time Sohrab interviews the 25 years old Swiss vibraphonist Lucas Jeanpierre. In the three videos Lucas speaks about his background, his three months in NY, his impression of the NY music scene, playing here and there in NY and about his future.
Interview: A Random Encounter With “Moon Hooch” in Central Park!
Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
A month ago I went to the Summer Stage in Central Park to check out Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. After short I felt that Yo-Yo wasn’t my thing for the night. So I left and decided to take a walk in the park. While walking I heard some drum sounds which sounded like Korean traditional drums. I followed the drum sounds to find out who was playing. After two, three minutes I found three young men playing two tenor saxophones and a simple drum set.
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From the moment I walked towards them I knew it was going to be an exciting outdoor concert… Blasting their drums and saxes, Moon Hooch, which was the name of the band, thrilled the people around them.They were playing energy music. It was fun watching three young enthuastic musicians who played so passionate. They proved that music is still essential in our lifes. Hope they don’t lose this positive energy and keep going.
Interview – Remi Alvarez: ” I started the opposite of Coltrane…!”
Interview by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi, June 16, 2011
Remi Alvarez, a Mexican saxophonist and flutist, stopped in at Roberto’s Winds in mid June to see his old friend and owner Roberto Romeo. Just the week prior to his visit he played two gigs at the VISION FESTIVAL, here in NYC. After a short conversation, in which we discussed his musical approach of free style I decided to do a video interview with him. What follows is the summery of this interview in which I discovered a Mexico native who’s primary focus is not the typical Latin or English influences one might expect.
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Interview: Augmented Reality – an instrumental collaboration that fuses east, west, north and south.
Text and interview by William Harvey
Colour photos by Megan Shumate
Photo by Ana Koleva
On Tuesday, May 24th I had the opportunity to see a performance of an exciting new trio, Augmented Reality, as they performed at the Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village to promote the release of their new self titled album. Pianist Roy Assaf, drummer Ronen Itzik, (both from Israel), and Peruvian bassist Jorge Roeder are all monster players and rising stars in the New York jazz scene. The house was packed for both sets and the chemistry between the musicians was undeniable as they performed a diverse repertoire of mainly Assaf and Itzik’s own originals. After the concert I had the opportunity to ask Ronen a few questions about the project.
Interview: Hadar an “Ashkenazi” who knows what she is about!
Courtesy of Hadar Noiberg
Interview by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi at Michiko Studios (NY), April 20, 2011
April 2nd, one day after my fool’s day birthday, I got an email from Hadar Noiberg:
Stephanie Keith’s adventure in the world of Brooklyn Vodou
Text by Anika Lani
Video interviews by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
In Vodou Brooklyn, Five Ceremonies with Marie Carmel, photographer Stephanie Keith captures the frenetic and sometimes severe essence of what Haitians practicing Vodou call the lwa or spirits. Each lwa represents a tunnel of darkness alight with an internal divine/human adventure of the unknown. Stephanie Keith earned a Master’s degree in photography from New York University and a certificate in Photojournalism from the International Center of Photography. While embossing her professional career with photos and articles published in the New York Times, Rolling Stone and the Christian Science Monitor, she was called to explore local themes of religious adherence and popular culture.Three years ago she was invited to a party in a Brooklyn basement. Ms. Keith’s first attendance to a Haitian ceremony was no ordinary jam, but one replete with and women and men proffering themselves, beaming hubris peacock-style, as potential mates. Ms. Keith entered an uncharted dimension and became a puzzle piece to a larger specific ritual of drumming from an ethereal reservoir of elements that descend into experienced human forms. The spirits are sought for their cosmic powers as political and social stars of improvement and placation in Haitian life.