Rudresh Mahanthappa: Bird Calls at Kate Buchanan Room

For over a decade, listeners and critics have checked Rudresh Mahanthappa as one of the most innovative and virtuosic alto saxophonists around, both for his own work, which frequently blends South Indian music with modern jazz, and for his collaborations with younger peers like Vijay Iyer and Rez Abbasi and esteemed elders like Jack DeJohnette and Bunky Green. But all the earlier accolades paled in comparison to the rapturous response to last years Bird Calls, a disc inspired by Mahanthappas longtime love for the music of Charlie Parker. The album (which also features twenty-something trumpet phenom OFarrill) topped nearly every Best Of list for 2015....

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For over a decade, listeners and critics have checked Rudresh Mahanthappa as one of the most innovative and virtuosic alto saxophonists around, both for his own work, which frequently blends South Indian music with modern jazz, and for his collaborations with younger peers like Vijay Iyer and Rez Abbasi and esteemed elders like Jack DeJohnette and Bunky Green. But all the earlier accolades paled in comparison to the rapturous response to last years Bird Calls, a disc inspired by Mahanthappas longtime love for the music of Charlie Parker. The album (which also features twenty-something trumpet phenom OFarrill) topped nearly every Best Of list for 2015.

"The concept here is so inspired, the playing so incendiary that five stars might not be enough... Breathtakingly brilliant."
Bill Milkowski, The Absolute Sound

With Adam O'Farrill, trumpet; Joshua White, piano; Thomson Kneeland, bass; Dan Weiss, drums

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