Artist description Instrumental (with occasional vocal) song/improvisational quartet. Organic mixologists of dance/folk/pop grooves borrowed shamelessly from many places.

Music Style World/Roots jazz

Musical Influences Roots and traditional musics; rock, blues, jazz, r&b and Indian/North African/French/Spanish/West African soul music

Artist History Guitarist Phil Kaplan and bassist Sven Larson began their partnership studying West African drumming in 1997. Sharing the same vision of incorporating traditional music and rhythms from around the globe into a jazz sensibility, they began writing and arranging as a duo. Brewing the music slowly, they expanded their scope, trying various lineups for the next year and performing at small coffee-house venues. The drumming of Mark Nathanson brought a focus to the sound, and in early 1999 Bangalore made their first recording. Shortly thereafter, percussionist Eric Kelley came aboard and they went into the studio again in September '99. The group has, and continues to gig with varying lineups in the drum chair(s), and is experimenting with other intrumentation. A major studio endeavour is planned for the fall of 2000. (Note: all music was recorded live in the studio with no overdubs.)

Group Members Sven Larson: acoustic bass. Phil Kaplan: acoustic and electric guitars. Eric Kelley: Congas, percussion, rainstick. Mark Nathanson: drumset, frame drum, percussion. (all songs composed by Phil Kaplan, arranged and produced by Bangalore)

Albums 3 Lakhs

Press Reviews Excerpts from review in "The Noise" 7/00... songs are comfortably rootsy and wildly exotic at once often blooming from an ingenious, delicate riff into a bee's nest of activitythat comes up from behind and overwhelms you, then sneaks off into the night... unexpected, playful, masterful, and mystical. It's like jazz invented by Plutonians who crash-landed in a Nigerian swamp, but is never elitist. On the contrary, this stuff is for the whole world...

Location Jamaica Plain, MA - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).