“When a human being is uprooted from their soil and moves on to another place, he or she has to adjust between the culture they are carrying and culture they are meeting — like new fruits from a graft,” remarked Christophe Panzani, saxophonist for the French/American band THIEFS.
Christophe, along with bassist Benoît Lugué and rapper Edgar Sekloka, recently performed at the Edouard Michelin Auditorium of Alliance Française, Chennai, as part of their Indian Tour.
Accompanying them was playback singer and composer Neha Nair; the trio wanted to give its performance in Chennai a Carnatic touch. They also introduced electronic beats into its jazz riffs.
“The inspiration for playing fusion music here was organic, based on the many meetings we had with other musicians, the way we communicated with each other, and our experience in India so far,” said Christophe. He added that he was inspired by Indian music chiefly owing to the sounds of the tabla and veena.
THIEFS’ last album La Greffe , which was released in January last year, was a poetic treatise on identity and migration.
“I met THIEFS two years ago in Paris and was drawn by the evocative jazz, hip-hop and electronic music they played,” said Thiruvananthapuram-based Neha, who is also the current singer for the Malayalam rock band Avial.
