After witnessing the many marvels of roots music from the 16th to the 20th October, 2024, Jodhpur RIFF audiences were both satiated and exhilarated with the wide spectrum of world, roots and folk music, dance and drama they had experienced over the past five days.

The light from a full moon on 18th of October at Jodhpur RIFF blurred boundaries while exposing audiences to masters of roots music, dance and drama from around Rajasthan, India and the world.

The 19th of October commenced with a magical dawn for audiences, brought in to the sound of guitar strings plucked by one of Africa’s best guitarists: Louis Mhlanga, whose innovative fuses the intricate finger-picking techniques of traditional African string instruments, such as the kora, with the soul of American jazz. Other highlights of the day include an ‘In Residence’ session of Pavakathakali, or glove puppetry from Kerala — performed next to a nilavilakku (a lit copper lamp), accompanied by singers and instruments like chenda, chengila, ilathalam, and shankhu — and Kutiyattam, a 2000 year old art form recognised by UNESCO as a 'Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’, performed by the masterful and acclaimed Kapila Venu.

As day turned to dusk, audiences gathered to witness ‘Inayat: A Duet for Four’, a collaboration between Tarini Tripathi and SAZ, the dynamic trio of Langa musicians Sadique (on the dholak), Asin (vocals and Sindhi sarangi) and Zakir (khartal) Khan Langa. SAZ, who came together via Jodhpur RIFF to not just preserve their community’s musical heritage but also create new songs and performance pieces for the present generation, work some of their magic in collaboration with other musicians and performers from across India and the world. Their collaboration with Tripathi, which resulted in a small but intriguing piece during last year’s Jodhpur RIFF, has grown to become a full blown show in itself this year, is testimony to the dividends such collaborations, steered by Jodhpur RIFF, can yield.

As the moon emerged and inched its way across the sky, the musical action at Jodhpur RIFF 2024 shifted to the Zenana Courtyard, beginning with the powerful voice of Sumitra Das Goswami, called the ‘Cuckoo of Rajasthan’, who now performs on some of the most prestigious world stages, ranging from the Lincoln Centre in New York to the Berliner Philharmonie. Das Goswami sings so soulfully, at times, that it appears that she and her subject — be it the mystic poet Meera or Krishna’s lover Radha — are one.

With the next act — Sona Mohapatra — audience members flooded into the space in front of the stage, dancing to her music and requesting endless encores. Singer, lyricist and composer, Mohapatra, though primarily trained in Hindustani classical, keeps her love for folk music alive in what she calls ‘Desi Soul’. Sheper formed an especially curated set for Jodhpur RIFF, comprising lesser known folk songs (including ones from her home state Odisha), her early pieces — which she revisited to listeners’ delight — as well as her new song Baadila. She wrapped up her set with a collaboration performance with SAZ, to overwhelming cheers from the audience.

After Mohapatra, audiences were thrilled at a special announcement. SAZ, a band whose journey is inextricably linked to the journey of the festival, announced its first album with an album cover reveal. The album, comprising five songs by the talented Langa trio of Sadique, Asin and Zakir Khan, will be released closer to Diwali, just in time for the festive season.

Next up were Gray by Silver, a four piece ensemble, whose blend of keys, vocals, percussion, strings and junggeum bamboo flute created a supernatural soundscape which immediately transported audience members to another place and time— one in which the traditional and the contemporary, the Korean and the universal, could co-exist. Next up were Puuluup, a revolutionary nu-folk band from Estonia, whose music stands as testament to the fact that the roots music universe is full of surprises. Their performance, a fusion of lyrics in a medley of languages, including some they have thought up themselves, was set to groove based compositions with electronically amplified echoes, knocks, squeaks and scrapes set to the softly strummed hiiukannel— a centuries old instrument that they have revived. It went from pulsating dance vibes to dark, cinematic and ancient soundscapes reminiscent of the talharpists of yore. It might not be easy to believe that a near ancient instrument can make an audience head bang, dance and sway as they would if they were in a heavy metal concert, but Puuluup makes this possible. After a magnificent interlude featuring young khartal players from the Langa community, led by Zakir Khan Langa, the next act brought on stage a master and pioneering figure in Carnatic music: Sukanya Ramgopal, the first woman ghatam player in Carnatic music. Accompanied by her student (another master) Giridhar Udupa and Udupa’s student Shreeharsha. Three generations of ghatam players wowed the audience with a performance which was as much about showmanship as it was about mastery.

As is custom, the ‘RIFF Rustle’, Jodhpur RIFF’s vast impromptu collaboration, concluded revelries on the festival’s last night. Giridhar Udupa and Elli Miller - Maboungou, an ace Congolese percussionist and composer, took on the role of ‘rustlers’. They gathered a diverse gamut of musicians from the festival to jam together in various formations, including pairs and quartets. Performers at this finale came from various sections of the roots music spectrum— from Sumitra Devi to Gray by Silver, from the Manganiyars of Marwar and Langa musicians to Norwegian award winning band Gabba and SAZ, from Giridhar Udupa to Rajasthan’s dhol, khartal and dholak maestros. The music went on till the wee hours of the morning, as did the dancing of audience members.

But Jodhpur RIFF 2024 ended not with this wild night, but with a reflective dawn. Kaluram Bamaniya spoke and sang to a packed house at Jaswant Thada his own interpretations and compositions of the great Indian humanist poet Kabir. A Padma Shri, Bamaniya, from Malwa in Madhya Pradesh, is a specialist in Kabir Gayan, having begun his journey into this genre of music at the tender age of nine. His words and song, bringing to people not just roots music, but also roots philosophy, in the most easy-to-understand manner, was representative of the ethos Jodhpur RIFF lives by.

Sunday 20th October, 2024

Percussion masters from India and Azerbaijan, tributes to a Hindustani classical icon, a Carnatic dawn concert, dance and drama from the roots traditions, films on music, a fusion of classical and folk sarangi, qawwali, breathtaking electronica— these are only some of the experiential snapshots audiences took away from another fulfilling day (and marvellously moonlit night) at Jodhpur RIFF 2024.

The sun rose, at Jodhpur RIFF, with the versatile ‘vocal gymnast’ Chandana Bala Kalyan, rooted in Carnatic classical but capable of traversing genres like Sufi and jazz with ease. This versatility and depth was at show on the morning of 18th October, as she introduced delighted audiences to varnam, ganastuti, kriti, devaranama and tillana, presenting special compositions in the rare Bhatiyar, Bauli, Malayamarutam and Vibhas ragas, even as the dawn rode in to Mehrangarh. Next, festivallers were treated to an immersive exposition on the lavani (derived from ‘lavanya’, meaning graceful beauty), a folk dance form originally performed in a nauvari (nine yard long) saree, in the 18th and 19th centuries by shepherd communities for Maratha nobility in Maharashtra and Southern Madhya Pradesh, and popularised by V Shantaram’s film Pinjara. The session was led by accomplished actress, dance tutor, choreographer and kathak and lavani expert Aditi Bhagwat — also the United States Department of State Fellow under the Cultural Exchange Program ‘One Beat’ — known for successfully blending traditional and contemporary styles in her performance.

And if the lavani enters and exits stage then can the Tamasha be far behind? Only, while the Tamasha is commonly associated with Maharashtra, Jodhpur RIFF’s ‘In Residence’ session after the Lavanibootcamp, on October 18, comprised an illuminating birds eye view of the history of the 250 year old history of the ‘Jaipur Tamasha’, combining music (classical, semi-classical and folk melody, which also led to this form being called ‘KhayalTamasha’), acting and movement for socially relevant storytelling. The session was steered by the Tamasha’s primary custodian and Jodhpur RIFF’s very own staff member Dilip Bhatt — son of leading exponent Gopi Bhatt — who has revived this form, bringing together over hundreds of young artists to revitalise it.

This was followed by the screening of two films on music — Breaking the Silence: The Music of Afghanistan and Sufi Soul: The Mystic Music of Islam — by leading world music journalist, ex-editor of Songlines magazine and filmmaker Simon Broughton, who was there in person to talk about his work. Next, audiences made their way to a stunning moonrise session at Jaswant Thada, where, Jodhpur RIFF celebrated the advent of Sharad Purnima with a tribute to a musical legend of post independent India: PanditChintaman Raghunath Vyas— an iconic vocalist and institution in himself, who penned over 200 bandishes under the pen name Gunijaan, instituted the Gunijan Sammelan in memory of his guru Gunidas and spawned geniuses under his tutelage, such as Pandit Jitendra Abhishekhi, SuhasVyas (his son), Ganapati Bhat, Prabhakar Karekar, and AlkaJoglekar. Multi-gold medalist Hindustani classical vocalist Anuja Zokarkar — an ‘A’ grade artist with All India Radio — led the tribute, accompanied by talented vocalist Kedar Kelkar, Dhyaneshwar Sonawane on the harmonium and Prasad Padhye on the tabla. CR Vyas’s son Shashi Vyas, founder-director of the leading Indian classical music company Pancham Nishad, facilitated the session.

The evening’s performances at the Zenana Courtyard kicked off with Dayam Khan Manganiyar, one of Rajasthan’s most gifted vocalists, known for being the voice of the group DhunDhora, especially in their collaboration with Scottish acid-croft band Shooglenifty, and appearances in Scotland, the Commonwealth Games in 2014, Celtic Connections, the Edinburgh Festival. If Dayam Khan’s singing makes up a key part of tracks like Jog yer Bones, Dhoriye and Bovaglie’s Plaid in the album Written in Water, on the evening of 18th October he enthralled audiences by presenting his own group to them for the first time, bringing alive traditional songs of the Manganiyar community in the magical confines of Mehrangarh’s Zenana Courtyard. He was followed by dancer, theatre artist, multi-instrumentalist and environmental activist Emlyn Marimutu who blended island drums (Sega Tipik) with modern music to present a ‘new traditional’ Mauritian sound to the audience, which took to dancing soon after Emlyn took to the stage. Marimutu, whose soulful songs are often inspired by nature, and who makes some of her instruments herself, from upcycled material, infused her performance with spells and spirited dancing, combining African, Malagasy and Indian influences.

Next, Jodhpur RIFF Festival Director Divya Bhatia presented the maturing of a groundbreaking collaboration he had produced between classical and folk music, with Aga Khan Music Award recipients Asin Khan Langa on the Sindhi sarangi and Dilshad Khan on the classical sarangi. The collaboration had originally been produced by Bhatia as a 6.5 minute collaboration for the Aga Khan Music Awards 2020-22. Now, for Jodhpur RIFF 2024, it was extended to a soul-stirring 40 minute collaboration between two maestros who took audiences on a musical journey unlike any they had experienced before.

This was followed, much to the pleasure of the festival’s listeners, by young Rajasthani dholak players led by a master and a star, and a recipient of the coveted Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar: Firoze Khan Manganiyar, whose nuanced dholak performance is unmatched by any in the region. Azerbaijani percussion followed Rajasthani, with Natig Shirinov, a master of the Azeri nagara and leading rhythm composer — and winner of the Grand Prix Award at the World Percussion Performance Art Festival in Geumsan, Korea — who has transformed the traditional naghara, rescuing it from irrelevance, blending national rhythms with global influences. Even as audiences clapped to his rhythm (upon his call) Shirinov showcased his repertoire of rhythms at Jodhpur RIFF 2024, till they were up on their feet and dancing. The evening at the Zenana Courtyard ended with the Warsi Brothers Naseer and Nazeer Ahmed Khan Warsi from Hyderabad, among the finest qawwals in the Indian subcontinent, the ‘qawwal bachche of the Delhi gharana’. On popular demand, the brothers performed well beyond the time they had planned for, rendering in their powerful voices both lesser known compositions of Sufi kalaam as well as popular pieces like ‘Chaap Tilak’ and ‘Dam-a-Dam Mast Qalandar’ which echoed across the vast courtyard, bringing audience members to their feet in cheers.

The night moved on to Mehrangarh’s Salimkot with Club Mehran, featuring Colombian talent Alejandra Gomez or Chonta DJ. Founder and director of Biche, an alternative music production house and cofounder of the collective Todopoderosa for gender diversity in the Latin independent music scene, Chonta DJ brought forth a fusion of modern and traditional grooves, followed by a giant from the world of electronica, Deep Forest founder and Grammy winner Eric Mouquet (the first French electronic act to win this). Mouquet, known for integrating sounds gathered from his travels and meeting musicians from around the world, has sold over 10 million albums and has over 100 million streams to his name, but his true impact on the world of electronic music and its fans could be gauged by the fact that people from all age groups packed Salimkot to sway to his world music set, as if in a trance. The night was closed, after this, by Mumbai’s DJ Farhan, one of India’s most underrated mix masters, host of the monthly show The House of Juju, with a seamless fusion of afro, worldbeat, funk, jazz, house, disco, and everything in between.