Sounds of the TL: The Alaya Project in Concert

The Alaya Project explores the sonic connections amongst Carnatic Indian classical music, jazz, and funk. On May 8, the Oakland based trio performs their original compositions at TLM and traces the musical lineage that informs their groovy, cross-cultural sound from Chennai to the TL!

The Tenderloin neighborhood is often celebrated as a key node for San Francisco’s jazz scene both past and present, thanks in large part to the legacy of the bygone Blackhawk club where a pantheon of jazz greats cut live records. The TL is also known for its significant Indian diaspora, primarily from the state of Gujarat, who lived and worked in the residential hotels that define the neighborhood’s character. Across the Bay in the bastion of multiculturalism that is Oakland, a musical ensemble called The Alaya Project formed in 2019 to bridge the intricate Carnatic classical music from the South of India with contemporary jazz and funk sounds. This homegrown group has an innovative sound that reflects their well-studied roots; as such, the band is an excellent vessel through which to explore the connections between jazz and the musical traditions of the Indian subcontinent, as well as to reflect on the stakes of cross-cultural fusion in music. 

Built over two decades of friendship, dialogue, and musical immersion across genres and continents, The Alaya Project features the driving “hybrid kit” grooves of Indian percussionist and drummer, Rohan Krishnamurthy, the soulful Ragas and melodies of Prasant Radhakrishnan on saxophone, and the harmonic bedrock of Colin Hogan embodies the permanence of a changing soundscape. Krishnamurthy’s guru’s guru was Palani Subramaniam Pillai, a master of the Carnatic percussion instrument the mridangam. In 1958, Pillai met Dave Brubeck Quartet–then a mainstay of the TL’s Blackhawk Jazz Club–in Chennai (fka Madras) while the group was on a state-sponsored “jazz ambassador” tour. Their musical encounter indelibly influenced the Americans’ style and inspired their experiments with meter, such as the Paul Desmond-penned “Take Five,” which would become the highest selling jazz single of all time. Two generations down the line, Krishnamurthy and the Alaya Project reference this exchange with their tune “Changing 5s.” 

Join us for a special performance with The Alaya Project, presented as part of the Tenderloin Museum’s ongoing Sounds of the Tenderloin series, which is supported by a grant from the Specified General Fund for the Museum Grant Program under the California Cultural and Historical Endowment.